31 things I QUIT to simplify my life | MINIMALISM Lifestyle

hi everyone welcome back to the cottage today I'm going to share with you 31 things I no longer do or buy and eliminating these from my life has really helped to simplify it well who doesn't want a more simple life I think we're all searching for this in some way shape or form and I have found it personally really helpful to listen to other people's perspectives and hear of different tips and ideas of how they've been able to simplify their lives and so I thought today I would share what I have learned over living as a minimalist for about six to seven years and ways that I've been able to simplify My Life by cutting things out I want to be clear before I start this list that just because these things work for me and they simplify my life they may not work for you and so keep that in mind as you're listening to each item and would you do me a favor when you're done watching today's video go down in the comment section and let me know which items I talk about that you would like to give a try and see if they work in your life and which ones you would not ever consider trying I would just be really curious and I'd love to hear from you all right let's get started on the list I gave up drinking soda or pop a very long time ago I was actually 15 years old when my parents challenged me to eliminate that from my life during the track season to see if it would help me with my performance and how I was feeling and it was a huge game changer for me it actually helped me realize understand how refreshing and amazing that just pure clean water was and I haven't looked back since that time now water is 100 my beverage of choice I no longer buy little cheap trinkets or toys as filler gifts for my kids or as a reward for something because these things are not needed to last they get sprawled all over the house they get into everything and they're just super annoying and I'll admit I used to make these types of purchases quite a lot I quit paying for haircuts or hair appointments this really has saved a lot of money it allowed me to learn a new skill of cutting hair air and it also really helped scheduling wise I can just now cut everyone's hair really quickly at home and it's much more efficient I quit bringing home free items free products just because they were free and offered to me that you know sometimes when you go into stores and they have those little kiosks and things that you can just pick up for free like little trial things or if you go to a hotel and they have all the free little soaps and shampoos and things like that in your room I stopped taking those home because I found that they would just add to the Clutter add to me having to manage them and I didn't want to do that anymore I no longer cook multiple types of meals or prep food for different family members based on what they want to be eating AKA no longer catering to the picky eaters now it used to be that we would sit down as a family and I'd have this kid over here eating one thing and then my husband and I eating this thing and this kid wouldn't eat what that kid was eating and it was just a whole big mess it was a lot of prep work for me a lot of just confusion and frustration and tears sometimes from the kids and I finally just had enough I went back to the drawing board and completely redid our the way that we eat and so I I sat down I figured out some meals that all of us enjoyed eating that I wouldn't have anybody saying that they don't like it and it just completely simplified our life so much by having this meal rotation system and I know that when I make a meal everyone can eat the same thing at one time and we can all enjoy it together I've done a whole video about my meal rotation system that I will leave link down in the description box if you're struggling with that in your life and along those same lines I no longer grocery shop every single week which is what I used to do I genuinely dislike shopping in any form and so the more I can avoid the store the better but I have not quite gotten yet to the point where I can do grocery pickup or have the groceries delivered I still am finding the value in going into the store picking out the produce that I want the items that I want so if you have experience with either grocery pickup or delivery and you think it's something I should try I might be persuaded it might actually simplify my life further if I give it a try we'll see but going from the once a week grocery shopping trip to every two to two and a half weeks has been a really big simplifier for my life already I've stopped saying yes every time someone asked me for help with something now I love volunteering I love being a part of something that I'm passionate about but I've come to recognize that there is only so many hours in the day there's only so so much of myself that I can give to others and it's actually healthy to say no sometimes to take a step back and just not be a part of every single thing this has been a good life shift for me and it's really helped me to simplify things as well I quit doing laundry every single day this was a chore that seemed to be never ending I always had piles everywhere I always had something that needed to be cleaned immediately because my kids needed it for a sports program or for some other event and it was very stressful and so now I'm down to doing laundry once per week and it has been freeing and amazing and keeping with a laundry theme I no longer iron my clothes I dreaded this chore so much and I found that if I just take the clothes immediately from the dryer and lay them flat I could eliminate the process altogether and so that is exactly what I've done we do still have an iron and a small ironing board though and we use those for crafting I stopped buying birthday cards many years ago when I started noticing the price of them going up and up and up every time I went to buy one now I think some cards go for like four or five dollars which is just ridiculous to me I I can't justify that and so now if my kids get invited to a birthday party I ask them to create a card for their friend and I've always loved the little ideas that they come up with their cards are so cute and so much more precious than anything that I could buy at the store I no longer eat out on a regular basis that's easy to eliminate when you have a large family and going out to eat even one time will cost you over a hundred dollars so that was eliminated because of simplicity's