Are you time-strapped, sleep-deprived, world-weary and downright depressed? Are the demands of your modern lifestyle making you crazy? What you need are some easy to implement tools that will simplify your existence.
Get Organized
Many of us spend an inordinate amount of time looking for things we have misplaced. We pay late fees on bills we forgot about and scramble to reschedule appointments we double-booked. In short, a scattered life leads to squandered time and a great deal of added stress.
Fortunately, getting organized isn’t all that difficult. Start by making a wall or cell phone calendar an indispensable part of your life. Don’t make any appointments without immediately adding them to the calendar. Write post-its to yourself as reminders of important dates.
Clutter can also add exponentially to your level of stress and distraction. Make a commitment to yourself to spend just five minutes each day on organizing your space. Eventually, you can expand your allotted time. Once you get the anti-clutter ball rolling, you just might find that cleaning and clearing become your newest positive addiction.
Learn to Say “No”
It’s a simple, two-letter word, and it was probably one of the first things you ever said to your mother. But somewhere along the way, many of us have forgotten how to say “no.” Committing yourself to every project, organization and fundraiser that comes along might get you some heart-felt thank you’s, but it is also guaranteed to weigh you down and make your already busy life crazy.
Saying “no” isn’t always easy. It’s hard to disappoint people or to bow out of participating in causes you support, but learning to politely decline is essential. In fact, saying “no” is a muscle that gets stronger the more you use it. Start by gently but firmly refusing to do something that isn’t all that important to you, and work your way up to the more difficult commitments.
Cut Down Time Wasters
Two of the biggest time vampires in many of our lives are television and social media. Combined, they can easily gobble up five or six hours out of each day without you even realizing it. Sure, TV is an escape as well as an educational tool, and social media sites such as Facebook, Pinterest, Snapchat and Instagram enable us to stay in touch with friends old and new. However, you need to come up with ways to keep their use under control.
You might start by policing yourself. Keep track of how much time you spend watching television and on your phone and computer. If the results you see amaze and horrify you, cut back your usage. If that doesn’t work, practice tough love on yourself and shut down some of your cable channels or social media accounts. You can also set your home network so that you cannot access specific sites at certain times.
Embrace Automation
Letting computers handle the regular tasks in your life might sound scary, but it can actually reduce the load of stress you’re carrying. Why go through the aggravation of manually paying bills each month with the risk that you will forget to do so when you can set up online payments instead?
Your bank will make it easy, providing many ways that you can set up online payments. These include automatic withdrawal of the specific amount you owe, recurring payments of whatever amount you want or one-time-only, customized payments. Once you have it set up, record-keeping is a breeze, and you can run reports showing just what you have spent and where.
Make Meal Time Easier
If having a home-cooked dinner is becoming a lost art in your household and you miss the camaraderie and good health that comes with preparing fresh and delicious meals for your family, subscription meal kits are an option worth considering. Offered by numerous companies, meal kits are sent right to your door and contain all of the ingredients and recipes you need to prepare several dinners each week. People who spend a lot on takeout or dine-in restaurants might actually even find a cost savings with these kits; meals run about $10 per serving.
If you consult a Hello Fresh, Green Chef or Plated review, you will probably note consumers’ happiness with the subscription meal kit lifestyle. It allows you, at a pretty reasonable price, to rediscover the joy of preparing and eating dinners with your family without needing to take that extra trip to the supermarket or stress out over what particular foods to prepare. Many customers actually describe the surprise and delight they feel each time they open a meal kit box and discover what’s in store.
Stress is not only making us tired and grumpy; it’s killing us. Take some time to clear and declutter your life, and you will see much of that stress melt away. Simplifying your life might just be the best gift you give yourself this year.