Simple Steps to Saving your Sanity

Simplifying your life doesn’t mean making sacrifices or making your own soap. It means making choices that will give you the time to live a life that’s less stressful and more joyful. Now, who doesn’t want that?

Alex, a web designer from Boston, and her husband felt overwhelmed. They have two kids, busy careers, do volunteer work and own a house that they really wanted to renovate. They were stretched to the limit. “We needed to do something to save our sanity,” Alex recalls. “So we decided to simplify our lives as much as possible and try to get a handle on our stress. It’s been just over a year now and I really notice a difference in the quality of our home life. We talk more, laugh more and I think everyone feels a little more relaxed.”

Here are some of their tips:

Do it on-line. “I’ve been ordering my groceries on-line, relying on dry cleaning pick up and delivery, and paying bills with electronic banking,” Alex says. “This way, I can take care of everything when I have the time. I can food shop at midnight, schedule automatic monthly bill payments and not spend my precious free time in the car doing errands.”

Outsource it.  The family relies on a cleaning service to scrub the tubs, clean out the fridge and mop the floors every other week. “Sure, we still clean, but it’s not a marathon effort that takes up an entire Saturday” says Alex.

Just say “no.”  Alex and her husband are active in their community and in their children’s school. “I looked at the committees that I was on and realized that many were things that I wasn’t even interested in,” says Alex. They simply added stress. Now, I volunteer in my son’s art class one morning a week and attend a monthly meeting of the town environmental league. Those are activities that are important to me and the time commitment feels manageable.”

Take action.  Take small steps to remedy the things that bother you. Fix the broken front step, clean out the spare room, and make a plan to pay off your credit card debts.

Eliminate clutter.  Throw away junk mail before it comes into the house, weed out your closet and give away anything you haven’t worn in a year. Clean out your desk and clear the surface of everything except current projects. Getting rid of clutter can also mean cutting down on time spent with people whose company you don’t genuinely enjoy. “One of my neighbors calls me on the phone everyday to complain about the schools, her spouse and her job,” says Alex. “I used to feel obligated to listen. Now, I just tell her it’s not a good time to talk. She’s been calling less often and I’ve made a real effort to keep up the relationships that I do enjoy.”

Schedule down-time.  Get up an hour early and take a walk through the woods, plan a weekly breakfast at the local diner with your child before school, hire a sitter for a Tuesday night and go on a date with your spouse. Quality time by yourself or with loved ones is more likely to happen if you plan ahead.

Unplug it.  “We realized that we wasted a lot of time watching television and fooling around on the computer. Now, we try to limit our viewing to programs that have been pre-recorded. The quality of our viewing has increased and we spend less total time in front of the television. We turn off the computer when it’s not being used so that it’s not that easy to sit down and waste an hour playing a game. We try to rely on the answering machine to record phone messages that we can return at our leisure.”

Lower your standards.  “I’m a neat freak,” says Alex. “When I was a stay at home mom, I was always cleaning. Now with a full-time job I just don’t have the time or the energy to vacuum every day. I try not to stress out if there are newspapers on the dining room table or if I notice the house plants need repotting.”

Call for help.  Ask your spouse, your children, your family and your neighbors to lend some support. Since she’s gone back to work, Alex’s children have learned to do their own laundry. “Knowing that I don’t have to come home and face a pile of dirty clothes is a huge help,” she says.

To successfully simplify, you have to keep your priorities straight. Knowing what is important to you and what you value the most will enable you to eliminate the clutter in your life. When you surround yourself with what’s really meaningful to you you’ll find that everyday life is filled with more joy and less stress. It’s that simple.