UPDATED 05/17/2025
You’ve decided to control your life better, but think it’s too hard. Think again! Simplifying your life is easier than you think. You need to start by reducing the amount of things that come in to your life and reduce your energy spend. Ultimately, increasing the energy you have to give back, be productive, and live your life the way you choose.
If you’re thinking you have to give up everything, I promise you, you don’t. Think smaller. We’re going to start with the junk mail that shows up in your inbox or mailbox.
How often do you subscribe to someone’s newsletter just to get the discount on something? I do it all the time! But after I get the freebie or make that purchase, how often do I actually read that newsletter? The same goes for the snail mail. We get tons of ads in our mailboxes that are meant to entice us to go make a purchase. Most times we don’t and those mailers just get thrown in the trash.
So in order to control your life, you need to make time to decrease the unwanted stuff. When you do, you’ll have better focus, increase your productivity, and allow you to do things that make your heart sing. when you control your life, you’re in charge and get to decide what you want. You start to live in the present. And please know this, it’s not about having every second of every single day be perfect.
Here are three ways you can start to control your life, simplify it, and take charge of your life.
TIP # 1 – Control Your Life in the Inbox
How do you do that? Unsubscribe from unwanted emails and unwanted mailers. It takes a little bit of energy and time but it’s incredibly worth it. Unsubscribing and getting yourself off the distribution list is one of the best things you can do for things that no longer serve you. If you want to stop unsolicited mail, check out this article that has all the links you need.
TIP # 2 – Control Your Clutter
This is one of my favorite things to do! Purging takes unwanted items from your home (or office) and helps you simplify your environment. You can make time to throw away trash, collect recyclables, and put things back where they belong. Everything has a home. Pick one day each week to walk around your home, toss items that don’t belong anymore and put things back where they belong. The easiest way to do this is to grab a trash bag (or two) and a laundry basket.
You’ll do two sweeps of your home and on the first pass, you’ll pick up all the trash, recyclables, and all the items that have been misplaced. Use the trash bags for the trash and recyclables and the laundry basket for the items that need to be put in another place in the house. On the first pass, just do the pick up. Don’t try to do anything else because you’ll lose focus, get distracted, and find you are actually wasting time. On the second pass, you’ll put the trash and recyclables where you store these items and put away the items that you have in the laundry basket. Throughout this whole process, you may even find things that you don’t want anymore that you want to donate. This is the magic of the purge and declutter process.
TIP # 3 – Control Your Life on the Calendar
Even if you think I’ve lost my marbles, stay with me here. Putting a “Do Nothing Day” on your calendar once a week allows you to have a little freedom. This event allows you choose to not have plans that day, just free time. Having this scheduled forces you to make the other days be work days. Ones where you hit the ground running from the moment your feet hit the floor. But a “Do Nothing Day” is where you intend to do nothing. If something comes up, you have the ability to choose if you want to partake. I have this on my calendar at least once a week and it’s pure gold.
Simplifying isn’t hard. You just need to choose what’s important in your life so you can control your life. Decide what your priorities are and then remove the other stuff that doesn’t really matter all that much.
