1. There is no such thing as a short grocery list.

2. It will always take longer than I think to get out the door.

3. A simple yes or no works just as well as those overblown explanations I keep giving. Seriously, Annie? Quit talking.

4. When I am discouraged, depressed, unmotivated, and cranky, 9 times out of 10, it is because I need sleep. A 20-minute nap works wonders. A 2-hour nap is miraculous.

5. Speaking of naps, everyone who is not a parent undervalues the beauty and glory of sleep. But you can’t really convince them of that…

6. Every little thing I can do to make morning and bedtime and post-nap-grumpy-time and pre-dinnertime-witching-hour easier and simpler is a good idea.

A really good idea.

7. These kids are not deprived of anything, literally. Hello, richest country in the world. We live here. Our “poor” is still pretty darn good.

8. The day is hugely and disproportionately better when I get up before everybody else and get the day started calmly.

9. The day is hugely and disproportionately worse when I sleep until the last minute and get the day started in a grumpy funk of caffeine-deprived sleep haze.

10. I should have bought stock in a coffee company.

11. Schedules – realistic, flexible ones – help everybody.

12. Kids like routines.

13. Kids can live on an amazingly small amount of food.

14. If it can be spilled, it will be spilled. Put a lid on that freakin’ sippie cup. That’s why they have lids.

15. Any type of food, when eaten by a child in a car, will produce ten times its weight in crumbs.

16. I have to say no more than I get to say yes, but that’s okay. It’s simply a condition of our complex, overfilled world.

17. I will probably always be the Mom that the other Moms at the playground look at funny. That’s okay.

18. Comparisons to other Moms have absolutely no business influencing my life or standards. We’re all different, and that’s good.

19. If I can be one step ahead (of need, kids, deadlines), then everything works better.

20. I can never take too many photos. Or videos.

21. I should write down the funny things these kids say and do, because chances are I’ll forget by the end of the day if I don’t.

