Tag Archives: advice

The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak.—Hans Hofmann

When I met my wife 10 years ago, she was a minimalist and I was, well, the opposite. I was an impulsive consumer, always “wanting” and “needing” the latest and greatest. I held on to things both physical and emotional. I kept things, like clothes that I hadn’t worn in years, because I thought maybe one day I would want to wear them again or they would come back in style.  I held onto emotional stuff mainly because I wasn’t even aware of the harm it was doing to me. I held grudges, anger and resentment and had a lot of trouble letting go. I was always “busy” mostly because I was disorganized, I couldn’t say NO and I always wanted to please everyone. As the years went on, my wife fortunately started rubbing off on me and showed me lots of easy ways to simplify my life.

Looking back over the past 10 years I realized that everyone can benefit from her lessons, so I put together this list. Simplifying your life is a process of eliminating everything that is not essential, getting rid of clutter, both emotional and physical, and reducing excess and complexities. This in turn reduces stress and frees up time and space, so you can do the things you actually want to do and help you on the road to a more meaningful life. Even small changes in our environment, thoughts,  habits and attitude can make a big difference in our lives. Funny thing is, this started as a list of 100 easy ways to simplify your life, but instead I decided that the first step to simplifying your life would be to cut down this list. So here are the top 25 ways that worked for me, let us know what works for you. Continue reading »