Designing a Simple Life

Modern day culture screams at us from all directions that more is better. If you be more, do more then you’ll have more. But do all these things make you and your family truly happier? Sometimes all it takes is stepping back and doing a little self audit to realise that sometimes you don’t need more and that you are enough.

Living a simple life doesn’t mean you have to throw away most of your possessions and go and live off grid in a rural cottage in the Lakes! (save this for nice weekends away for a real reset!) But it just means taking a step back and being more aware of what you invest your time and energy into. Look into reducing unnecessary distractions so you can focus on what really matters.

Here’s our top 5 tips for Living a Simple Life

1. Become aware of what really matters to you. Is this spending time with your family, growing your business or taking part in your favourite hobby? How long do you typically spend on these? Whilst doing this you’ll come to realise that you spend a lot of time on things that you don’t value as much! 
2. Invest your time and energy into the important things that actually matter to you. Now we’re not advising that you stop spending time at work because it doesn’t really matter to you (unless you happen upon a big lottery win!) But if you regularly find yourself spending lots of time outside of your normal working hours playing catch up on things you didn’t get chance to finish during the day, then this is a sign to reassess your working patterns. Can you delegate some of these tasks to other members of the team? If not, it may be worth looking at hiring someone new. And if you don’t want to set this up on a permanent basis, have you thought of hiring a VA on an ad-hoc basis just to help you get back on top of things and get back to enjoying those things that matter the most to you? 
3. Once you’ve managed to free up some of your time go ahead and use it. Have an hour to yourself where you can do nothing. Read a book in the bath, go on a walk and get some fresh air? Try your hand at something new that you haven’t done before but always fancied like meditation or yoga (plenty of free resources on YouTube) Even plan in time to just spend time together as a family doing something simple like having a movie night on the sofa.
4. Don’t let bad experiences ruin days. If you can, take away any learning points then draw a line under it. Don’t ruin a good day by thinking about a bad yesterday.
5. Be aware and practice gratitude for what you’ve got and don’t compare yourself to others. Whether that’s as simple as your health, your children (even if they’ve been driving you up the wall) or the roof over your head.

Living a simple life is all about stepping back, giving yourself chance to breathe and working out your priorities so you can stop wasting your time and energy on something that doesn’t really matter that greatly in the grand scheme of things. Once you start taking some of these things into account you’ll find yourself feeling a lot happier and enjoying your time more and more. Life is precious and you never know what tomorrow will hold so make the most of every moment!