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Posted: 16 Jan 2014 08:13 AM PST
While we’ve established that
simplicity is a practice and not a destination, there are practical things
you can do every day to simplify your life. And the good news is, there are
practical things you can do quickly.
Set a timer for 10 minutes. Choose
any of the following tasks. Stop after 10 minutes. Then celebrate your
simpler life.
1. Donate any shoes you
haven’t worn in a year.
2. Write three thank you
notes.
3. Turn on soft music,
lay down and close your eyes.
5. Remove any glasses,
dishes, silverware, serving dishes or cooking utensils from the kitchen that
you haven’t used in the last 6 months. Box it up and write “kitchen stuff:
donate after 30 days” and then put it out of site. If you miss something, go
get it. If not, donate it.
6. Open any email that
you didn’t sign up for, or signed up for but don’t need/want/like anymore,
scroll to the bottom of the email and click “unsubscribe”.
7. Bring two small bags
to your car. Fill one with trash and the other with anything that doesn’t
belong in the car.
8. Put the things you
collected from your car where they belong.
10. Dump the contents of
your junk drawer or desk drawers that you don’t open frequently into a paper
bag. Close the bag. If you don’t need anything in the bag in 30 days … get
rid of the bag and everything in it. If you do need something in the bag,
remove it and put it where it belongs.
11. Bring a box into your
bathroom and fill it with anything that has expired or that you don’t use or
that will be expired by the time you use it. Learn more about disposing of
unused medications here.
12. Donate all of your
formal occasion dresses that you haven’t worn more than once. Yes, all of
those dresses that you bought for something fancy and justified the purchase
by saying, “I’ll be able to wear this again.”
14. Clear as many counter
tops as you can while still taking the time to put things where they belong.
Have a donation box close by incase that is where they belong.
16. Remove all expired,
stale, unwanted items from your pantry and refrigerator.
17. RSVP with a “no thank
you” to any requests that you’ve been sitting on for a week or longer. If you
are still thinking about it, you aren’t excited to do it.
19. Unfriend your Facebook
friends who aren’t your actual friends or delete your account.
20. Turn off your phone
and computer. Repeat.
23. Write down how much
money you are spending to store your stuff. Decide what you would rather do
with that money every month.
24. Empty the cabinet
under your sink. Wash it and then only put things back that you use.
25. Schedule all annual
medical appointments like physicals, mammograms, dental visits or other
routine medical things.
Any of these suggestions can help
you move forward on your simplicity journey but don’t wait until you
think you’ve arrived to experience the benefits of simplicity. Skip the
guilt-dwelling, soul-sucking process of focusing on everything you didn’t do,
or how far you still have to go.
§ If your closet is a
disaster but your kitchen counters are free of clutter, celebrate that.
§ If your morning was
stressful and hectic, but you were able to sit quietly for 20 minutes after
lunch, celebrate that.
§ If you went to the
mall and overspent on stuff you don’t need, but came home and filled a box
with clothes that don’t fit you to donate, celebrate that. (And about your
mall binge … You can return
that. )
Turn your focus to the ways you’ve
made progress on your simplicity journey and use the momentum of how that
makes you feel to tackle the next thing.
Simplify and seize the joy!
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