Our modern world is filled with stress. Demands from work, family, and personal goals can create overwhelm. The simple living lifestyle is the one way you can control demands on your time without giving up things you most enjoy.
Removing the chaos so you can experience the life you want is the secret. Giving up things you enjoy is a recipe for failure. The goal is to remove those things and activities causing the stress while keeping all the activities that give you joy.
Stress is caused by demands upon us where we have limited or no control. Controlling the outcome reduces stress. Where you lack control over the outcome stress increases.
Simple living is important because it is the only true way where you take control of your life, which lowers stress.
There are others ways you can control stress, but simple living is best because there is a plan that is easy to work.
The news, politics, financial demands, and more often push us in multiple directions. And we have limited control over the outcome. The often negative news feeds your brain disasters as if they are all happening in your back yard. Where do you run?
Politicians debate rules and change tax laws for bizarre reasons. Getting the final result so you can deal with the tax law change is a good idea; listening to the endless debate rubs nerves raw.
Then we need to save for retirement, pay bills, deal with inflation, and surprise expenses.
There is an answer to all of this: the simple living lifestyle.
Here are 8 rules you can apply to simplify your life and reduce stress.
Eat Healthy, Drink Water, and Ample Sleep
Every building needs a solid foundation. Your foundation of a healthy life with low stress requires eating good food, drinking plenty of water, and getting ample sleep (link is a not so subtle book that will convince you to get proper sleep).
If you are worried sleep is unproductive time, let me remind you that you can sleep yourself rich. Here are five ways you can build wealth while you sleep. Without sleep your day is wasted fighting fatigue. You are more likely to make a serious error. Sleep deprivation is a leading cause of highway accidents.
Sleep is not enough. You need quality food for fuel and water to cleanse your system. Eating healthy is not about being super skinny or only eating things that don’t taste good. It is about maintaining an ideal weight while eating delicious and nutritious natural foods. Eating good food is not more expensive either! You can cut your grocery bill in half while eating high quality food. Here is how you can save on food shopping.
And don’t forget to drink plenty of water. Yes, juice is good for you (in moderation). Still, water is the best way to flush your system of contaminants.
The start of a simple living lifestyle includes quality food, plenty of water, and ample sleep. These things will leave you refreshed and ready to live each day to the fullest.
Declutter
Often times we consider decluttering and minimalism the same animal. They are not.
A minimalist has a goal of living with as few material things as possible. Some even define a minimalist as someone who lives with less than 100 things.
Decluttering, on the other hand, is about getting unused stuff out of your life. Decluttering is not a challenge to eliminate all but the most necessary daily living items. Instead, decluttering is part of a simple living lifestyle. Decluttering is about disposing of unused items. Most people will use more than 100 items on a regular basis. The decluttering process is about getting rid of the mess and putting the remainder in a useable order.
Decluttering is not a goal, it is a process. Doing a small amount each day builds a habit. Habits are the only way to prevent the clutter from coming back. (See below.)
Clutter shows up in unexpected places, too. While your vehicle or home may suffer from clutter, so can your mind. Taking notes, building a plan, and organizing your thoughts with meditation are powerful ways to clear out clutter of the mind.
Practice tip: Decluttering your living space supports a clutter-free mind. They go together. If your mind is cluttered it will spill into your real world. Declutter your space and mind.
Build a Routine
Rituals are habits. Create empowering rituals and you have a simple living lifestyle.
The old adage, If you fail to plan to plan to fail, is very true. You must schedule me-time into your life. Time to think, time to relax, time to read, time for family, time for work. Each time slot has a duty. Multi-tasking does not work.
This does not mean you must fill each moment with activity. That is the recipe for burnout. Instead, each bracket of time is allocated. Each day should have an ample amount of quiet time where you decide what you want to do at that time.
You need to schedule important tasks, too. Set a time for cleaning the garage. Set time for the kids, your significant other, both. Read the last paragraph again. There needs to be time for the whole family and time just with the kids and time just with your significant other. Yes, it is that important.
If you struggle with creating good habits, I recommend reading Atomic Habits. It is simply the best book on the subject.
Prioritize
The simple living lifestyle is about putting the important things first. That is why you plan; that is why routine is important.
