11 Easy Ways to Simplify Your Home & Your Life

Today’s post is sharing 11 easy ways you can simplify your home to help simplify your life!

For most of us, life is already quite busy and full. Between work, school, extracurricular activities, social activities, errands, and general home maintenance and management, life can be busy. And at times overwhelming!

While some things are not within your control to change or simplify, other things definitely are. And a big thing that is within your control to simplify is your home.

Simplify your home, simplify your life

Simplifying your home and your life at home can help simplify and make life easier in a number of different ways.

Not only will you have more time and energy when taking care of your home and the stuff in it takes less of your time and energy.

But simplifying your home can also help streamline your life and make taking care of your home a little less stressful.

In today’s post, you’ll find 11 simple ways you can make your home and your life at home a little simpler and easier to manage.

When life at home feels more manageable and less overwhelming, your home can become a safe place you can retreat to rest, relax and recharge. Instead of one more thing adding stress to your life!

If you’re looking to simplify your home and your life at home, the 11 ideas in this post are great places to start!

11 easy ways to simplify your home and your life

1. Establish a few essential daily rhythms

Essential daily rhythms are the key household tasks you aim to do every day to help your home function more smoothly. These essential daily rhythms are the bare minimum of household tasks you aim to accomplish each day to keep your home under control.

Even if you aren’t able to get anything else done at home that day, if you manage to keep up with these essential daily rhythms, your home and your life at home will still feel under control and manageable.

These essential daily rhythms don’t have to be done at specific times or in a specific order. However, it can help to have a loose idea of when you hope to accomplish these essential daily rhythms.

For example, it can be helpful to establish some morning daily rhythms and evening daily rhythms. This way, you’ll give yourself two opportunities to get the essentials done around the house and keep your home from feeling overwhelming.

Examples of essential daily rhythms:

Your daily rhythms will likely be specific and unique to you, your family, your lifestyle and your preferences. Take a few minutes to think about what is the bare minimum you like to get done every day to keep your home feeling under control and manageable.

For example, your morning daily rhythms might include things like making the beds, starting one load of laundry, unloading the dishwasher, wiping the bathroom counters, cleaning up breakfast dishes and wiping the kitchen counters, etc.

Your evening daily rhythms might include things like quickly tidying the house, doing the dishes and starting the dishwasher, quickly vacuuming some or all of the house, folding and putting away the laundry, etc.

Just think of the basic tasks you like to accomplish every day to keep your home running smoothly and feeling under control, even if you’re not able to get anything else done. Then establish some rhythms to get in the habit of doing those tasks daily.

2. Reset your house once or twice a day

A daily reset is taking a few minutes to quickly tidy your house and put things away at a set time or times throughout the day. Think of it as tidying your house up to return it to “baseline”, or the level of tidiness you like to keep your house at.

Figure out when is the best time to do your daily resets and how often you want to do them. For example, you might reset your house in the evening before bed every night. Or if you’re home more during the day, you might want to reset your house before lunch and before bed.

The key is to plan one or two times to tidy the house quickly and return it to baseline. It’s not a deep clean, just a quick tidy to put things away, clean up any messes and reset the space.

The more consistent you are with your daily resets, the quicker and easier they will be. Simply because clutter and mess don’t have a chance to build up too much in between your resets.

And the best part is, during the times in between your resets you can relax and not worry about constantly cleaning or picking up because you know you’ll deal with any messes during your resets.

3. Clear the clutter

One of the best ways to make maintaining and managing your house easier and less stressful is to clear the clutter and own less stuff!

Owning less stuff means there is less stuff to make a mess with in your house, and less stuff to take care of. And it also means your daily resets will be faster and easier.

Decluttering your home is likely to be something that will take some time and effort on your part. But the good news is, the more you are able to clear the clutter from your home, the less time and energy your home will take to manage. And the easier and less stressful it will be to stay on top of your home, your daily resets and your essential daily rhythms in the future!

Check out this post to learn more about how to get started decluttering!

4. Be a clutter gatekeeper

One of the easiest ways to start decluttering your home, and keep it clutter-free, is to always be on the lookout for clutter and get rid of it right away.

As you’re going about your normal household tasks, or just enjoying your home, always be on the lookout for anything you no longer use, need or enjoy. Then, get rid of it right then instead of picking it up, putting it away or leaving it where it is!

The more consistently you remove unnecessary clutter from your house, the easier and easier your home will be to manage.

You can be a clutter gatekeeper. Stopping clutter from entering or staying in your home if you know you don’t use, need or love it.

5. Get organized

Another way to help make your home more manageable is to get organized.

It’s a lot easier to tidy your home and keep it tidied when the things in your home are organized. Not to mention a lot easier to find what you need when you need it, keep track of your stuff and manage your stuff more effectively.

The good news is, the more you declutter, the easier it is to get, and stay, organized. Less stuff means less stuff to organize and find homes for. As well as more space left for what you’re keeping. Making it easy to give each item a dedicated, easy to access home.

