10 Easy Ways To Simplify Your Life And Mindset In Under 10 Minutes

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So you’ve found your way here because something about your life is just too “cluttered,” or maybe too “busy,” or “hectic,” right? Or maybe there’s just this general sense of “something needs to change” but you aren’t sure what.

One of the BEST ways to try to get that weighed down, in-a-funk, can’t-seem-to-be-quite-happy-no-matter-what-I-do feeling off your shoulders is to make an effort to simplify your life.

Did you know that research has shown clutter to actually cause stress?

But you’re smart; you didn’t need a research study to tell you that. You just knew that every time you look around your house at all the toy clutter, or dirty dishes, or STUFF to be dusted, it makes you feel just a little bit crazy or on edge inside.

Every time you get sucked into social media comparisons, you start to think that the STUFF you already have maybe isn’t nice enough, which makes you buy more, and then you feel even worse after that.

I’ve been there. Some days I’m still there. But most days I’m doing good at keeping my mindset in the right place, working on my own form of minimalism, and seeing more and more aspects of life get simplified almost daily.

And trust me, if this book-hoarding Debbie Downer can make all of that happen, you absolutely CAN simplify your life (and simplify your mindset, too), if only you are ready and willing to put in the effort.

Getting started is the hardest part, so I’ve put together a list of 10 steps to follow to simplify your life in under 10 minutes (on average, of course, depending on your internet speeds and the extent of your life’s “clutter”)!

Ready? LET’S DO THIS.

Simplify Your Life In Just 10 Easy Steps

These steps do NOT have to be followed in this exact order, although I would recommend the order below. Just make sure you get through each one of them and you’ll be cruising!

(I’m not kidding, you can get all of these steps done before your morning coffee gets cold!)

1) Delete as many social media apps from your phone as possible.

A lot of us stay in touch with the Facebook Messenger app, for example, but do you really need Facebook itself on your phone? (Hint: nope)

“But I follow YOU on those social apps, Rox…don’t you want me to stick around?”

100% yes, stay part of the family, the village. I’ll never turn you away! If you TRULY use one or two apps to check-in and get motivation from myself and others, or for your work, or other solidly justifiable reasons, then no one is forcing you to remove them.

But imagine how it will feel with a day going by and your phone isn’t dinging/vibrating every hour (or more!) with yet another social notification because someone posted a new status or Instagram story, or Snapchatted you something entirely useless (that’s one app I literally cannot wrap my head around)!

Take a hard look at whether you truly NEED to keep these apps on your phone or whether you can do with a computer check-in instead, at a fairly set and condensed time at either the beginning or end of the day. These are the more common social media sites, thereby the most commonly used apps:

• Facebook
• Instagram (harder to use properly on a computer, so this one is less crucial to remove if you turn off notifications)
• Twitter
• Snapchat
• WhatsApp
• Reddit
• Pinterest
• NextDoor

Don’t let this be an exhaustive list if you’ve got others you could do without.

2) Declutter your phone apps.

This might sound like crazy talk to some of you with more than 1-2 pages of apps on your phone, but I’m here to give you the tough love.

You don’t need probably half of the apps that you’re killing phone space and your attention span with.

Again, unless they are apps that you critically use for communication or work (messages, email, etc), consider whether you can remove the rest and just do the work from a computer or via the browser, far less often, and on a more set schedule to keep you from interrupting yourself.

• Reduce to only ONE ebook app
• Google suite apps (unless critical for work)
• Credit apps — including credit card payment apps, Credit Karma (unless you’re pushing hard to be debt-free and use it as a check-in gauge), etc.
• Cell phone provider apps
• SHOPPING APPS (Target, Macy’s, Amazon, LikeToKnowIt…you know you’re guilty!)
• GAMES (if you’re SERIOUSLY bored, read an ebook and sharpen your mind, don’t just burn your brain cells with useless games!)
• Extra lifestyle apps — water tracking, fitness (reduce to just ONE), (fast/take-out) food delivery, extra music apps (reduce to just ONE), kids (preschool/young age) games, etc.

Whatever is left, try to bunch it into folders — label as WORK, BANKING, etc. to make sure that you’re doing your best to not have so many distractions front and center on your phone.

Another good practice is to put the MOST CRITICAL apps on your first “home screen” and the rest on another screen that you have to swipe to. You’re less likely to notice Facebook notifications, for example, if it’s not on the first screen when you unlock your phone.

While you’re at it, pop into settings and turn off push notifications and badge icons on ALL apps that you don’t critically need to know what’s going on (like email and other true work-related/required apps).

3) Make a “technology drop zone” somewhere in the house that’s central and yet not right in the thick of things.

We all have a bad habit of having our phones in our hands far too often.

We all have an even worse habit of grabbing them and diverting our eyes mid-conversation because another notification came up, or we needed to Google something we couldn’t remember, or some other honestly trivial thing that can’t matter right this minute.

We have a desk in our kitchen, and that’s our dedicated spot for devices. The iPads charge there, live there, and stay there when not in use. Our phones hang out there when we are all home together to try to keep the rest of the world “out of sight, out of mind” during family time.

