Hey.

It’s been a minute since I wrote a post on how to live simply in ways that go beyond our wardrobes. But I think that it’s all interconnected and I wanted to share a few ways that you can simplify your life that you can start using today!

The easiest way to live simply is to make small changes over time. It’s a little less overwhelming.

When I became interested in intentional living, I dove in deep. And not that it was bad to do it this way but some of the habits that have stuck around the longest are the ones that I’ve adopted slowly and more thoughtfully.

There are lots of ways to live more intentionally and they won’t all be included on the following list. But what I have included are the things that my family and I do to make our lives easier; the ones that we’ve found success with.

And as an added benefit, some of these tips are also earth friendly.

1. Realize that perfection is unattainable.
2. Grow your own vegetables.
3. Choose one area to declutter at a time.
4. Swap out kitchen disposables for reuseables.
5. Reevaluate your schedule.
6. Keep a cleaning schedule.
7. Set up a budget.
8. Cook the same things.
9. Move each day.
10. Take care of mail as soon as it comes in the house.
11. Put limits on electronics.
12. Make outdoor spaces easier to maintain.
13. Keep kitchen counters clear.
14. Do a walk thru at the end of the day and put things back where they belong.
15. Find contentment with the things you have.

Let’s dive into each of these tips to help you live simply.

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1. Realize that perfection is unattainable.

Before you start anything, it’s important to realize this. If the goal is to live simply, you have to realize that there is no perfect way to do this. And we honestly don’t need perfection. We just need people to do as much as possible, within the parameters of what works for their lives.

This is something that I have always struggled with. I am definitely a perfectionist at heart but I am slowly learning to let that part of myself go. There is no perfect way to do anything. Doing our best is all that we can strive for.

Once we realize this, we can stop being “stuck” and not doing things for fear of the outcome not being perfect.

Slowing down and minimizing possessions can definitely help in this department.

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2. Grow your own vegetables.

Can we even talk about tips to live simply if we don’t talk about a home garden?

We have some pots that we keep on our deck that we grow tomatoes, peppers and herbs in. We have found that this is a system that works best for us.

When we moved into our house, we picked a spot to have a garden and built a fence around it to keep the animals out. We tended it for a few years, but could never really figure out what we wanted to plant. Tomatoes and peppers seemed to be what we enjoyed growing the most. And we realized that we could do that on a smaller scale.

So this summer, we took down the garden and reclaimed the green space. We are much happier now that we don’t have to worry about it.

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3. Choose one area to declutter at a time.

There’s no denying that getting rid of useless possessions leads to a simpler life. There’s also no denying that getting rid of possessions is time consuming and has the potential to be emotionally draining.

That’s why I think it’s best to do it in small chunks.

• Pick an area that bothers you the most. Maybe it’s the kitchen junk drawer or the linen closet.
• Whatever it is, find a small window of time, such as a half hour and clear it out. It will feel good and not as overwhelming as trying to do it all at once.
• Then carve another half hour block of time and tackle another area. In no time as all, you’ll have tackled all of the problem areas in your house.

For more guidance on decluttering, check out this post and this one.

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4. Swap out kitchen disposables for reuseables.

• Buy some linen napkins at the thrift shop to replace paper towels. Buy dish cloths to replace dish sponges. Keep a rag jar to clean up spills.
• Buy reusable silicone bags to replace ziplock bags.
• Use reusable bags at the grocery store instead of taking the single use plastic ones, and if it’s not possible to use your own (as most stores won’t allow during COVID), choose the paper option.
• If you use straws, replace disposable ones with metal or glass ones.
• Replace broken dishes with secondhand ones.

All of these switches are easy to make. The hardest for our family (my husband, mainly) was getting rid of paper towels. I used to joke that we would never be able to get rid of them but after implementing a rag jar where he could easily access rags to clean up spills, we were able to finally make the switch.

That was about 3 years ago!

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5. Reevaluate your schedule.

So many of us jam pack our schedules with activities because being busy is seen as a good thing, right?!? It’s like being busy makes us more important.

But what it really does is make us tired and stressed out. Kids too.

I used to be that person who always had to be doing something. My kids were in a bunch of activities or had a playdate every day. And it got to be too much.

So, one day, I sat down and started removing the things that weren’t important to us. I left swaths of spaces open for just hanging out and for home play.

And it was the best thing that I have done. My kids can have nothing to do but they’re still not bored. We’re no longer rushing from place to place and trying to find time to eat in between.

If you are also over-scheduled, I propose that you evaluate all of the activities and see if there is anything you can remove. Ask your kids what they like doing and what would they give up of given the choice.

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6. Keep a cleaning schedule.

This is something newer that I’ve been doing. The idea is to break housework tasks up throughout the week so instead of spending 3 hours cleaning the entire house/doing laundry, tasks can be broken up into smaller time periods each day.

A sample schedule may be:

• Monday – dust
• Tuesday – clean windows
• Wednesday – vacuum floors
• Thursday – mop floors
• Friday – clean bathroom(s)
• Saturday – laundry
• Sunday – miscellaneous tasks on an as needed basis (clean garage, tidy closets – clothing/linen)

• Everyday – kitchen cleaning tasks

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7. Set up a budget.

I think that people panic a little when they heard the word “budget”. Like it’s some big scary thing.

