21 Simple Tips to Make Life Easier for You and Your Family
Inside: Make life easier and simplify your day-to-day for less stress with these 21 practical ideas.
Life in today’s world can be incredibly complicated, stressful and overwhelming. Balancing work, family and social obligations along with all the external factors we have no control over can be daunting to say the least. No matter your season in life you likely have things that cause some level of stress and frustration. Of course life is not meant to be, nor ever will be perfect, but there are ways to make it a little bit easier.
Whether it involves streamlining your routines, setting boundaries, or prioritizing what truly matters, you will find the tips below offer ways to lower stress and increase the ease of which you carry your day-to-day life.
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What Does “Make Life Easier” Even Mean?
The idea of making life easier will vary from person to person, and this likely depends on your circumstances and season (i.e., raising young children, retirement age or just starting out with your career). However, we can all agree that life is not easy for anyone. Life has challenges with ups and downs. So how can we simplify it a bit? How can we slow down the pace and make things a little less complicated?
The most straightforward definition of “make life easier” is to simplify or improve it.
Make Life Easier Questions to Consider
When contemplating how to make life easier, there are three questions that may come to mind:
- How do I make life easier in the season of life I am in (i.e., home with young children, raising teenagers, building a career, heading into empty-nester life, retirement age)?
- What challenges am I currently facing?
- What areas of my life need attention?
21 Simple Ways to Make Life Easier For You and Your Family
There is no need to try all the tips below at once. Consider two or three that resonate and are doable for you and your family. Give them a try and see if the benefits of making life easier come your way.
1. Develop Routines
Routines streamline your day-to-day, allowing you to go about certain decisions and tasks more smoothly. Routines can look like anything from how you start your day in the morning, what steps you take in the evening to wind down, how you manage your home cleaning schedule, to how you get dressed everyday. Routines give you a reliable way to get things done in a timely, methodical manner; saving you time and energy, thus making life easier.
2. Establish Healthy Habits
What healthy habits are important to you? Determine your priorities and create small but impactful habits around them to make life easier. In general, healthy habits include eating nutritious food, exercising daily , getting plenty of sleep, spending time with family and friends, spending time outdoors, practicing patience with others and yourself. The list goes on! Find what is most valuable to you and set those healthy habits in place to make life easier.
3. Accept Who You Are
There are many things we can and many things we cannot change about ourselves. Go easy on yourself about the things you can’t change to feel more comfortable with who you are and let go of what is not worth stressing over. You were born with a built-in personality and while we can adjust our way of thinking we also have to be honest about how we are wired (within reason).
For example, I am more of an introvert and HSP (Highly Sensitive Person) than I want to be, but this is who I am. Over the last few years I’ve accepted this about myself, learned how to manage it and my life (in this regard) has been much easier.
4. Practice Gratitude and Gain Perspective
Having a sense of gratitude and keeping things in perspective allows you to be less grumpy, irritable and more understanding of the world around you. This mindset shift makes life easier as you don’t approach life circumstances with a negative viewpoint all the time. Seeing your own blessings truly makes a difference in navigating our troubled world.
5. Practice Self Care
A serious benefit to your physical and mental well-being is to practice self care. It makes life easier when you acknowledge how much your health and wellness matters and it is okay to give to yourself alongside giving to others. Even small acts of self care will contribute to simplifying your life, allowing you to be better equipped for the harder parts of life. Utilize our Health and Wellness Planner to prioritize your wellbeing and self care habits.
6. Appreciate the Little Things
Along with an attitude of gratitude is the appreciation of the the little things: a delicious cup of coffee, walking your dog on a sunny day, reading a bedtime story to your sleepy toddler, finding the perfect recipe for tonight’s dinner, finishing a phenomenal book. These simple pleasures add up to big time impact. The more you notice them around you, the happier you will actually become, adding value to your life.
7. Create a Home Routine
Having a home routine greatly simplifies life and can make a big difference in your day-to-day. Create systems for your home such as cleaning, laundry, meal planning, morning tasks, evening tasks, drop zones for clutter. Set up ways to enjoy your home without being bothered by it to make life easier.
