15 Intentional Ways to Simplify Your Life

Are you in need of some help to simplify your life?

Whether you’re starting a new year or not, now is always a great time to reassess our current lifestyle and make positive changes. One of the most common complaints from people is they don’t make enough time for themselves, or their families, or to just do things they want to do. We find ourselves filling up our free time with mindless Facebook scrolling, endless washing and cleaning, and doing things that we probably should have just said no to.

Make this year a year to remember, a year for you to work on how you can simplify your life. The start of saying no to things you don’t want to do and yes to things that you have wanted to do for too long. Take a step back and reassess what is important and what isn’t, what is adding unnecessary stress in our lives and what we want more and less of.

15 Ways to Simplify Your Life!

1. Declutter

There is no greater path to simplify your life than through decluttering. When we remove the excess we can focus more on the essential. By removing things that do not add value to our life we help to simplify our lives. By reducing the clutter in our homes we open ourselves up to numerous benefits. We reduce; the anxiety caused by too much stuff, the amount of time we waste cleaning and maintaining our stuff, and can soon notice the financial benefits when we are more intentional with our spending. Check out these 101 Things to Declutter in Your Home Right Now to get you started!

2. Learn to say no

Don’t fill in your weeknights and weekends and leave yourself no downtime or time to reset. It’s okay to say no to people and events and put your needs first. If there is an invite to something you are really not keen to go to for whatever reason; you can’t afford it, it doesn’t sound fun to you, you really feel like you can’t possibly cram one more thing into this week, it’s okay to RSVP no. Simplify your life by reserving your time for what truly brings you joy.

Declutter With Me Course

If you want help decluttering and simplifying your home – and keeping it that way – check out my course Declutter With Me, where I will teach you home to minimise the clutter in your home and give you tools and strategies to change your consumption habits for good.

If you are interested to learn more about my course you can by clicking the button below!

3. Say yes to things you want to do

We can often get tied up doing the things we don’t want to do and the things we want to do end up falling by the wayside. Once we learn to prioritise our time better we have more time to do the things we really want to do like relax, exercise, watch a movie, learn a new instrument, read or whatever we like. By learning to say no more, we open up our calendar to say yes to more spontaneous things like a beach day when it’s perfect weather or hanging out with someone you just met.

4. Find joy in the small things

You don’t need to buy the latest iPhone or go on endless vacations to find joy. Don’t just live for big buys and get aways when there is joy to be found in everyday things. Make time to do things that adds joy every day and take the time to appreciate them.

It could be playing a game with your kids, watching an interesting documentary, having a hot chocolate and smelling a yummy candle on a relaxing night at home in front of the TV. When we learn to find joy in the little things we can simplify our lives and learn to appreciate the small things.

5. Remove and minimise toxic relationships

Toxic relationships add drama and stress to our everyday lives. They can consume us, take our focus off our goals and hold us back. Joshua Fields Milburn from The Minimalists in his blog titled ‘Fake‘ says ‘You can’t change the people around you, but you can change the people around you’. 

This really is the crux of our relationships, we can’t change people in our lives but we can change who we keep close to us. Sometimes we need to remove or minimise contact with people in our lives, even if only temporarily, who take away from our happiness or that are toxic and detrimental to our well-being.

When we remove people that take our energy and bring us down and hold us back, we can remove an unnecessary barrier to our unhappiness and lead lives of positivity and growth. Sometimes even a simple conversation about new boundaries and expectations can redirect a toxic relationship into a more healthy one. Or maybe you will just be more conscious to limit the time you spend around certain people in your life that take from you and give nothing back.

6. Read more

Who has ever said I wish I had less time to read? Reading is a rewarding way to destress, learn new things, unwind and get lost in a book. When we make time to read, we are making time to sit down, stop all other distractions and focus on one activity that will aid you to simplify your life. Another benefit of reading is to teach you new skills that will help you to simplify your life such as a book on habit building.

7. Spend less time on social media

A lot of time can be freed up by spending less time on social media and on our phones. You probably don’t even realise how much time you are losing aimlessly browsing your phone. Make a conscious decision to use social media less. Simplify your life by deleting apps off your phone for a small period of time, but if that is too scary to consider, try timing your use. Limit yourself to your tea break only or put your phone away at a particular time each night. When you have important things to do put your phone on flight mode or hide it in a drawer so it is out of sight, out of mind. At a minimum, leave your phone off the table when you are having dinner with your partner, family or friends and just be present.