22. The days are long, but the years are short. Enjoy them.

Simple living won’t just become your standard one day, when you happen to wake up and everything is suddenly infused with great clarity and meaning. The world, our work, people, media, everything around us conspires to add more clutter to our already filled lives. You have to take steps and make changes every day to move away from a cluttered and unfulfilling life toward a simple and meaningful one . The good part is that many changes you can make are very simple, but all will contribute toward your ultimate goal. Try implementing a few of these changes today, or take the next month and make one small change every day.
1. Throw something away. Yes. Into the garbage can. Out of the house. To the dumpster. Stuff is a big part of the complication in our lives, so give yourself permission to get rid of something you no longer need or want or find useful. It may be that old collection of VHS tapes that you know you’ll never watch again, or a pair of shoes that is way too uncomfortable, or a pile of papers to read. Just get rid of it. It’s taking up valuable space in your life and making you feel guilty about not getting to it.
2. Get up at the same time every morning. It doesn’t have to be at some unnaturally early hour, just the same hour every day. You’ll have to be super-consistent while you’re establishing the habit, but once you do your body will automatically wake up at that time. Your mornings will be smoother and you won’t have to go through that snooze-button struggle.
3. Clean out a drawer. Pick that drawer in the kitchen that you always spend five minutes rummaging through to find the garlic press, or the one in the bathroom that seems to eat your floss, or the one in your dresser that refuses to return socks. Dump the whole thing out, throw away or put away (in an appropriate place) anything that you don’t use on a regular basis, then replace the items that should actually be in the drawer. Use a drawer organizer, or small boxes, or anything that will create boundaries for that stuff in there can’t get free again.
4. Give away your old clothes. This doesn’t have to be a big project. Grab a box or garbage bag, go to your closet, and quickly, without stopping to talk yourself out of it, toss in all the clothes you haven’t worn in the last six months (unless they’re seasonal and you store them in there). If you are storing out-of-season clothes in your closet, consider boxing them up and putting them out of sight until the appropriate season. A clean, roomy closet makes getting dressed a much more pleasant activity. Take your now-full bag or box to the car and drop it off at a charity next time you run errands.
5. Clean off your bedside table. You don’t need so much stuff there, and it’s only distracting when you’re trying to relax and go to sleep. A lamp, one or two books (no more!), a paper and pen if you often get inspired at night, and one or two other necessities. I have to have my Burt’s Bees Lip Balm handy. Put the rest of that accumulated stuff away: books go to the bookcase, lotions to the bathroom, jewelry to the jewelry box, papers to the filing cabinet or desk, etc. You might even find that you have room for a vase of flowers.
6. Cancel a magazine subscription. If you have two or more of the same magazine sitting around, waiting for you to find time to read them, maybe you should give yourself one less thing to do. If it’s not important, it’s not important. That’s okay. Cancel the subscription, save yourself the money, and quit feeling like you have to read everything your mailbox brings.
7. Switch to online banking. If you haven’t already, you can save lots of time (and money) by taking advantage of online banking. Almost all major banks offer it as a free service, and with online banking you can check your balance, make transfers, pay bills, set up scheduled payments, and use many other services quickly. If you’re unfamiliar with the whole process, get a friend who is more internet-oriented to help you set it up and walk you through the basics.
8. Cancel your land line. If you have a cell phone, you really don’t need a separate home-based telephone line. Increase your cellular coverage if needed and cancel your home phone. You’ll have only one bill to pay, one number to remember, one voice mail system to keep up with, and you’ll probably save money.
9. Say goodbye to Tupperware. Tupperware is the enemy of simplicity in the kitchen. It doesn’t stack, it’s impossible to keep all the lids and containers together, and you never have the right size handy. At least that’s my Tupperware experience. So pull out all those random plastic pieces and send them to Goodwill so they can complicate someone else’s life. Invest in a good stack of disposable containers (take-out boxes, disposable plastics, etc.), a couple of boxes of zip-top bags in different sizes, and some good-quality, glass containers with tight-fitting lids. Use the disposables for lunches, the bags for vegetables, fruits, and anything not liquid, and the glass containers for other leftovers.
10. Set up a phone charging station. Use a power strip if you need more than two outlets; plug in the phone chargers and snake the line up to a hook on the wall or some other handy spot nearby. Every night, you know where to put your phone, and every morning you’ll know where to find it. It’s even better if you can set a bowl or tray nearby to hold car keys, loose change, etc., and a hook on the wall for your purse.
11. Put a trash bucket in your car. It doesn’t need to be big and ugly; in fact, you definitely want something small and unobtrusive. A basket or small crate or container of some kind. Line it with a plastic bag and put your trash in there. When it’s full, tie up the bag and throw it all away.
12. Establish a morning routine. Morning routines work hand-in-hand with a standard wake-up time to create a daily beginning that is peaceful and enjoyable. Keep your morning routine as simple as you can so you can easily remember it, put try to include all the essential activities of the morning. Jot down the best order to do them and start doing them in that order every single morning until it’s so routine you don’t even think about it.
13. Eat the same thing for breakfast every day. If you need more variation, then pick two breakfast items and switch them out, or eat the same thing every day for a week and then switch to something different the next week. The idea is to have a plan and keep the breakfast meal simple. Oatmeal, cereal, a power bar, a fruit smoothie, a muffin and hot tea, whatever appeals to you. Get enough to last for at least a week and eat breakfast every day.
14. Take advantage of the dry cleaner. It’s relatively inexpensive to get shirts and pants dry cleaned, so don’t limit yourself just to silk items or suits. Anything that needs to be ironed is a good candidate. It will come back in perfectly pressed condition and all you have to do is wear it.
15. Cut down on your social networking sites. Do you really need more than one? All the social networking sites exist for the same purpose: social networking. So limit yourself to one site, delete your pages from the rest, and enjoy the networking there for a reasonable amount of time without constantly switching back and forth and talking to the same people on two or three different sites.
16. Use folders to sort your email. Use fairly broad categories that address the kind of email you deal with on a daily basis: Business, Personal, Subscriptions, etc. You might find it helpful to set up individual folders for the people you communicate with most through email.
17. Check email less frequently and respond immediately. Don’t fall into the smoke-break email trap, in which you have to stop and check your email as often and obsessively as a smoker has to stop for a smoke. Determine a few times during the day when it’s convenient for you to check, read, and respond to your emails. Maybe the beginning and end of the day? Right before lunch? Just limit it so you can deal with it all at once.
18. Shop online for gifts at the beginning of each month. This is such a great simplification concept that I’m surprised more people don’t implement it. Pick one day a month and set aside an hour or so to shop online for all the gifts you will need to purchase in the next 30 days or so. Shop, order, pay, and have them shipped. No one minds getting gifts early. If you balk at sending things too early, then bookmark the site and set up a reminder on your calendar to buy and have the gift shipped a little closer to the occasion.
19. Clean out your freezer. Seriously, you don’t even have a clue what might be hiding in there, do you? Throw out all the unidentifiable objects and the out-dated stuff, give the shelves a good scrub with disinfectant spray and a paper towel, then replace, in an orderly fashion, the food that is edible. Now you can actually use what’s in your freezer.
20. Pay your bills when you get your paycheck. If you’ve set up online banking, this process is so simple it’s… well… simple. Pay all the bills that will come due before your next paycheck. There, you’re done, you know how much money you have left over after bills, and you don’t have to worry about it again until your next paycheck.
21. Establish a cleaning routine. If you have a good cleaning routine and follow it consistently, you can keep your house clean in about twenty minutes a day, four or five days a week. As with your morning routine, make a list of things that need to be done on a regular basis – daily or weekly – and follow that routine consistently until it has become second nature. The more consistent you are, the faster you will be at those cleaning tasks.
22. Set up a basic work schedule. See my article on How to Set Up a Schedule for more on this.
23. Get a great haircut. Seriously, a great haircut simplifies your life whether you are male or female, have long or short or curly or straight hair. It’s worth the money to get a style that works with your hair type, is easy to maintain, and doesn’t require a lot of hair products to get you looking decent.
24. Learn to ignore distractions. This is a difficult skill to master, but well worth it. Basically, you need to embrace the idea that the world does not depend on your reaction. You can ignore the arguing couple at the next table, or the annoying music from the car down the street, or the endless forwards your co-worker sends, or any other unnecessary, meaningless distraction. You cannot eliminate distractions, but you can choose to give them no place in your life.
25. Ignore your phone. When you’re knee-deep in a project that requires your total concentration, it’s simply idiotic to stop what you’re doing just to jump across the room, grab your phone, and answer it breathlessly only to find that the caller just needed to find out what time the meeting starts tomorrow or what you want for dinner. I’m not suggesting that you ignore your friends and family members, but that you give yourself permission to focus on what you’re doing while you’re doing it. You have voice mail. Use it.
26. Eat more fresh fruits and vegetables. Not only will you feel better and have more energy when you eat more fresh, raw fruits and vegetables, but you won’t have to stop and “fix a snack” when you get hungry. Fruits and vegetables are the perfect snack food. They provide quick energy without giving you a sugar rush. They clean up easily, they’re portable, and they taste great.
27. Buy household staples in bulk. If you have space to store bulk items, then buy any household staple you replace weekly in a bigger supply and save yourself the trouble. Items like toilet paper, paper towels, diapers, and many pantry food staples are available in bulk quantities that usually save you a significant amount of money. You do need a place to store these things, however, so don’t just run out and buy a bunch of stuff unless you know where you’re going to put it.
28. Say no to stupid requests. Seriously, it’s okay to quit babysitting the perfectly capable adults who surround you at home or at work. Don’t be rude, but do be firm. They’ll probably be a little shocked if they are used to having you jump and run every time they ask for something, but they’ll get used to it and they’ll learn how to take care of those things without your help.
29. Write everything down. Writing lists and notes keeps your brain from feeling like it has to remember all those items. I use a simple notebook for everything from writing daily journal entries to article ideas to a master to-do list for house projects. I grab it when I go out the door and have it for reference if I need it, or if I think of something else to add.
30. Take a walk. Sometimes what we all need is a reminder that the world is big and we are small. Get outside for ten or twenty minutes, breathe, admire the trees and the grass and the sky and the clouds, feel the rain or the sun, let your muscles stretch and relax.

