If I don’t intentionally try to keep my life simple I quickly get overwhelmed with all the stuff I have, tasks I need to get done and general chaos in my life.

It’s taken me a long time to learn how to keep my life calm and simple but it has had a huge impact on my mental health.

I used to be very unintentional with how I lived my life.

I didn’t have any routines and let myself do whatever I felt like.

I said yes to everything and didn’t have any boundaries with my time.

I was constantly feeling burnt out and I couldn’t understand why. Eventually, I started to take steps to simplify my life and it has really helped me get my depression and anxiety under control and start feeling better.

Here are some ideas for easy ways you can simplify your life.

Set Intentionals

I like to set quarterly goals of my life or work in seasons. Sitting down and thinking about what I want the next 90 days of my life to be dedicated to helps me stay focused and clear about what I’m trying to do. Recently my intention has been to work on my health and fitness. I am dedicating this season of my life to focus on learning how to eat healthily and dedicate myself to finishing a workout program.

When you have an intention or a goal to work towards it’s easier to keep yourself from being pulled in a hundred different directions. Staying focused on one area of my life allows me to make good progress in that area and not get overwhelmed by all my other goals and dreams. What could you work on in the next 90 days that would make a big difference in your life? Set goals and intentions to focus on that one thing. I like to build a morning and evening routine that includes steps towards my goal. Right now I’m making sure to meal prep in the evening and work out in the morning since I am choosing to focus on health and fitness.

simplify your life

Create a Morning Routine

I used to be so anti-morning routine and I thought having a routine sounded like the most boring thing in the world. A friend of mine recommended I read  The Miracle Morning: The Not-So-Obvious Secret Guaranteed to Transform Your Life (Before 8AM) and I picked it up and it changed everything.

The book suggests creating a morning routine that is built around doing things that improve your life and bring you joy. Now I spend my mornings meditating, reading, pulling tarot cards and writing in my journal. If I don’t make time for these things in the morning they inevitably get pushed off and by the end of the day I’m too tired to have any energy to dedicate to myself.

Having a morning routine helps me get the things that are important to me done right away. Making sure I create time for the practices that help me manage my mental health has been a game changer. Showing up for myself consistently and doing these practices daily instead of just once and awhile has been

Say No

One of the best ways you can simplify your life is to start saying no more often. I used to be terrible at saying no but I found that I constantly had too much on my plate and always felt close to burning out.

I would go and go and go until I would inevitably end up recovering on the couch for a few days exhausted and either completely run down or sick with a head cold.

I realized that I only have a limited amount of time and I have to guard and protect my time to make sure I am able to do the things that I want to do. Saying no helps me have the energy to show up for my friends and family the way that I want while still having time to work on my own goals and dreams. If you struggle with saying no check out the TED talk below.

Curate Your Friend Group

Who you spend time with has a huge impact on how you feel about life and choose to see the world. You should purposely create your circle of friends with people who make you feel good and inspire you to live a better life. I still keep in touch with a ton of old friends that I still care about.

However, I choose to spend the majority of my time with people that I really look up to and admire. When I first started my personal development journey I didn’t really know any people who were on a similar path. If that is the case for you too I suggest consuming a lot of podcasts and audiobooks. I also joined Facebook groups to network and followed people I looked up to on Instagram.

I kept consuming content from the kind of people I wanted to be friends with and slowly but surely I began meeting amazing new women who had the same interests as me. It took a long time but it was so worth it! Now I have a powerhouse group of women that I interact with every single day. We are all working on big goals and are very supportive of each other’s projects.

Spend Less Time on Social Media

I have had to really start monitoring how much time I spend on social media lately. As a blogger and just general internet nerd, I love social media.

However, I realize that consuming too much of it has a negative effect on my mental health and overall well being. It’s nice to be able to keep in touch with old friends and follow people that inspire me but if I’m not careful social media can steal hours of my day away.

If you feel like social media is bringing you down I suggest curating your social media and detoxing. Sometimes I just need a good solid break to start having healthy habits again. Otherwise, I just keep using it more and more until it’s consuming way too much of my time.

simplify your life

Have Fewer Belongings

If I don’t regularly declutter I end up accumulating way to much stuff and it quickly becomes overwhelming. When my environment is clean and fresh I feel so much better. I find it really difficult to keep everything organized when I have too much stuff.

Keeping my belongings to a minimum has really helped me start to keep my space neat and organized. Knowing where everything is and having a home for everything really helps me feel more relaxed and just better overall. I suggest starting by cleaning out one small part of your house like your closet or your chunk drawer. After you declutter that one area move onto another part of your house.

If you want to do a huge declutter in one weekend read The Magic Art of Tidying Up and get to work. The book walks you through a process for decluttering EVERYTHING all at once. For some inspiration about decluttering check out the TED talk below.

 

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simplify your life

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