18 Ways To Simplify Your Life in 2017
1:00 AM
Managing your life can become difficult while planning for retirement, paying bills, reaching your dreams, etc. So, wouldn’t it be nice to simplify things a bit?
It’s almost 2017, and what better time than now then to start thinking about how to simplify your life for the future? The New Year is always a good time to make goals, and 2017 is the perfect year to focus on simplifying your life. You’ll be able to apply that knowledge and experience for years and years to come.
Simple living can make you happier, be in better control of your life, all while enjoying it a little more.
Simple living is different for everyone, but in general it means that you are getting rid of all the extra noise in your life, so that you can have more time for the things you love and enjoy.
You don’t need to do everything on the list below, instead think about what you love in life, and work towards getting rid of the things you dislike and those that are not important to you.
Here are my tips on how to simplify your life.
1. Think about what is important to you.
By making a list of your priorities and the things in life that are important to you, you’ll be able to simplify your life by eliminating the extra noise that is holding you back.
This is because you’ll know and see exactly what is important to you, and you’ll be able to better differentiate between things that are important and those that are not.
2. Slow down if you want to simplify your life.
I’m guilty of running through life too quickly and not stopping to really enjoy it.
By slowing down, you’ll do things correctly, you’ll enjoy things more, and you’ll have the ability to start living simply.
3. Automate your payments.
You can automate a lot in your life. You can have your paychecks direct deposited, you can auto pay your bills, you can even auto pay your monthly credit card payments.
Even though I check through all transactions and expenses, I still automate nearly all of my actual payments so that I never have to worry that something was forgotten about. Most of my expenses are similar from month to month, so I can usually just check the payment to see if everything is correct.
4. Organize your life.
Being unorganized can waste a significant amount of your time and leads to late fees, stress, lost items, and more.
Here are some surprising statistics I found from Simply Orderly about being unorganized:
- The average person spends 12 days per year looking for things they can’t find.
- Every day the average office worker spends 1.5 hours looking for things.
- In a recent survey, 55% of consumers stated they would save anywhere from 16 to 60 minutes a day if they were organized.
- 23% of people pay bills late and have to pay late fees because they are unable to find their bills.
5. Place reminders in your phone’s calendar (or any calendar) so you don’t forget.
If there is something coming up that I know I will not remember, I will create a reminder. This makes managing my life easier because I don’t have to worry about forgetting things, missing payments, etc.
I create reminders for things such as:
- Business tasks and to-do lists.
- When it’s time to pay estimated quarterly tax payments.
- Renewing license plate tags for our cars.
- Paying semiannual bills, such as car insurance.
6. Become debt free to simplify your life.
Whether you have student loan debt, credit card debt, car debt, or whatever else, paying it off will help you manage your finances easier as you will have less debt to stress about.
Debt can cause a crazy amount of stress, and by getting rid of it you’ll be able to live a much more simple life.
Side note: I highly recommend that you check out Personal Capital if you are interested in gaining control of your financial situation. Personal Capital is very similar to Mint.com, but 100 times better. Personal Capital allows you to aggregate your financial accounts so that you can easily see your financial situation. You can connect accounts, such as your mortgage, bank accounts, credit card accounts, investment accounts, retirement accounts, and more. Plus, it is FREE.
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7. Spend less time on social media.
The average person spends many, many hours on social media each week. Between Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, and many others it can be quite easy to waste your entire day.
If you find that you are spending too much time on social media and that it is negatively impacting you, you may want to shut down the social media accounts that you are spending too much time on. You can even create a time block so you cannot access your accounts during certain periods of the day, and so on.
8. Opt for paying expenses annually or semiannually.
Instead of paying for bills like home insurance and car insurance monthly, you might want to look into paying them every six months or once a year. You will probably qualify for a discount if you do this as well.
If you switch from monthly payments, that’s two less bills to worry about each month!
9. Declutter and downsize your life.
Decluttering your life to simplify it can lead to many benefits, such as the ability:
- To save money. In some cases, a bigger home can cost more due to higher utility bills, more clutter being bought, higher insurance, more maintenance and repairs needed, higher purchasing price, etc.
- To have less clutter. The bigger your home, the more likely you’ll have empty rooms that you feel the need to put stuff in. Now that we live in an RV, we are much more mindful of what we buy. We think about every purchase in terms of weight, size, where we can store it, and more.
- To spend less time on maintenance and repairs. If all other factors between two homes are the same (age, location, etc.), a bigger home is more likely to take up more of your time and money due to more things breaking.
- To spend less time cleaning. A larger home is going to take a lot more time to clean than a smaller one.
10. Watch less TV.
I love a good TV show, but I can honestly say that I watch too much TV. The average person watches TV for over 35 hours per week!
Can you imagine what you could do by reclaiming just half of those hours each week?
By watching less TV, you’ll be able to simplify your life quite easily.
11. Get rid of cable.
On that note, how about we stop paying for cable?
The average monthly cable bill is over $100. By the year 2020, the average cable bill is expected to be around $200 a month.
You can read more about cutting cable here and how to save money by doing this. I recommend getting a digital antenna so that you can receive local channels for free!
We don’t pay for any form of TV (not even Netflix!), and it definitely helps us to live simply.
12. Have less clothing options.
The average successful person has a very limited set of clothing options, as this way they have more time to focus on things that truly matter.
By finding items that already match one another and having a smaller wardrobe, you’ll have more time to focus on other things in life.
13. Don’t waste time on being negative.
You are wasting your time when you are being negative. Yes, it is really that simple.
Instead of dwelling on negatives, such as regret and/or gossiping, you can be more productive by using this time for things that actually matter.
By being more positive, you will be able to better simplify your life.
14. Be more confident.
I believe that gaining confidence can help you to live simply. Your confidence will allow you to improve your life rather than dwelling on things that scare you.
Confidence can lead to getting the job you want, making more money, reaching your dreams, public speaking, meeting new people, networking, managing a business or employees, traveling the world, and more. Gaining confidence can help a person in many, many different ways.
Read more at Be More Confident And Get What You Want In Life.
15. Find free forms of entertainment.
Someone recently told me how expensive it was to have fun. They were telling me about all of their debt and everything that goes along with it, and they also told me that their monthly “fun” budget was around $500.
Uhhh what?! $500? A month?!
If you are trying to get rid of high-interest rate debt, I can’t think of any reason for why you should be paying $500 a month to have fun.
There are many ways to have fun for cheap. Check out How To Have Frugal Fun for some of my ideas.
16. Start saying no more often.
If you say yes to everything, but you are ready to pull your hair out, then you may want to start saying no.
Saying no may allow you to have more time to focus on what you truly want, and it may simplify your life.
17. Think before you multi-task.
Some people can multitask successfully, but with the large amount of time it takes to refocus on a new task, many people cannot. So, if you are constantly switching back and forth, you will have to spend extra time refocusing each time you switch from one task to another.
Think about your strengths and weaknesses to understand whether or not multitasking actually helps you save time. For the most part, single-tasking will allow you to simplify your life and focus better.
18. Sit in peace and simplify your day.
When was the last time you just sat down in complete silence with no distractions? For the average person, this is probably a rare occurrence.
Sitting silently can help you reflect on your life and what’s going on in the world around you. It can also help you relax, destress, and clear your mind.
Are you interested in learning how to simplify your life? What else would you add to this list?
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