As the saying goes, “A place for everything, and everything in its place!”.

And when your home is organized, and each item has a dedicated place to keep it, it helps make tidying up and staying tidy faster and easier because things are easy to pick up and put away.

6. Use the “one-touch rule”

The one-touch rule is a great habit to get into to simplify your home and your life. The goal of the one-touch rule is to put things away as soon as you’re done using them.

Basically, aiming to only touch things once, by putting them away when you’re done using them. Instead of setting the item down somewhere to deal with later.

Another way to think of it is “Don’t put it down, put it away!”.

The more you are able to follow the one-touch rule, the more it helps your home stay tidy on a regular basis.

Of course, life still happens sometimes. We’re not always perfect at remembering to put things away right away. And if you live with other people, they likely won’t be either.

That’s where the beauty of your daily resets come in. Aim to stick to the one-touch rule. But know you have your daily resets to fall back on for times when you don’t stick to it!

7. Brain dumps

If you’re like most of us, you usually have an ongoing to-do list swirling around in your head. Things you need to remember to do, errands you need to run, important dates to remember, etc. It can be a lot to remember and keep track of, and quite frankly exhausting!

A brain dump is when you take a few minutes to write down all the tasks and to-dos swirling around in your head and get them down on paper. This helps clear the mental clutter because once they’re down on paper, you don’t have to keep reminding yourself or hold them in your mind.

Once you’ve got everything out of your head and down on paper, you can sort through the list, prioritize what needs to get done first, schedule when you’ll do everything and even eliminate non-essential or unnecessary tasks.

8. Prioritize your time

Once you’ve done a brain dump and got everything out of your head and down on paper, figure out when you’ll do each task.

It’s helpful to decide your top 3 priorities to get done each day, then focus on doing those things first.

Not only will you be sure the most important things get done each day. But it also helps you prioritize your time so you know you’re getting the essential things done and you’re not forgetting or missing something important.

Not only that but prioritizing your top 3 tasks each day can help keep your to-do list from feeling overwhelming or never-ending. And can help make you more aware of how much time you’ll have for any additional tasks after completing your top 3 tasks.

Plus it always feels satisfying knowing you took care of the most important tasks on your plate first each day!

9. Plan your week as a whole

And speaking of brain dumps, planning your time and prioritizing tasks, it can help your schedule feel more manageable when you take a few minutes to plan your week as a whole at the beginning of each week.

Doing this gives you a “big picture” view of the week ahead and what tasks you need to accomplish. This can help you avoid forgetting or missing important things in your schedule that can leave you feeling surprised, stressed or overscheduled.

Start by doing a brain dump of everything you have going on or need to get done in the coming week. Then decide on your top 3 priorities for each day of the week. Finally, add in the rest of your tasks and activities for the week where time allows for them.

Of course, life doesn’t always follow your plan and things will likely need to change or be adjusted as the week goes on. Stay flexible and make adjustments as needed. But starting with a good idea of what the week will look like helps you stay on top of what needs to get done and your priorities.

10. Meal plan

One big source of stress in many households is the age-old question of “what’s for supper?”.

Who wants to get to the end of the day and be left staring in the fridge or pantry with no idea of what to cook? Especially when you’re probably already tired and hungry!

The best way to avoid this is by meal planning. Take some time on a weekly or monthly basis to plan out your meals for the coming week or weeks.

There are many different ways to meal plan. Choose whatever works best for you.

You might want to plan exactly what you’ll have each night of the week. Or maybe you prefer planning 7 meals at the beginning of the week, then picking which to have from your list each day. You might prefer planning breakfast, lunch and dinner each week. Or just planning supper instead.

The key is deciding what method you prefer, then sticking to it.

You’ll not only save yourself the stress of trying to decide what to cook each night. But you can also buy only the groceries you’ll need, saving money and food waste too!

11. Don’t put off the small stuff

The last tip to help simplify your home and your life is to stop putting off the small stuff!

You know those tasks you keep putting off and procrastinate doing, then when you actually do them, they take way less time and effort than you thought they would?

Maybe it’s unloading the dishwasher or folding the clothes in the dryer. Each task usually only takes a few minutes, but they’re easy to put off when you don’t feel like doing them.

Instead of wasting time and energy to keep putting them off (and keep them hanging over your head), get in the habit of tackling small tasks and doing them right away.

Time yourself doing some of these tasks just to prove to yourself how they usually don’t really take that much time. Then, when you notice yourself putting a task like this off, remind yourself how it will only take a few minutes and get it done!

Not only will you get it done so you don’t have to keep thinking about it and remembering it. But it helps you stay on top of managing your home when you are proactive and get things done right away.

Simplify your home to simplify your life with these tips!

I hope these tips will help you simplify your home and make life at home a little easier to manage.

Often, when you get in the habit of doing these simple tasks on a regular basis, not only is your home easier to manage but your life, in general, will feel a little less stressful too!

What is your favourite way to simplify your home to help simplify your life? Leave a comment and let me know!