sake and also to save the budget I no longer keep subscriptions that I'm not using I tended to hold on to those little two three dollar a month subscriptions even if I wasn't using them because I thought well it would be annoying to have to cancel them and then maybe I need them later I can re re go into them but the thing that I was Finding is that these items would renew once a year probably and I wouldn't even remember what it was for I'd see the bill come through and I would say well what was that even for and it was for some subscription that was just obscure and I wasn't even taking advantage of so I've been able to go through and eliminate all those extra subscriptions and that has really been a simplifier I quit assuming that we always had to buy things new instead realizing that we could take something that's old and give it new life my husband has really become an expert at this when it comes to Furniture pieces wood type pieces and he's been able to restore things for us and make them absolutely beautiful and useful for our lives and that has really helped us simplify Our Lives it's helped save something that may have been ended up in the landfill later I no longer keep a duplicate of an item that I have previously replaced so I used to have this issue where if I had an item that was getting worn out and I knew it needed to be replaced soon I would buy its replacement but then I would keep both items and so I'd have that first one as kind of a backup in case the newer one broke and this became kind of a never-ending cycle this happened a lot with shoes and kitchen utensils and I had this overflow of extra I guess backup items duplicates of exact same thing so I don't do this anymore I quit constantly trying out new hygiene products so makeup deodorant shampoo there was some trial and error for me to find things that worked well for me but once I found them I now have been comfortable with them for quite a few years and I don't have the questioning of what my product might be best for me I'm content with the ones that I'm using if in the future they no longer work for me I will pee on the hunt again to search it out but for now it's simplified My Life by not having to be on a constant search for the right product I no longer buy things I don't have the money for because trust me debt can be very very complicated I quit storing things under the beds this seems like a really convenient storage spot but I found for myself that I would forget what I had stored down there and then when it came time to clean or rearrange and move the bed I would see that the items on there were covered with dust bunnies and just overall gross and it was just not a good situation I stopped using breakable china dishes so when our kids were little we had a nice set of white china dishes and then because we didn't want the kids to use that we also had plastic dishes that they could eat off of and so that was complicated because there was multiple different kinds of dishes that didn't all stack well and a few years ago we made the switch to a simple white Corel dishes that are more of a shatterproof type and this has been amazing we've really enjoyed them and everybody can use the same dishes and it's been a simplifier in my life I no longer keep a gigantic stash of plastic or paper grocery bags this is something that it used to get really out of control in my home they would just pile up everywhere and the theory was I could use them to line our bathroom garbages so that I was kind of using them again anyway but now I've pretty much made the switch to reusable grocery bags where I can bring those bags into the store put my items in them bring them home reuse them again and again I keep them in my vehicle at all times so that they're there when I need them and it has really been a simplifier and it has saved a lot of space in my cabinets I quit relying on a paper calendar to hold all of our family's events and things that we were going to be doing I found this to be extra complicated even though I do like writing things down I find that handwriting my to-do list is actually more efficient for me than putting it on an electronic device but when it comes to a calendar I like to have it all in one place because I can link it to different devices and so every one in my family can easily see it we can see that calendar from anywhere so if I'm at the store if I'm at an appointment I can right look at my calendar and see what I have there and I don't have to bring something with me physically like a small planner calendar and so this simplified my life a lot it's made it a lot more easy like I said for all of us to say connected in the family and it has been a game changer for us I stopped buying bottled water now I said earlier that water is my drink of choice and because I know this I always have a good stash of it with me I just carry my trusty water bottle with me wherever I go sometimes I'll have it in my vehicle or I'll bring it along with me um in my bag or in my backpack if I'm curing one and it's just a lot more convenient and it's a lot more eco-friendly one silly thing that has really helped to simplify my life is to stop putting clothes into the drawers flat now this is how I used to always have my drawers I would just stack up especially like t-shirts or pants I'd stack them up horizontally and that was just a recipe for disaster especially when it came to the kids drawers because if they couldn't see which shirt it was like what logo was on the front of it or what you know they had what pattern they had on the front of it they would have to like dig through until they found the one that they wanted and then that would just mess up the whole entire drawer so now instead I fold them in such a way that they are vertical and the kids can easily see and I can easily see what I'm pulling for and it just keeps those drawers tidy and it simplifies my life in so many ways I no longer carry around a large bag or purse now my kids are out of the diaper bag stage and so that right away has simplified my life but I have found that going down to a smaller purse size it holds everything that I need to use on a regular basis it keeps everything you know kind of more compact because I would find with the larger bags I found myself digging a lot to try to find what I needed in there so that was complicating things having that smaller bag it's less likely to become cluttered although I will admit it does become cluttered at times so I need to