Trying to Simplify Life

This past Sunday marked my last day of working seven days a week.  I bit off more than I could chew in September by agreeing to work at Pearl’s Café in Waterton on Sundays in addition to my full time job and coaching part time (including Saturdays). But if that exhausting and hectic month taught me anything, it’s that I complicate my own life and am the main cause of my stress.

Over the remainder of 2014 I am attempting to simplify life a bit and reduce stress. Below are a few ways I am undertaking this task:

Unsubscribing & Unfollowing

I had no idea how stressed out I was by my full inbox and social feeds. I had several email promotions coming in that I would delete, but another would arrive the next day, and another and another. I am finally taking the time to hit unsubscribe on every email promotion I get that I don’t read through.

I also made a major edit to my Feedly account and Twitter feed. If I wasn’t reading through at least every other post all the way through, it was deleted. If I wasn’t retweeting or enjoying the last few tweets, I unfollowed.

I can’t believe how much this has reduced my stress levels already.

Hiring Someone to Clean/Keeping the House in Order

I have been asking Ryan to let me hire someone to do deep cleaning for more than a year but he kept saying that was lazy of me. This month, I had ENOUGH when I was trying to vacuum stairs and clean toilets in between all those hours of work. I hired a high school kid who comes in one a week for two hours and does deep cleaning and some light tidying. It has already paid for itself when I actually got to relax with the family this weekend and watch movies, nap and bake a pie! That was time I was usually cleaning, or stressing out about how I should have been cleaning. And I’m helping a local kid earn money, our tiny village doesn’t have a lot of jobs for locals so this is a chance for her to make some extra spending money.

To that end, I found that forcing myself to tidy up the main living areas every couple days has also made a big difference. I used to leave it all until the weekend but the mess would stress me out. Doing a quick half hour of picking up in the evenings is helping.

Getting my Damn Finances in Order!

I have come to the conclusion that I am bad with money. I never save a penny so an unexpected expenses throw me behind on payments, which adds fines , which puts me further behind- it’s a huge mess. My broken down car is now paid off. I’m going to continue to drive my husband’s clunker that I hate through the winter so I can use what went to car payments toward bills and actually building up a savings account! This will take SO MUCH stress off me!!

Leaving my phone in another room in the evenings

I don’t watch TV, I listen to it. I am glued to my phone in the evenings when Ryan and I watch movies or TV. I scroll through my Instagram or Twitter feeds or I’m playing Pet Rescue Saga. I need to detach myself a little bit and I think the only way that will happen is if I have the phone in a completely different room.

Making a 3 Things List at Work

I’ve been doing this for awhile and it’s been extremely successful for me. I have a master to so list of everything I need to do. Each morning I create a list of the three things I will focus on that day and I stick to it as much as I can. Once in a while something important that can’t wait will come up, but for the most part this has helped me be more efficient and feel like I have it all under control. And it feels good to cross items off your list every day.

Buying a treadmill

This is my goal in the next two months. I have barely worked out (except for hikes) all month! On days I coach after work and get home at 9 p.m., the only way I can get a workout in is at lunch or in the mornings. I would like to be able to run three mornings a week before work. This will help me distress and get that out of the way so I’m ready to face the rest of my day.

Red wine!

I love how good I feel sipping a good red wine. I love it.

LET IT GO

I am constantly working on this one. I am a Type A perfectionist and my house is a first home, fixer upper and being there stresses me out because all I can do is think of all the expensive renovations it needs. I’m working on letting it go and knowing that it will all be done in time after I have a savings account put aside.

Do you have any other tips to streamline life a little?