But it’s really just calculating the difference between the money that comes into your household each month and the money that goes out.

I use an excel spreadsheet, but you could even calculate this on a piece of paper.

• I calculate our “total money in” from all sources.
• Then I calculate our bills. I divide these into 2 categories…one category is for essential expenses and would have to be paid no matter what and one is for lifestyle related expenses and could be cancelled in the case of an emergency.
• The ones that we consider to be essential and would have to be paid no matter what are our mortgage, car, utility bills (heat, light, water), life insurance policy, internet and cell phones.
• The ones that are lifestyle related include things such as Netflix and other streaming services.
• Then there is a savings category, where we put money into our emergency fund and then into our saving accounts.
• And there is a spending category where we budget for food, gas, health-related expenses and spending money.
• I work to have a zero balance at the end of each month so ever dollar belongs to a category. This means that if there is any money left after I calculate the difference between the “money in” and the “money out”, I put the excess into savings or use it to make an extra payment on our mortgage or car bills.

Do you budget? If so, what method do you use?

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8. Cook the same things.

Have a set meal plan for the week. This makes grocery shopping so much easier and it also takes away the panic of deciding what to make for each meal.

Figure out what your (or family’s) meal needs are and come up with a meal plan that everyone likes. Then repeat the same meal plan while it works for everyone.

If you get sick of one of the meals, take it out of rotation and replace it with a new meal. Bring it back into rotation at a later date when something else gets taken out.

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9. Move each day.

This is definitely something that I am constantly trying to implement into my life every day.

And it doesn’t have to be a big production. It could just be doing a little yoga or going for a quick walk.

I know that for me, I feel so much better when I move every day, even if it’s just taking the dog for a walk around the block.

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10. Take care of mail as soon as it comes into the house.

This has made such a huge difference in our attempt to live simply.

• Firstly, we have chosen to receive our bills electronically where possible. This has reduced the amount of mail that we receive.
• For the mail that we do receive, as soon as we get it, before it even makes it’s way into the house, we separate the junk mail from anything that might be important.
• The junk mail goes right into the paper recycling bin in our garage, as does any envelopes from the important mail.
• I take care of any bills ASAP and set them up for bill pay or infrequently, write out a check. If something needs to be filed I put it aside and take care of it within a month or two, at which point I move it to it’d designated place in a filing cabinet.

I have aspirations to scan in all of our letters that have been filed away and store them electronically.

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11. Put limits on electronics.

In a time when electronic devices invade pretty much every aspect of our daily lives, setting aside time to be away from them is becoming even more important.

I spend a lot of time on electronics during the day, either on my computer or phone, so I try to put it away in the evenings. Although I do occasionally slip up, I try to put my phone on the charger in the kitchen at 8pm.

I don’t spend much time in the kitchen after 8pm so I’m not tempted to look on it. But if it was next to my bed, I would definitely be tempted.

I also have time limits on certain apps, such as Instagram.

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12. Make outdoor spaces easier to maintain.

When we moved into our house, the landscaping looked beautiful. And we were naive enough to believe that we would love gardening and we would be able to keep it up.

But over the past few years, we have come to realize that we don’t like gardening. As things have died (because of hard winters), we have removed them and have not replaced them. The majority of this was woody bushes with lots of leaves, which we had come to really dislike. We had to spend so much time trimming them and cleaning up all the leaves in the fall.

So this summer, we had them all removed. We added in some plants around the perimeter that are low maintenance and that can be cut off at the base in the fall.

Letting go of the fancy illusions that I had of us (as people with green thumbs that would spend hours tending to our landscaping) has been so freeing.

And I enjoy our property so much more now knowing that I’ve gotten rid of a ton of work that I never enjoyed.

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13. Keep kitchen counters clear.

• Go through all of your cupboards and cabinets.
• Get rid of anything that you don’t use so that you can free up space.
• If you’re holding on to something just in case, but you have not used it in the last year, let it go. If there ever comes a time that you need something like it, borrow it or find it secondhand.
• With the space that you’ve cleaned out, remove everything from your counter and store the in your cupboards or cabinets. We store everything from our toaster to our blender (both of which we use nearly everyday) in our cabinets. And on a safety note, I always make sure my toaster has completely cooled before I store it.

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14. Do a walk thru at the end of the day and put things back where they belong.

This will make such a huge difference to your mindset when you go to bed and when you wake up in the morning.

This can be a fun family activity each evening as well. Set a timer and assign each family member a certain area. Each person can then spend that time cleaning their assigned area.

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15. Find contentment with the things you have.

We don’t need more, we need to want less!

Most of us know that we have enough already. Myself included. But we need to realize that more things aren’t going to make us happy or greatly improve our lives.

I struggle with this when it comes to clothing. I don’t think that a “new” item is necessarily going to make me happier or give me a better life, but I do love the “newness” of getting something.

I try to balance this by getting rid of something but this is definitely an area that I work a lot in my quest to live simply.

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I hope that some of these steps resonated with you.

If so, which ones? If you had to choose 3 of these tips to start implementing this weekend, what would you pick?

Are there other tips that you would add to this list?

If you enjoyed this article, please help me get the word out by liking it and sharing it. And if you haven’t subscribed to the blog, but you would like to, you can sign up here.

Until next time,

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