Simplification is not about achieving a constant state of tranquility or foregoing all commercially produced items, even if those are noble goals. Start simplifying with simple steps.

We are on a somewhat self-imposed deadline right now to get lots of things done around the house. My family (Dad, Sister, Sister’s two kids, Sister’s boyfriend) is coming to visit next week. How many of you can give me an Amen on the powerful motivation of family coming to visit? Somehow, even though I know these are the people who know all my strangeness and love me anyway, I want to make things perfect for them. Maybe it’s because they are the people who know all my strangeness and love me anyway.

So we have been spending every night working on the basement bathroom remodel or making trip to Home Depot or both. I’ve been cranking through lots of organizational stuff: cleaning, decluttering, rearranging. It is all stuff that needs to be done and I am excited to see it happening. I do long, however, for an evening when we come home, take more than twenty minutes to eat dinner, and then just relax. Ah. You don’t know what you got till it’s gone.

I am enjoying the fruits of our labor. The kitchen looks great. I should say, also, that lest you think I am Superwoman for cleaning and organizing all my kitchen cabinets in one day, be aware that I have a petite kitchen. 3 full cabinets. 1 drawer. Organizing my kitchen is a continual necessity.

Better Life Tip: Eat breakfast. If you don’t have time to cook something for breakfast, keep easy options on hand: bananas, yogurt, granola, muffins, bagels. Something healthy and good in the morning will make your day better.