go through it regularly just as I would with a larger bag but this small switch of going down in size in a bag has simplified my life it might be something that would work for you too I stopped holding on to kitchen gadgets that I wasn't using on a regular basis I was tired of them taking up a valuable space in my kitchen I stopped trying to make my body do something in the morning that it did not want to do now I know some of you have asked for a morning routine to see what I do in the mornings but I'm sorry to tell you it would probably be a pretty boring video because even though I see lots of videos about motivation and productivity and how waking up early and just doing something like active right away in the morning is great for them I have found that it actually is the reverse for me I don't want to wake up early to do something like running or something like really overly mentally straining for me and so instead I have a much more slow approach to the morning I do rely on consistency instead so I try to wake up around the same time every day and then I just kind of ease into my day by getting myself ready and and making the bed just some basic things so a morning routine from this channel is probably not going to be happening anytime soon I quit decorating for specific holidays and now I instead decorate for the seasons of the Year this has simplified my life in a couple of ways number one it means that those decorations that I put up can stay up a lot longer um number two it means I can decorate with a lot of natural elements that I can find and number three it means I don't have to store a lot of holiday specific things the only holiday I really have extra items for I would say is for Christmas and that really does kind of blend in through the whole winter season and so I don't see it as being extra and this has been a great swap for me I love it when my home can reflect what's going on out in nature I stopped trying to dress trendy instead I opt for pieces that are classic and they are comfortable and fit me well to be honest I've never been really that into fashion but I have been swept away at times by trying out some new trends and seeing if I like them and there's nothing wrong with that but for me personally just being able to go into my closet in my drawers and pulling out items I know are going to fit they're going to look good on me they're going to feel good on me that is of much higher value than trying to be trendy and fashionable I stopped keeping all the throw pillows on the couches this used to drive my husband absolutely nuts I would have so many pillows all over the couch that in order to even sit on the couch we'd have to move everything all those pillows off to get comfortable and so now we just have a couple that we can use to rest our heads on if we need to and the rest have been eliminated I quit making a detailed well-defined to-do list in the evening hours when my my body was tired and exhausted from a full day of activity and then to think about all of the work that needed to be done the next day it was mentally draining and exhausting and so instead I now do a sort of brain dump where I type everything out all the things that I could do or that are weighing on my mind even if it's something that isn't going to be really pressing on me for like a week or even a month I just brain dump everything into one big word document and then when my brain is fresh in the morning I always revisit that list I take a look at it decide a two or three items that are of higher priority that I could do that day and I focus on those instead my guess is that some of you will be nodding your head in agreement with me on this next one but I was able to simplify my life quite a bit when I chose to no longer watch or read the news on a daily basis now don't get me wrong I don't have my head in the sand I'm aware of current events as they relate to my life however I was finding that the constant bombardment of negativity and the back and forth name calling and political stuff that was all swirling around on not only national news but also on social media to a degree it was becoming too much for me I felt like it was unnecessary for me to be involved in all of that and so I came to the conclusion that if there was something that was really important and impact in my life I would be aware of it because my friends would tell me about it my family would tell me about it and so I wouldn't be out of the loop and removing myself from all of that extra negativity and that whole atmosphere has been great and it's been a simplifier that I have enjoyed and last but not least I've been able to greatly simplify my life when I stopped comparing myself to other people now I'm not perfect in this regard I do still have those subconscious thoughts that pop in from time to time but I recognize that I am my own person I have my own strengths and abilities I don't have to have all of the things other people have I don't have to do all of the things that other people do and I'm okay with that and the piece that comes along with that is a life simplifier that I wouldn't trade for the world all right everyone well that is my list of 31 ways I've been able to simplify My Life by stopping doing something by quitting doing something I know there's a lot more but I didn't want to make the video super duper long um if you have heard anything today that number one you want to try or number two you think is ridiculous and you would never try remember I want to hear about those down in the comments section also I would love to hear your tips of things that you have implemented that have really helped simplify your life I'm always up for a good tip I'd love to try those as well thank you so much for watching today's video have a great day and I hope that you'll stop by the cottage again really soon [Music] thank you

Channel: Arrow Hill Cottage

Views: 418,288

Keywords: simplify your life, simple living, how to simplify your life, ways to simplify your life, simplify life, how to simplify life, easy ways to simplify your life, simplify your life tips, minimalist tips simplify, minimalist tips to simple life, simple life, living simply, simple living tips, minimalism, how to simplify, minimalist family, 101 ways to simplify life, things I quit to simplify my life, things to stop doing, minimalist lifestyle, self care, intentional living

Id: QrjbjSRNqIM

Length: 19min 25sec (1165 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 06 2023