Coco Chanel once said “Simplicity is the final achievement. After one has played a vast quantity of notes and more notes, it is simplicity that emerges as the crowning reward of art.” That’s quite a pretentious means of opening an article, but the sentiment is resoundingly true, and can be followed in our personal lives, too.
If you’ve found that life has become overly complex in recent years, if you feel you have no time for anything, or if you feel more scatter-minded than ever, sometimes it can be worthwhile to return to a simple lifestyle. This isn’t to say you can’t indulge or enjoy your hard-earned cash, or that going out with your friends or enjoying yourself on your travels are experiences you should avoid.
Of course, nor does it mean avoiding responsibilities we have, you can’t just avoid looking after your children because an online guide said that the simple life is best. Instead, it’s good to focus on streamlining parts of our life for convenience, comfort and ease, and to bring things back to basics. In this post, we’ll discuss how exactly to do that, and what the benefits of such an effort might be:
Selling Unnecessary Possessions
Chances are, in your home there are cupboards, drawers, a storage space and perhaps a few shelves absolutely cluttered with your possessions. This is not necessarily a bad thing. However, when your home feels as though it’s way too busy, when you can’t remember why you’ve purchased items, or when you need more space but simply can’t find it, it’s good to consider if selling unnecessary possessions is a worthwhile use of your time.
This can involve anything, from selling your old Blu-Ray collection now that you only watch streaming content, getting cash for gold and diamonds in your jewelry collection, or selling that old piece of dusty home gym equipment you used twice and haven’t found the time for since.
Of course, there are many benefits to this effort. Not only do you declutter your home and gain space for new items, but you can unlock the value of such possessions at a time when the cost of living is rising at an unprecedented rate. Could now be the time to simplify your stock of personal possessions?
Learn To Enjoy The Small Things
The truth is that if you struggle to enjoy the small things in life, the larger and more exciting things tend to feel a little less vibrant. By “small things” we really mean the small things. For instance, buying a small green tea matcha set allows you to wake up, make some tea, and relax watching the sunrise each morning, enjoying the depth of flavor and richness of color in your beautiful fragrant morning drink. As you get older, these experiences can be joyful. You might even use this to inspire change, such as changing your sweet treat to fresh fruit every day during your lunch break.
It’s good to get away from focusing on constant productivity in kind, for example, a day off to spend playing with your children can be more comforting than thinking you always have to go out and spend money with them whenever you have time free. Enjoy the small things, and your life will become richer.
Lessen Your Content Intake
Content, content, content seems to the rule of our day-to-day, from news updates to YouTube videos to articles like this one, and all of this comes before you even check your social media pages.
From time to time, it’s good to detox from all of this noise and information, and instead try to lessen your content intake. On most smartphones you can choose to set your notifications to come only at certain times, meaning that certain apps can only alert you twice a day as opposed to throughout the day.
Making the effort to lessen your content intake helps you get away from your phone, laptop or computer more easily. You might also choose to go for morning walks without headphones, just your dog and the nice weather. Screens dominate our lives in 2023, and so taking some time to avoid them can be helpful and necessary for many looking to simplify their well-being efforts.
Focus On You
Odds are, many people rely on you. You might have a family, or a career, or just people you’re trying to care for, like a friend, a sibling, or your parents. However, sometimes it’s important to recognize that you cannot look after other people without looking after yourself.
This is why, from time to time, it’s important to focus on you. This means taking some time to relax, and to think about your day to day wellbeing. It might mean booking a spa day with your friend, or it might mean getting into a hobby you enjoy, like painting watercolors in your spare room during the evenings.
You might not have much time for this, and you may only have the energy to sit in a comfortable corner and reach your book each weekend. That’s all wonderful, so long as you focus on you. This allows you to limit your need to constantly plan for others, and instead lets you relax and melt into the moment, with no pressure.
Keep Priorities Simple
It’s okay if you only have time for a few distinct priorities. Perhaps that might be looking after your children, running three times a week, working a job remotely, and perhaps enjoying the odd movie with your partner. It’s okay if your hobby is more like a small pastime. It’s okay if you’re not overbearing social with all of your friends as you have your family to care for. It’s okay if you only have one friend outside of your family unit. It’s important to recognize that the depth of your connections is so much more important than curating dozens of surface relationships you have no time to maintain. Keep it simple and focused, this way you only have to apply yourself to those major things that matter.
With this advice, you’re sure to enjoy the timeless art of simplifying your life.