BASIC SCHEDULING
I like to keep my schedule pretty basic. It includes 1) A Beginning and an End and 2) Time Blocks. There are multiple planning calendars in as many formats as you can dream up. I find them all too complicated for my simple living preferences. This is not true for everyone; my husband loves his Franklin Covey planner and uses it faithfully. I feel restricted by all those boxes with lines and titles. The perfectionist in me just can’t leave well enough alone, so I spend more time scheduling in all the pretty boxes than I do actually implementing my schedule. Since the point of a schedule is to simplify and to increase productivity, and I find that the more complex planners accomplish neither goal for me, I stick with my basics and forgo the professional leather-binder look. You might find that a combination of methods works best for you. My advice is this: start simple and be diligent with your simple scheduling techniques. Once you know they work for you, you can tweak and add on and adjust to your heart’s delight. Don’t start way at the top of the complex calendar hierarchy. The very complexity is too overwhelming to keep up when you’re first learning how to schedule, and you’ll get discouraged and drop it all.

A BEGINNING AND AN END
This topic makes me think of Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music, when she first attempts to teach the Captain’s children how to sing: “Let’s start at the very beginning, a very good place to start…” Of course, she drops her little Happy Beginnings song in favor of the inexplicably popular Do-Re-Mi. We, however, shall carry our Happy Beginnings all the way to Happy Endings.

What needs a beginning and an end is your working day. Your entire day is capped on both ends automatically by your bed. You wake up and get out of bed, your day begins. You get sleepy and get back in bed, your day ends. I see no reason to mess with that kind of perfection, unless you need some help on the waking up and getting out of bed part. We’ll get to that in another article. For now, we’re dealing with the workday itself, the part of the day that begins after you’ve been awakened by the sound of bluebirds (or the alarm clock) and, I hope, have eaten a halfway decent breakfast. Oh, also, you should get dressed. Maybe even before breakfast.
Your workday beginning may be set in stone already. You have to be at the office at 9:00 am. There you go. 9:00 am it is. For those of us who work in more flexible fields, in which the office hours dictate next to nothing, setting a Beginning is a matter of choice and convenience. If you’re a stay-at-home Mom trying to wake, dress, and feed three kids, then give yourself enough time to do that before you try to get down to the rest of your work. If you’re a work-from-home small business owner who likes to start the day with a two-hour gym session, then set your workday beginning accordingly.

The End of the workday is just as important as the beginning. Again, this may be dictated by office hours, or it may be a matter of choice and fitting in with what happens in the rest of your day. Perhaps it’s 3:00 pm when the kids get home from school. Perhaps it’s 6:00 pm when your spouse gets home from work. Perhaps it’s 9:00 pm when you realize you haven’t eaten anything since noon. (I don’t recommend that last time option, by the way.) Choose an End. Put a cap on your working hours. Sure, you can always choose to do “extra” work or finish up projects in the evening if you want to, but that should be something you do because you really want to, not because you have to, and it should never interfere with your family time or social obligations.

My workday beginning is 8:00 am and my workday end is 5:00 pm. Of course there is more that happens before and after those times, but it is within those times that I block out time for work and have specific goals to accomplish.

BLOCKING OUT YOUR TIME
I learned this one from my husband, who implements the concept with his Franklin Covey planner in a way I can only admire. The idea itself is rather simple and works beautifully for helping to keep me on track without overwhelming me with details.
Establish the basic key areas of your work.
Note how much time you would like to spend per week on each area.
Note your recurring obligations: errands, events, meetings, social responsibilities, etc.
Plug in time blocks for those key areas.
Don’t worry about the details!

THE KEY AREAS
Since I am a stay-at-home Mom and a work-from-home writer, my key areas are Household and Writing. Keep your key areas as general and broad as you can. There is always opportunity to hash out the details later. Try to have no more than four key areas. You want to be able to remember them and you want to be able to block time for them all. If you have too many, you’ll defeat yourself before you even get started.

NOTE YOUR PREFERRED TIME
I would like to put in 15 – 20 hours per week in Writing and I know I need to put in at least 10 – 15 hours per week in Household if I am going to keep things running smoothly. Remember, the more key areas you have the less time you can put into each one.

NOTE YOUR RECURRING OBLIGATIONS
Note all the meetings, social events, church and school events, regular errands, or other obligations that take place within your workday. Do they occur at the same time every week? Do they vary from week to week? Approximately how much time per week is required for these obligations? If your workday lasts for 7 hours, 5 days a week, and your recurring obligations take up about 2 hours per day, 5 days a week, then you need to subtract 10 hours from your 35 working hours to get your actual working total: 25 hours.