All too often we wing it. We fill our day with what is demanding the most attention. Of course, distractions are rarely a priority.
Time with family is a priority. So is me-time! Everyone needs quiet-time. Make it a priority.
Remember to prioritize ample time for sleep. And for eating a good meal. Food should be enjoyed as it fills a need.
When your priorities are in order you should have unscheduled time to do with as you please. If a distraction appears, decide if you want to answer. At least you will know the important stuff is all taken care of.
Track Income and Expenses
Money is the greatest distraction ever devised. Bills get too much attention, earning money gets a massive portion of our waking hours. And all those attempts to sell us something. Juggling all the demands on your money causes stress. That is why we took time above to prioritize.
The fastest way to take control of your finances is to record income and spending.
How can you know where you are and where you are going without a record? Recording expenses makes it easy to identify an expense that is getting out of hand.
Tracking income and expenses is a foundational activity of the simple living lifestyle. Bills can cause a “deer in the headlights” response. Instead of paying bills you start to procrastinate. Your mind becomes consumed by the fast approaching due dates for payment. Wasted time is forever lost. Messy finances causes most people to stall out. That is why you must track your finances.
Bills piling up creates massive stress. Tracking your finances help you make decisions fast, especially those decisions that are really not decisions. Schedule the payment and then do something productive. Time spent “thinking about it” will not get the bills paid faster.
In all the decades as a tax professional, the clients that did best financially recorded their financial transactions. Then they made saving and investing a priority (see above). They made investing a priority by knowing what they had coming in and going out. They controlled their cash flow. Some of that money was controlled to their investment account where money started working for them.
As a result they live a much simpler life.
Limit Technology
Social media is an addiction. TV and videos the same. Any entertainment can take control of your life. That is why setting a limit on how much time you give each activity is important.
The first step to decluttering the mind is to cut out most news while limiting social media. Scrolling is a mindless activity sucking your life away without returning anything.
Yes, social media allows you better communication with family, friends, and even clients. But you are not a machine available 24/7. Take phone calls at designated times. Make phone calls in their designated time. Time for a movie is awesome, as long as it is not your whole day. And! It should be something that interests you and not just a way to waste time.
There is evidence social media causes stress. Add the addictive nature of social media and no wonder stress is higher than any time in the past.
Technology in and of itself is not bad. But in excess it does harm. Therefore, always limit technology to specific times with a cap on daily usage. Don’t be the person that needs to checks their phone at 2 a.m.
Learn To Say No
Ryan Holiday wrote a short article years ago that I reread several times a year as a reminder.
In the article Holiday talks about a condition he has called calendar anorexia. “It’s not serious,” Holiday promises.
What Holiday discusses is the art of saying “No.” If you can’t say no often your life will be a mess, directed by every person you meet for their benefit.
The simple living lifestyle requires limiting commitments. Remember our priorities from above. You can pretty much do anything you want, but not everything you want.
Overcommitting is a form of clutter. It causes stress and leads to an unhappy life. Overcommitting eventually leads to overwhelm, causing stall out. Nobody wins then. And, oh, the mistakes that get made.
There are things I would love to do, but don’t. Even really important things. For example, my church has wanted me to get more involved for years. But my work schedule does not have enough room to take on more than I already have at church. “Doing more” would come from family time and/or me-time. Both family and me-time are requirements for a happy simple life. So I say no when asked to take on more. It is the only way to retain sanity.
Meditate
I saved this for last because I want you to go away with this thought at the front of your mind.
Before you do any of the simple living lifestyle hacks above, meditate. Find a quiet place. Relax and clear your mind. Now you can focus on building a simple living lifestyle. Plan your mental and physical world decluttering. Decide how many activities you can comfortably manage while keeping plenty of family and me-time.
Think about your finances, priorities, habits and routine, and the least amount of social media you can manage without cutting communication with people that matter to you.
Don’t forget to prioritize your meditation time. All the things above are part of your meditation time. But you also need time to clear it all away and relax. Meditation is the time when you clear everything away. Meditation is not meditation if it is filled with the chaos of life. Meditation helps you turn it all off.
That is how you reduce stress and enjoy a simple living lifestyle.
Leo Babauta says you only need to commit to 2 minutes a day. That is how you start a meditation habit/routine. It grows from there.