Bonus tip: don’t charge your phone on your nightstand. If you can’t charge it in another room for some reason, at least put it across the room. Work on enforcing the habit that once it’s plugged in and you’re in bed, nothing but a phone call or your morning alarm will get you out of bed or touching your phone between pre-bed relaxing time and when you get up for the day.

4) Take advantage of modern technology to simplify your life

There are a lot of ways you can make this work for you, in multiple areas of your life:

Get a Roomba to vacuum for you (even the most basic one)

Most newer models you can start with your smartphone or Google Home/Alexa devices! Seriously, my Roomba saves me SO much time on cleaning and frees me up to relax, do another task, etc.

Tip:  Buy a refurbished or renewed Roomba model (this is the one we bought) to get more features and cleaning power for less money than brand new! 

Automate bank transfers to save more money or better appropriate your funds come payday.

We use a separate bank account for siphoning off what we need for those fixed, monthly payments (mortgage, cars, cell phones, etc) and another two accounts for savings and an emergency fund, respectively so that we know without question that we’ve got those things covered.

The rest leftover in our main checking account is carefully budgeted via YNAB (You Need A Budget) and used for the somewhat “flexible” costs each month — groceries, pet care, debt snowball payments, etc.

Consider call forwarding if applicable.

I know this isn’t for everyone, but it was a hack that totally made a difference for us (and to the tune of $35 per month decrease in our expenses)!

My weirdo husband didn’t like that he had a work iPhone AND a personal iPhone. But he also didn’t want to lose his personal phone number.

We found you can transfer your personal number to Google Voice for a one-time fee and jumped on it. WHAT A DIFFERENCE in having him not be constantly checking TWO phones worth of notifications.

Grab a smartwatch.

I know, we’re talking about simplifying and adding tech seems counterintuitive to that.

But I LOVE being able to leave my phone at that kitchen desk “tech drop zone” most of the day since I’m home with kids, and I can take a quick peek when my wrist vibrates to decide if I need to address something now or later.

I get VERY few notifications on my smartwatch (calls, messages, and my periodic reminder to drink water), so often I can go hours at a time without even thinking about my phone. It has done wonders for my mental health to not feel like I needed to have my phone near me at all times.

Also just plain handy for the busy stay-at-home mom who always wears leggings with no pockets. ????

Make better use of your smartphone.

Now that you’ve decluttered apps and turned off all but the most important notifications, make use of recurring reminders to remember periodic tasks like garbage night or replacing furnace filters, and use your calendar to time block your days (more on that in the next step).

5) Simplify your days with time blocking.

Alright so listen. I stay home with my kids all day, and I STILL time block my days. So trust me when I say it’s a total game-changer.

Start simple with adding in your blocks of “work” and meals, and if you do a great job at regular workouts you’re my hero… I mean, ahem, add those in too. (You probably know what’s conspicuously missing from my schedule now…cough cough.)

You can see my actual week in the screenshot above.

We obviously all have our own unique schedules, like how in the midst of work-at-home mom life I’m also balancing speech therapy and such for our son plus a homeschool “preschool” for our kids (“school” on my schedule).

(And us moms tend to wonder why there aren’t more hours in a day. ????)

6) Put it on your fresh new schedule to declutter weekly.

For us, that falls under “family work day,” seen on the schedule above. While doing laundry, we pull out the too-small clothes for kids and box or bag them immediately to donate ASAP.

We clean out old, rarely used Tupperware when we team deep-clean the kitchen.

Whenever I make the grocery list in preparation for our Wednesday trips, I make a point to re-organize the cabinets, pantry, and fridge to first make sure I don’t overstock and second to get rid of anything that’s been forgotten in a dark corner.

You don’t necessarily need a dedicated 15-30 minute “decluttering” block on your calendar if you’re able to combine it as a habit with other tasks you’re already doing.

But if you’re the type to only really think of cleaning out the junk on more like an annual basis, you’re definitely going to want to seriously consider making it a weekly occurrence, ie a lifestyle change.

Even if you aren’t taking action on this step right now in your 10-minute effort to simplify your life, you are still taking the first step in solidifying the mindset shift you need to get your life where you want it to be and get on to living your better days.

7) Unsubscribe to as much as possible.

I’m going to guess that you don’t need multiple media streaming services, magazines, or even things like a Prime membership.

(That said do your math first if your family DOES make good use of some of these services. When considering what subscription services you use, it’s important to make sure you’re not compromising actual cash value by dropping something that’s legitimately saving you money!)

Now we don’t subscribe to very many things at all, so this is literally like a one-minute task for me to do.

Subscriptions to consider removing if they aren’t commonly used or valuable in your household:

• Netflix
• Disney+
• Hulu
• SlingTV
• Any other TV/movie streaming services (here’s a solid list of ways to stream movies for free to help you fill the void)
• Amazon Prime
• Lifestyle boxes (CauseBox, Ipsy, StitchFix, etc…keeping one affordable service purely for fitting in self-care more readily is ok in my book!)
• Instacart (unless it’s highly valuable in your home like for us, to avoid germs!)
• Magazines
• Paid media services (ebooks, digital magazines, membership sites you rarely access, etc)
• Subscriptions for kids (price out making some of the crafts in these sorts of kits or check Amazon for subscription books, and it’s often going to be cheaper to get them yourself!)
• Various newsletters (from stores/companies, bloggers you don’t follow, etc)

8) Add a solid morning routine and night routine to your block schedule.

