Ways to Simplify Your Life

If you’ve been following me, you’ll know I am passionate about simplifying my overall life; from home to finances, clothes, chores, routines and so on – you get the picture. Since moving to our new home at the seafront of St Leonards-on-Sea last year, I felt the need to simplify my life and create more time and space to do what truly matters to me.

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Below I share how I’ve simplified my life over the past 10 months.

Set monthly goals

Set yourself 1-3 goals each month. I’ve been setting three goals each month for the last few years, and it has allowed me to start new habits, break down larger goals into manageable chunks, and achieve things I’ve been meaning to do for a long time.

Declutter your home

This is, of course, ongoing, but this is something I do on a VERY regular basis. After having spent most of 2020 at home, it made me realise how little (in some case, never) I actually used my belongings.

Organise your Life on Trello

If there’s one app that has been life-changing, it’s Trello (referral). I have organised and planned my entire life (at least most of it!) on Trello; annual goals, tasks, home, myself (growth, habits, health & wellbeing etc.), my business, finances, food, recipes and meal prep, retirement & pension and more.

Create Rituals

For most of us, a ritual is a way of connecting with ourselves for a little while, before we run out into our busy day or for unwinding when it’s time to slow down. A ritual is usually something we enjoy and that makes us happy. A ritual is grounding and helps us feel anchored in the world.

Simplify and organise your finances

When it comes to budgeting money, most of us are pretty clueless. I was never taught this sort of stuff in school or by my parent. But I’ve learned that a good rule of thumb is to spend 50% of your monthly income on living expenses, 30% on lifestyle, and 20% should go to savings.

Look into cutting down your expenses; in the last 10 months, I cancelled our phone contracts and downgraded them to the pay-as-you-go option – from paying £27 a month, we now pay £5 a month (referral) per phone. I also renewed my broadband contract which decreased the monthly fee by £2.50, ended my TV insurance as I honestly didn’t need it anymore.

Curate a capsule wardrobe

A simplified wardrobe comprised of clothes you absolutely love means less money spent shopping AND less time getting ready in the morning. This is something I’ve been spending time curating since we moved into our new home in April last year – simplify and curate my seasonal capsule wardrobe.

Unsubscribe from emails (and social media feeds)

Do you know what takes up unnecessary time? Emails you don’t care about. Unsubscribe for everything that doesn’t add value to your life anymore.

Plan your weekly meals

This is something I know has a massive impact when I do take out time on the weekends to plan my meals, buy groceries and prep the produce. It gives me peace of mind plus and nourishing and healthy meals.

Switch to the cloud

Instead of having to drag around a flash drive with you, start saving your documents to Google Drive. You’ll be able to access your files anywhere, plus you avoid those duplicate files that drive you crazy because you don’t know which one is the current version. I used to have cloud storage with quite a few different brands; OneDrive, DropBox etc., but I ‘downsized’ and simplified my digital space last year and stuck with gDrive as I use Google for everything.

Plan your workouts

I am not much of a workout person, to be honest, but I do, however, love going for long walks – this was until I was diagnosed with osteoarthritis last year. Scheduling workouts ( in my case; movement) into your calendar really help with accountability and making sure you feel prepared.

Listen to podcasts & audiobooks

You get to learn all the things while doing stuff that might otherwise be wasting your time. Sometimes I find that I’m able to process information a lot quicker through audio rather than reading.

Write your to-do list and plan your day before bed

Instead of taking 10 minutes to prepare your to-do list in the morning, write your list before you go to bed. This way, you will clear your mind and are most likely to have a much more peaceful sleep. I plan out my week on the weekends and my days (in detail) the night before.

Slow down

So many of us are rushing through life, trying to get a million things done at once while attempting to absorb as much information as we can at the same time. Take a few minutes to think about the areas of your life where you’ve been rushing, and come up with a plan to slow down and be a little more intentional and deliberate.

How do you simplify your life?

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