Simplifying your life is, to use modern language, is a great mindfulness ‘hack’.
In other words, it’s a trick (or you could say a short cut) you can use to induce more mindfulness in your life effortlessly. More mindfulness means more happiness. It’s that simple.
Rather than be constantly burdened by a complex, busy lifestyle full of constant activity and material clutter start to simplify your life today. Here are 18 great ways you can do just that!
1. Re-Evaluate Your To-Do List
Do you have more tasks backed up on your chore list and in your inbox than you can complete in a life time? Look through these tasks, discard the unnecessary, prioritize the necessary and important, and see what you can delegate to others for simplicitys sake.
2. Learn to Say ‘No’
Always wanting to accommodate others, at the expense of yourself, does not actually help you or anyone else in the long-run. Not only does it drain you by way of filling up all your time, but it makes you less effective and less joyful. Be discriminate about which commitments you choose to undertake and don’t over-burden yourself at the expense of your well-being.
3. Cut Some Lines of Communication
There was a time when you would just go home at the end of the day and check your answering machine for messages. If someone wrote a letter, it could take days—weeks—to reciprocate.
Now with the addition of mobile phones, E-mail, Skype, Twitter, instant messaging, chat rooms, message forums, etc., people have become overly-dependent upon constant communication and it eats up a tremendous amount of time. Saddest fact is, the vast majority of messages that come through are just plain unnecessary.
Start limiting the amount of time you spend in communication. Pare it down to the necessities. Create a schedule that allows you a reasonable amount of time daily to do this, so you’ll no longer be a slave to communication devices throughout the day.
4. Reduce Your Media Exposure
Screen-based entertainment has become such an easy, mind-numbing way to keep ourselves busy that we waste hours sitting and watching other people live, rather than getting up to live our own lives. The distractions create a ‘white noise’ background in the mind that just fills up space.
Unplug yourself and breathe a sigh of relief when the constant hum and buzz finally cease. Even the news is not a daily necessity; stories that really matter will still be there later in the week.
5. Clear Out the Clutter
You will be amazed to see how light your load gets when you rid yourself of things you just don’t need. Get some boxes and go through your home room by room, closet by closet, drawer by drawer. Trash what’s useless and donate what is still good.
If you don’t touch something or look at something more than once or twice a year, do you really need it to take up space in your life? You probably can live without missing a lot of the things taking up space in your home.
“Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.” – William Morris
6. Simplify What You Have Left
Once you have edited out all of the unnecessary items in your home, wardrobe, desk, etc., re-organize what you have left to a convenient, workable system. It should be easy to take care of, easy to find things and easy to put things away.
Try closet and drawer organizers, make labels and tape them on your containers. Color-code your clothing so it’s easy to go through and pull out what you want. Use file folders for whatever papers you have to keep; scan the rest and preserve copies in your computer or back up system.
7. Give Yourself the Gift of Time
We’ve become so busy with family, work, and constantly being in touch with friends and contacts that we’ve forgotten the blessed peace in solitude. Try to make time every day to spend alone.
Go for a walk, take a bubble bath or just sit and look out the window. Be aware of the moment and you’ll find an inner calm that can become your port in any storm.
8. Slow Down
Most of us really need to slow down. That might go against every instinct you have, every piece of advice you’ve ever been given, but abandon all those impulses to speed through your day.
Slow down physically—do things more slowly and deliberately. Slowing down physically helps us slow down mentally. Pay more attention to what you’re doing; it doesn’t matter if it’s eating, doing the dishes or some other chore, driving, walking, making love, even just breathing.
Slow yourself down and dare to be truly intimate with life. Don’t wait till your final days to realize that the ‘little’ moments of our daily lives are where the magic happens.
9. Live In the Moment
Wherever you are, whatever you’re doing, aim to be present in the moment. So much of our mental noise is concerning yesterday (what she or he did or said, what happened or should have etc), or tomorrow (wants, goals, plans, worries and fears).
That mental clutter distracts from your immediate sensate experience (where life actually happens!). When you are absorbed in the present moment the mind becomes immediately more spacious and peaceful.
