Living simply can be such a beautiful and powerful thing. Without a doubt, it will help lead to a more efficient and fulfilling life. The idea of simplifying your life or practicing a more minimalistic approach can be intimidating, though.. We get it. There tends to be harsh restrictions attached to the idea of simple living like, “you can only own 100 things or less” or “you can’t own a tv or have cable”. But those things just aren’t true! The greatest thing about simple living is it looks different for every single person, you just have to figure out what works for you!
The point of simple living is to declutter all aspects of your life, and hopefully free up some head space to live with more intention and meaning. When it comes to objects or materialistic things, less tends to be more. When you have less materialistic items to think about, stress about or take care of, you begin to have more time to focus on what is actually important in this life: your health, relationships, self-care, your financial well-being, etc. So how can you begin to declutter all the unnecessary distractions from your life?
Let’s start with the thing we probably spend the most time with each day – our phones. Our phones gobble up so much time from our days, it’s ridiculous. It’s become a habit to fill any pocket of extra time we have with refreshing the Instagram app or scrolling through Facebook. What if we were to limit our phone usage to texts and calls only? If we want to get on Instagram or Facebook, try only doing so on a computer. I bet the time you spend on your phone dwindles significantly and all of a sudden you have all this extra time to come up with creative ideas, engage in meaningful conversation with those around you or whatever else you find to be important.
The next step might be to slowly work your way through your home, perhaps room by room, and get rid of things that don’t serve you or add any meaning to your life. If one of your favorite past times is binge watching Netflix and you find self-care in that, you best be keeping that TV! Does your home decor make you happy when you see it? Then keep it! Good questions to continuously ask yourself, when going through this process:
- Does this fit with the style of my home?
- Do I already have one?
- Do I use this item alot?
- Do I love it?
- Would I miss this item if I were to get rid of it?
And of course, if you do decide to get rid of a few things, consider recycling or donating the items. Someone else may find meaning or use in those things that you no longer need.
Simplifying your life can be as easy as getting rid of all the old computer cords, cell phones you no longer use, or magazines that are piling up. Or, it can be as extreme as evaluating every single item in your home and deciding what’s worth keeping. You choose. You decide what works best for you and run with it. The end goal of all of this is to help you live your best life and you get to decide what that means.