Essentialism

Since this year is all about FOCUS, I thought I would share some ways I’ve simplified life to make more room for what I want to be doing in life and business. It’s easy to get sidetracked when there are so many wonderful things out there to see and do. I love new and exciting too much, so keeping some of life on automation is key to also getting stuff done in a timely fashion.

1. Stitch Fix

I’ve not really shopped for clothes in more than a year, and I have Stitch Fix to thank. If you’ve not heard of it, Stitch Fix is an online personal style service (that sounds way too fancy for me) that takes all your measurements, preferences, and inspiration boards and sends you five items at a time to try on at home. Occasionally, a friend and I will hit up some local thrift stores, and we had one epic strikeout at the mall a few months back, but really, Stitch Fix has been the way I have built my professional wardrobe over the last couple of years. It comes to my door, allows me to try on clothes alongside what I already have in my closet, and then I send back what doesn’t work. No spending time at the mall, no waiting in line, leaving me more time to focus on what I do and not what I wear.

2. YNAB – You Need A Budget

I talked about YNAB about a year ago – it’s the budgeting software that Scott and I use to keep all the transactions of a two-person household in one place. It doesn’t seem like our finances should be that complicated with just the two of us, but all those little charges for milk, fuel, and cat food add up to a large pile of receipts at the end of the month. When we are diligent, we put all our transactions into YNAB as we make them, and then there is no pile staring at you all month long that you feel like you should take care of. These last couple of years it has helped us pay off my student loans and save toward building a house – and it made it really simple so we could focus on other things. Use this link to get $6 off.

3. CoSchedule

For all of you bloggers on WordPress, this is your new best friend. CoSchedule integrates with your WordPress blog to lay out all of your content in one easy-to-see calendar. It also allows you to schedule your social media shares, leave notes and reminders for yourself, and adjust all of these things by dragging and dropping them onto new days when plans change – because plans always change. CoSchedule is one of the biggest reasons I was able to blog 2x week all of last year – it kept me organized and still does.

4. Keeping a LogBook

I’m trying something new this year and keeping a logbook. I’m following Austin Kleon’s method of jotting down little tidbits from each day so that I can look back on 2016 and remember all the little things that made it big. I snagged this Moleskin daily journal to keep me on track. I’m also using Momento, an app for iPhone, to save pictures to days that I don’t want to share on social media, but that I still want to remember years from now. So far, I’m finding this method far less heavy-feeling than keeping an actual journal, which means its working.

5. BackBlaze

BackBlaze helps me sleep at night. It keeps my computer automatically backed up and all times to the cloud, and would allow me to re-install all of my files onto a new computer should anything ever happen to my current one. It’s less than $5 month for unlimited storage, and that means all my files and photos are safe. Less time worrying about data loss, more time to focus on other projects.

6. Meal Plans

I’m getting back in the swing of planning out our meals a week or two in advance, hoping to eliminate that 6:05 PM question when I walk in the door: what are we having for dinner? I very much dislike deciding every day what we need to eat (sad, but true), and I find if I sit down and decide all our meals for two weeks, then it’s less taxing. And of course, let’s me spend evenings rockin’ out the side business instead of staring at an open pantry wondering what magic I might be able to bring forth. This year, I’m using the weekly planner from Creatives in Transit. I was using a horizontal version, but I’m hoping I can print two copies on each sheet this way and save some paper.

That’s how I’m making life a little more simple these days. What about you? Anything I don’t have listed that I should try?

Most of the links in this post are referral links, meaning that if you click on one and sign up for a service, I may get a kickback. I only recommend services I love, so rest easy.