8. Simplify your wardrobe

Simplify your life by reviewing your wardrobe and identifying what clothes you feel are truly you at this time. Be honest with yourself about what you will and won’t wear. Don’t be afraid to let go of items you no longer need, you can always replace them with more suitable and loved pieces. When we limit our overflowing wardrobes we reduce the stress we encounter with picking an outfit before running out the door. Make your mornings less stressful by adopting a capsule wardrobe and simplify your life.

To get started you can grab your free Capsule Wardrobe Planner here!

9. Eat less and be more mindful with food

With YouTube, TV, Netflix, Messenger Chats, and all the other distractions we can sometimes find ourselves unaware of how much we are eating.

Simplify your life by being more mindful of what food you are eating and how much you are eating. Take your time eating. Acknowledge whether you are full and stop eating if you are and try and take note of whether you are just eating out of boredom.

10. Reduce Stress

Simplify your life by identifying things that cause stress and aim to minimise or eliminate them.

Is your work a toxic environment? Consider changing jobs.

Is your housework overwhelming you? Consider hiring a cleaner to come out and take the load off you.

Is going out all weekend not allowing you the time to reset and unwind after the workweek? Limit your outings on the weekend to one or two so that you have time to catch up on things at home and to relax.

Pay attention to the signs.

Is your heart rate elevated? Is breathing difficult? Do you feel overwhelmed and like you can’t stop worrying about things? If the stress is starting to have a negative impact on your life, seek help and see a psychologist who can help you with making the necessary changes and give you coping mechanisms for dealing with stress.

11. Limit your exposure to advertising

There is nothing more meaningless than spending your time watching ad after ad. Find ways to limit this and simplify your life. Some ways to try and limit exposure to ads is

-Sign up for Spotify membership and listen to your favourite music without the ad interruptions (although some podcasts still advertise but you can still skip though).

-Reduce free-to-air TV that is packed with ads and stick to ad-free streaming services such as Netflix.

-Be more selective of magazines that you buy as a large portion of them are just advertising.

-Considering paying for the YT subscription service to skip the ads

12. Unsubscribe from unwanted email subscriptions

Having an overflowing inbox with unopened email after unopened email can be soul-destroying. Simplify your life by eliminating unnecessary subscriptions from your inbox. Unsubscribe from each email as they come in if you feel that they do not add value and are cluttering up your inbox.

Not only will this save you potential money when you are no longer bombarded with sale after sale notifications, but will save you valuable time opening excess emails and managing them in your inbox.

13. Automate your finances

Take the stress out of budgeting and managing your finances and simplify your life by automating your finances.

You’ll save yourself the work of doing the transfers manually each pay and get the joy of watching your savings account grow over time!

Related Article: Check out How I Discovered Financial Stability Through Minimalism 

14. Limit your snail mail

Simplify your life with a simple phone call and get all your bills emailed to you and skip the hassle of sorting through mail each week. This will not only eliminate having to go through your mail but also avoid that pile-up of bills that is inevitable when you get snail mail.

You can also set up automatic filters based on keywords in your gmail account that will digitally file your bills for you, no need to do any physical filing at home!

Simplify your life further by limiting time wasted on collecting junk mail by sticking up a no junk mail sign on your letterbox. If you really need something you can quickly google it to find the best prices! And if you really want to browse a catalogue you can always find it online. I did this years ago and haven’t looked back! 🙂

15. Pack less when travelling

As someone who travels a few times a year (update post-pandemic: boo, hopefully I can back to my love of travelling soon!) this has really saved my own sanity. In the past, I would have packed 23kg of luggage to the brim plus carry on, assuming I would need more than I really did.

Do yourself a favour to intentionally simplify your life, the next time you travel pack minimally. It will mean less frustration at the airport waiting for your bags and dealing with lost baggage (trust me, losing your luggage one time is one time too many), will make getting around easier as your luggage is smaller and weighs less and travel will be much less stressful, and it’ll be easier to find things in your bag as you need them. And as a bonus, you will save money on hefty baggage fees if you are flying!

Do You Want Help With Spending Your Money With Intention?

If you want to learn how to spend your money with intention and in line with your values and take the stress and anxiety out of your money, book in for a free Q&A call to see how Minimise With Me financial coaching can help you gain clarity around your finances! 

You can learn more about my financial coaching services and how I can help you achieve your financial goals here. 

What changes have you implemented to help you simplify your life? What do you want to do to simplify your life this year? Share your thoughts in the comments below 🙂