Living more Simply

If you are trying to find a way, or several ways, to live a life with less stress then you may want to consider some tips that can help you live a more simpler life. Most of these tips can help you stay relaxed, less stressed, more organized, and more prepared.

Prepare your weekly meals ahead of time. At the beginning of each week, prepare what you will have for breakfast, lunch, and dinner so you will be ready, have all the ingredients that you will need and you can just grab them and go without standing around and panicking that you have nothing prepared for your meals.

Only keep the clothes that you actually are wearing or will wear or have been wearing. The goes with all items in your house. If you have clothes that you need wore, never will wear, or never will need, give them away. Sell them or donate them. If you have old playing cards or junk in the attic or garage that you will never touch again (except to relocate them or move them aside) then sell or donate them. It will give you more room for new items and clothes that you actually will wear or use.

Make your own cleaning supplies. Look online for easy recipes, go out and buy the ingredients and then create your own cleaning spray or liquids. Doing this can save money and it may even work better than the stuff you buy in the store. Test all ingredients, experiment a little bit and create something that works best for you. Make sure you aren't allergic to it first. This can include cleaning, hygiene, or beauty products.

Grow your own veggies and fruits. The simplest and easiest reason for this is to save money when you go grocery shopping. Of course in most situations, you will have to do this in the Summer time. But, if you create a big garden and grow tons of rows filled with carrots, green beans, corn, peppers, etc then you could have enough for most of the Winter and Summer, especially if you freeze them so they won't rot or go bad when just sitting in your fridge for months.

Have a planned schedule during the week for when you clean the house or do laundry. This may help you stay organized a little bit. Pick a specific day and let that be your laundry day. For example, if you pick Monday, do your laundry on a Monday (if you have enough clothes to make a good load). However, If you are going to choose a day to do all your cleaning, I suggest you split it up so you aren't so tired or stressed. For example, perhaps on Monday you clean the floors and dust the furniture. Then maybe on another day, you can vacuum and clean the bathrooms. Don't act like you have to do everything at once. This puts a lot of stress on you and your day. Especially if you are college student who has to cook, clean, do homework, have family plans, has to go shopping, etc. This is stressful if you live alone and have to do everything on your own. So, split up the days and set a specific schedule for yourself. Or better yet, make everything you do, fun. For example, if you have a science paper due and your stressed about it. Work for maybe 20 minutes then go for a walk which can give you time to think about how you want to continue or change your paper in order to make it better. Plus, it is super refreshing. And then come back in and work some more. If you are cleaning, put on some music, and dance around while you dust, just be careful not to fall if you are cleaning the floor while dancing.

Spend as much time outside as you can. Time outside can help you stay relaxed, focused, and feel less stressed. Go out and take a walk.

Laugh more. Laughing makes you feel great and it certainly helps you reduce stress. Hang out with friends, put on a funny movie, do anything you can that can help you laugh it up.

Make a to-do list. This is where you can get really creative. You can create a white board and write down your daily check list for the day. Clean the house, go shopping, do science homework, feel the cats/dogs/animals, call mom(it's her birthday,etc), cook a meal, exercise for 60 minutes, etc. These can also act like daily goals. Once completed, check mark it off and then erase it at the end of the day and start over by writing the goals for the next day. This can also act as a reminder just in case you forget to do something during the day.

Those are some main ways of living simply, you can also try to be more open minded, more productive, try to do more things that you enjoy, worry less, try to smile more, forgive and forget the things that is in the past. I hope these helped you become less stressed.

I love the way you put so much thought into your writing. Those are a lot of great tips. Especially having a schedule for housework. I have a bad habit of just scheduling stuff for "later". That's funny about dancing. I think some wearable dustmops would be fun. And good exercise.