“Life is not complex. We are complex. Life is simple, and the simple thing is the right thing.” – Oscar Wilde
10. Downsize
Sometimes the more space we give ourselves, the more we fall into the trap of filling it up with useless, mindless things. You’d be surprised at how small a place you really need. Consider getting a smaller home or smaller apartment.
Downsizing saves you a lot of money, uses up less energy and resources and it’s easier to take maintain. Best of all, it takes away the impulse to keep filling the space.
In a small home, you have to think more deliberately about what’s worthy of limited space and you’re more careful about the things you bring into your life.
11. Manage Your Stress
It’s not known as the silent killer for nothing. Stress can create all kinds of physical and psychological health problems and clutter up our inner space.
Although we often believe the causes of our stress are purely external, ultimately it’s our anxious thoughts and busy mind that keep us in this state. Why not try outmindfulness practices (proven to reduce stress). Maybe you could try support groups for stress management.
12. Re-Think Your Goals
Just like so many areas of our present lives get cluttered without us realizing it, we tend to clutter up our future before it’s even here yet. Try to avoid making random, scattered plans and goals for your future.
Take time out, get clear about what’s truly important to you, re-examine goals, pare them down and prioritize. Don’t scatter your energy. The fewer goals you have, the more energy you can put towards each one.
13. Kick the Multi-Tasking Habit
For the longest time it’s been a buzz word, but we’re back to the problem of scattered energy. Scattering your energy isn’t as effective as focusing it. Instead of doing three or four things at once, making each take longer and sacrificing quality due to divided attention, focus on one task at a time.
You’ll get each one done more quickly, more enjoyably and more efficiently when you put all your energy into it.
14. Get Into Routines
Routines make life easier—they take up less energy and give you a sense of consistency and simplicity. If at no other times, at least create routines to ease you into your day and to help you wind it down each night.
Getting in the habit of a morning and evening ritual creates a sense of peace and calm around you at the times you need it most.
15. Schedule Time to Do Nothing
That’s right, nothing. Get it out of your head that you need to fill every minute of your day, the way you thought you needed to fill every inch of your closet or every drawer in your house. Learn to simply ‘be’ again.
See if you can take time out to do absolutely nothing. Just sit, breathe and be alive (for hints on how to do this observe the rest of nature). Find peace in the space of nothingness.
16. Lighten Your Load
Have you gotten into the habit of taking luggage with you wherever you go? Do you really need to carry 40 photos in your wallet and keys to locks you no longer own on your keychain? Do you need six shades of lipstick, three moisturizers, an envelope of coupons and 14 pens at every given moment?
Empty your pockets and handbags. Set aside anything that isn’t absolutely essential——and go out into the world unencumbered. Get a smaller billfold or purse to hold only the bare necessities.
17. Decrease Your Budget
We tend to rack up a lot of monthly bills and debts that we don’t even need. When we make a bit more money what do we tend to do? We spend more – even if we don’t really need too. More stuff, more events, – more complexity!
You have a little money left over in the month, it doesn’t mean you have to spend it or start a new credit account. Simplify that budget too and work to pare it down to the necessities.
You’ll save money and in its place you’ll find peace of mind. You may even find that if you can do with less ‘stuff’ you can have more free time. If you don’t need all that ‘stuff’ then maybe you don’t need to work 60 hours a week!
18. Learn to Be Comfortable With Empty Space
In decorating, photography and other arts, there is a ‘rule of thirds’ that tells you that about 1/3 of your feature item or subject should be empty space.
The purpose of this visual space is it gives your eye a place to rest when looking at it, so you can appreciate what is supposed to be focusing on all the more. Same thing with your life—pare it down and leave some space.
Leave space in your schedule, leave space between your things, leave space in your drawers and closets and leave space in your budget.
Most importantly though, give yourself some mental space with which to connect and to relax – to come home to yourself in the here and now.
Do you have some tips on how to simplify your life? Please share them with the rest of us in the comments section below! Also feel free to ask any questions. I’m always happy to help. Stay in touch!
ps. Want to know more about why simplicity makes you more mindful? Check out this program ‘How Simplicity Induces Mindfulness’
ps. Want to know more about why simplicity makes you more mindful? Check out this program ‘How Simplicity Induces Mindfulness’
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