Posts Tagged ‘simplify saturday’

For those of y’all who have been keeping track, you may pat yourself on the back for noticing that this post was not, in fact, posted on May 1st. I had company up here this weekend (thanks for visiting, girls!) and I didn’t plan far enough in advance to get this post written and scheduled before they got here. So, it’s late. Three days late, actually. So why adjust the date to say May 1st if I’m so obviously admitting that it’s late? The plain and simple answer – because I can.

Today’s (or Saturday’s) simple solution for stress (Ooooh, do you like the alliteration?), is also a “because I can.” Although for many years I couldn’t. I’m talking about saying “no.”

You know how it is, someone asks you to do something and you can’t turn them down. So you agree. Then they ask you for something else. And then someone else asks you to do something. Before you know it you haven’t done anything for yourself in ages, you’re running around a like a chicken-with-its-head-cut-off, and you’re about ready to just climb into bed and hide under your covers for a month. I used to get myself into that position all the time (wanting to hide under my covers, not actually doing it). Then I discovered this marvelous secret . . . I can say “no.”

It’s really not as difficult as it seems. You may have to start with a “let me think about it,” and work out a gentle, but firm, way to turn down the person who asked. If you’re easily persuaded, you might even need to send an e-mail or leave a message, so that you don’t find yourself backing down.

It’s great to help out friends and family when they ask, but when you find yourself cooking meals for three families in one week, teaching Sunday school and Bible study, handling a baby shower and a wedding shower, checking your neighbor’s mail while she’s on vacation, and organizing the local food pantry, it’s no wonder you’re getting burnt out! We can’t be everything to everyone all the time and sometimes telling someone “no” is what’s best for everyone – for you, for the friend who asked, and maybe for someone else who will now get the opportunity to say “yes.”

So the next time someone asks for your help with something, if you’re feeling over-scheduled and overwhelmed (or think that one more thing might make you reach that point), take a deep breath and just say “no.”

Remember, I’d love to hear the ways you help simplify life. Leave a comment and share your ideas!

I’m being lazy — um, I mean, I’m simplifying my life today by linking y’all to a great post I found elsewhere in Blog World.

This article is about cleaning out that secret time-waster . . .  our purses. Really, how much time do we spend every day, every week, every year, trying to dig through the depths of our beloved totes, looking for some lost item that we “know is in here somewhere.”

So, for this week’s Simplify Saturday, I challenge you to clean out your purse! And I direct you to this fabulous article:

. . . for most women, our purses are like a security blanket.

If you’ve recently written about simplifying life in some way, leave a link to your post in the comments section. Thanks for sharing!

Reducing, eliminating, or simply not accruing any(more) debt is one of the most stress-relieving things a person can do.

{image from Verse of the Day}

Have you recently shared an idea for simplifying life? I’d love for you to share it here!

You may have noticed that I did not post anything last Saturday. It was quite unintentional – I had something in mind to share, but I didn’t get it written up beforehand and was busy all day. Rather than stress over it (and really, as small as my following is right now, I didn’t figure it would really be missed), I decided to let it go. Thus my lack of a post last week became the subject matter for this week’s Simplify Saturday.

We, as human beings, tend to spend far too much time worrying over the little things in life that don’t matter. Sometimes the best way to de-stress and to make life simple(r) again is to take a deep breath, unclench the fingers that are clutching so tightly to this thing that’s taken a hold of us, and . . . just . . . let it go.

{original image source unknown}

If you’ve shared ways to help simplify life, I’d love to hear them. Please link up below!

Last week I tackled some of the clutter in my e-mail inboxes. This week I’m going to work on reducing tangible clutter created by snail mail. I’ve been collecting most of my junk mail in one place for the last month and this week I’m going to choose 3-5 companies that contact me the most and work on removing myself from their mailing lists. I’m pretty sure this will include at least 2 credit card companies (and at least one of those won’t give me a credit card because I don’t have any credit yet!). Reducing the amount of junk mail that goes through my hands will help me stay on top of my mail a bit easier and cut down a little on my tangible clutter.

How about you? What ideas do you have for simplifying life?

Today I’m going to tackle cleaning up my e-mail inboxes. Yes, inboxes. I have far too many e-mail addresses – I’m working on consolidating but, for now, the more pressing need is to eliminate some of what I have to weed through every day.

Hitting “delete” is easy enough, but when I have to process what’s junk and what’s not, what I want to read now, and what I want to save for later, having a smaller amount of e-mails to process will save me time – time that I could be be focusing elsewhere.

My goal for this Saturday is to remove myself from 3 mailing lists for each e-mail address that receives a heavy amount of newsletters. That’s a total of 9 mailing lists.

Notice that I’m not going through and deleting myself from every mailing list all at once. I’m taking it in small doses, eliminating a bit at a time. I’ll go through again in a few more days and do it again, and then again, until I have myself back down to receiving only those e-newsletters that I find valuable in some way.

If you have a tip for how to simplify life, I’d love for you to link up here so that we can learn from each other.