It’s amazing what you can do for your productivity and a general sense of accomplishment (and peace) when you spend a few minutes each night getting yourself mentally prepared for the next day and truly unwinding for good sleep.

It’s incredible how well you can get up and running with your day when you have a solid morning routine that forces you, as the busy, hard-working mom that you are, to put just a few minutes of self-care into each day.

Let me sidetrack for 10 seconds to say this:

You ARE worth every minute of self-care you give yourself and then some. Don’t short-change yourself.

Even adding in a 3-5 minute meditation session or gratitude session first thing each morning or last thing before you sleep can make a huge difference in your well-being.

9) Make your meal plan and grocery efforts front and center.

This really should go without saying, but the number of us that don’t meal plan consistently and don’t really keep good grocery lists is kind of crazy when you think about it. Which is pretty sad considering how many of us use our smartphones for both of those tasks…and today’s society almost ALWAYS has a phone-in-hand, right?

I mean, just because you meal plan doesn’t mean you actually stick to it, and THAT is where we get in trouble.

Are you like me and you struggle to keep on track with your meal plan because you aren’t sure where to even put your meal plan? Sure, the fridge. But do you even look at it with everything else you’ve got hanging up there…calendars, sports schedules for kids, random magnets, pictures, etc?

We’re lucky. The doors of our fridge are NOT magnetic.

We got creative and put up one command hook so that the meal plan is in a binder clip and hangs on the hook, and that’s all that’s on that door. You literally CAN’T miss it!

We’ve tried a number of methods and there are definitely some that outshine others for efficiency, effectiveness, and overall making your life better…ness. (Just go with it?)

By far my favorite is planning either the week or a month at a time in a calendar format, AND having the grocery list on the same page. That way as you add your recipes, you can immediately jot down any items you KNOW you’ll need to grab at the store (like any fresh produce, for example).

As you use items during the week/month, you can add them right in the same place where your menu resides, meaning YOU HAVE TO LOOK AT IT. It’s awesome for keeping me on track and catching me when I forgot to grab something from the freezer to thaw!

Right now, add a time block to your schedule to force yourself to meal plan and write up the grocery list each week.

To simplify your grocery list and streamline the process, I will ALWAYS recommend the two easy actions below, because in minutes you’ll be halfway done with meal planning for each week. How cool is that?!

Streamline your meal planning with the following subscriptions:

1) eMeals

eMeals is just $5 per month, they email you weekly to send new recipes (and hint hint, remind you to meal plan), and the app CREATES a grocery list FOR YOU, based on the meals you’ve added to your recipe list.

If you already have some ingredients at home, check them off. Shop via Instacart, Walmart Grocery, and more right from the eMeals app, and in minutes your meal plan is done, your grocery shopping is done, and you’re on to the next task. Boom!

Tip: Sign up for eMeals ON THE DAY YOU INTEND TO DO YOUR MEAL PLAN. That way your weekly email coincides with that day to remind you. We do our meal planning on Sunday, so if you’re the same then do your sign-up on a Sunday!

2) ButcherBox

It’s affordable, it’s organic/grass-fed, it’s delicious, and it’s EASY. WHAT is it?

It’s amazing meat, right on your doorstep!

You can have the exact same selection of meats on your porch on your schedule, or you can mix it up and choose new cuts each month (plus awesomely-priced member specials and deals).

ButcherBox meats are delivered frozen, so you now get to enjoy the utter luxury of shopping in your underwear or pajamas, if you want, both from your computer to order and when you do your meal planning “shopping” (i.e. looking in your freezer for what to cook next).

Tip: Choose recipes from eMeals that complement what’s in your freezer/ButcherBox order, or make easy substitutions (like shredded chicken breast to replace ground beef for tacos, anyone?), if you need to.

10) Give yourself permission to make mistakes, take time off, and to enjoy life.

A lot of times when we get so caught up in simplifying our lives or paying off debts or being “better” in some respect, we get really hard on ourselves.

We seem to think that in all the flurry of activity towards our goals, we aren’t allowed to be human and goof up.

So we overspend here and there.

So we forgot to thaw something and grabbed a $5 grocery store pizza to get our family fed.

So we didn’t do any self-care this week.

None of that matters in the long run, because the path you’re on and the effort you’re putting in matters far more than the day-to-day results.

What matters is giving it your best shot, feeling satisfied with where you’re going, and with not damaging your mental health along the way. We are, after all, trying to improve our mental health by decluttering our lives.

So take a deep breath when things get stressful, read a good book once in a while, and toss the schedule and to-do lists aside sometimes and just soak up family time instead. That’s the simplest way there is to enjoy life.

Which of these steps do you struggle with the most? What other steps not on this list have you taken to simplify your life?

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