PLUG IN TIME BLOCKS
If you have 4 key areas and you would like to spend 6 hours per week on each one, you’ve got a total of 24 hours available. With your total of 25 working hours, you’re within your boundaries but haven’t left yourself much room for padding. It’s a good start and you can tweak it as you go. Now it’s your choice as to where you place those time blocks. You can spend six hours in a row on one of your key areas, then switch to another the next day. Or you can divide it up: 2 hours for Area 1, then 2 hours for Area 2, etc. It’s much, much better if these blocks can be a standard, repeated schedule. Repetition will result in unconscious mental training and you’ll be much more productive during your working time.

DON’T WORRY ABOUT THE DETAILS!
Don’t waste your time on 10-minute blocks for every little event that makes a demand on your time. You want to get a big picture that is simple enough to carry with you even if you’re not carrying a planner or calendar.

A PICTURE IS WORTH A THOUSAND SCHEDULING INSTRUCTIONS
Here’s what my daily schedule looks like. It’s pretty simple, and even though I still write it down almost every day just to keep myself on track, I can remember it without my notebook.

• 8-10 HOUSEHOLD
• 10-12 WRITING
• 12 Lunch, etc.
• 1-3 HOUSEHOLD
• 3-5 WRITING/Rest

While I can set aside my writing, the household obligations don’t automatically shut off at 5pm. That’d be nice, but I have never gotten it to work that way. There’s that pesky problem of supper and needing to bathe children and little things like that. So I do what needs to be done for my household work after the official workday ends, but I keep it to a minimum. The bulk of my cooking and cleaning I try to get done in those scheduled hours.

FLEXIBILITY
That’s my standard schedule, but it isn’t etched in stone or even written in Sharpie. I’m often behind or ahead by half an hour or so. If I have a big household project I want to complete, I’ll commit a couple of writing blocks to it. No guilt. It’s my schedule, after all, and the point of it is to keep my life simple and productive and to help me accomplish my goals. A schedule is a fluid thing and will change with every season of your life. That’s okay. Work with it. Tweak it. Be open to change. But have that basic structure in place so you don’t end up just floating around aimlessly, wondering at 6pm where the last 8 hours went and why you didn’t get anything done. Having a schedule gives you a plan, a starting point, an agenda so you can say NO to the unnecessary because you have already committed to the necessary. It also gives you freedom and flexibility so you can allocate time the way you want to without feeling guilty about it.

COMMON SCHEDULING PROBLEMS
Cramming: You are a mere human, after all. Eating, sleeping, and bathroom breaks are a necessary part of life. You can’t schedule them out. And you are surrounded by a lot of other mere humans, who may call you on the phone or stop by your desk or need help with an important presentation or with tying their shoes. Don’t cram so much into your schedule that losing ten minutes of it sets you hopelessly behind. Keep your time blocks big. It’s okay if you give a few minutes away here and there. Give yourself some padding.
Detailing: Detailing your car, good idea. Detailing your schedule, not so much. If you came up with 15 key areas that you’re trying to block time for, you have complicated your life far more than any human should. This practice keeps you from seeing a big picture. Details will only allow you to see chopped-up tidbits and you will never feel like you’re making any big progress. Compare. Does it sound better to say, “I just spend 15 minutes on cleaning and then 10 minutes on decorating and then 15 minutes on meal preparation and then 10 minutes on cleaning out the refrigerator and then 5 minutes on checking email and then 20 minutes on laundry and then 10 minutes on sorting the mail…” or to say, “I just spend two hours managing the household.” Don’t feel that you have to have a 100-item list of things you’ve done at the end of the day. A short list of a few good, solid, big ones is far more satisfying.
Varying: If you have to spend 15 minutes every morning planning out how to block your time, you’re making it too complicated. Obviously there are things you can’t control and can’t plan for ahead of time. But to the extent that your life and obligations have repeating, weekly patterns, you can block time in a repeating pattern. If you’ve kept your key areas broad enough, you can focus on a variety of different items within each time block to keep yourself from feeling bored.
Forgetting: I say forgetting, but the real problem is Failing to Implement. Once you’ve made your schedule, use it! If you’re not sure you’ll like it, try it for a week or a month. You can adjust all the parts that don’t work for you. Just commit to it. Be diligent. Make it a foundational part of your life, and you’ll streamline about 30 decisions that you currently have to make every day into one easily remembered plan of action.

Go get ‘em, Tiger.