8. Don’t Take Things Too Personally
Practice letting things “roll off your back.” Don’t take things too personally or feel everyone has to like you and agree with you all the time. Make life easier for you by blowing off small disagreements, especially those with strangers or online. The stress and anger that it can cause is not worth it.
9. Set Boundaries
A definite way to make life easier is to set boundaries. Be clear with yourself (and others) about what your priorities are. Set boundaries not just for yourself but your children and family as well. Knowing what helps keep stress at bay or is not a positive experience for you, will help you set priorities and make things easier in the long run.
10. Lose the FOMO
When setting boundaries, as discussed above, you’ll need to lose the FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out). Some people are wired to want to be everywhere, with everyone and be involved in everything. Social media has really created a near obsession with this as we can access people’s lives at all times. Avoid social media if that is a trigger for you. Be okay with not being part of everything in your community or friend network. Enjoy quiet moments and white space on your calendar. There are benefits to experiencing JOMO (Joy Of Missing Out) too!
11. Be Comfortable With Saying No
Learning to say no is a valuable way to simplify your responsibilities and daily goals; thus, making life easier. It is okay to turn down a social invitation, not volunteer for every school or church event, limit how much “extra” you take on. People respect “no” because it is better to be clear about what you can and can’t do, then be wishy-washy about it; or worse, say yes even when you really don’t want to.
12. Practice Patience
Sometimes it seems like life is one big game of patience. We are constantly “waiting” on things — at the doctor’s office, in traffic, checkout at the grocery store, news or information, special events to finally arrive, ill-tempered children. As the saying goes, patience is a virtue, and it helps make life a bit easier when we recognize when things will not move any faster and we slow down ourselves.
13. Set Goals
Setting goals is an excellent way to simplify your short and long term needs and wants. Goals give you something to aim for and you can work backward to create a road map for reaching these ideals. Using a goals planner is an excellent way to simplify what you want or need to accomplish and create an action plan for doing so.
14. Ask For / Accept Help
Go easy on yourself and ask for help…free or hired if possible/necessary. Don’t go it alone as it’s nearly impossible to take on every single responsibility in life without some assistance. Help may come in the form of friends, family, neighbors, your church, or your school. It could even be via a safe community online (I see plenty of people asking and receiving help about decluttering in Facebook). It could be utilizing a service or resource for advice or direction. Don’t make life harder by insisting on doing it all yourself!
15. Declutter Figuratively and Literally
Truly one of the best ways to simplify and make your life easier is to declutter it. Not just literally declutter the stuff in your home but decluttering your mind as well. Use a journal to let go of what’s holding you up mentally. Use decluttering techniques (or a declutter workbook) to help you purge excess stuff from your home. Don’t manage more things than you have to. This is a gamer changer for simplifying life!
Managing too much inventory inside our homes (or thoughts and worries in our heads) can cause stress and anxiety. Lower these negative feelings by decluttering the excess and uneccessary things taking up space.
16. Focus on Quality Not Quantity
It is easy to get caught up in the world of Amazon and Temu and we end up with lots of sub-par things. Don’t settle for quantity in your things…go for less stuff that provides more longevity and purpose. This may mean paying more upfront, but will far outweigh benefits in the long term. This relates to how you shop for clothes, household goods, furniture, decor items, kitchen gadgets, etc. Purchase better quality items over having too many of one thing.
Quality over quantity can also be applied to time management. Use your time wisely with quality focus say on family, work tasks, or home needs. Avoid multi-tasking and be focused with your attention for quality time spent, not overuse of quantity.
17. Maintain a Tidy / Clean Home
Keeping your home in a general state of cleanliness is a significant way to simplify a busy life. While homes get dirty and messy, when you keep things organized and spend a little time daily to maintain a clean house it will be much easier to maintain a tidy home long term. Following a simple cleaning schedule for weekly, daily and monthly tasks is extremely helpful with this.
18. Put Your Phone Down
Make everyday life easier by putting your phone down. The amount of time we spend on devices far exceeds the need for it. You will find more clarity, purpose and intentional living when not spending excessive time on your phone. Yes, the phones are a necessary part of modern life, but limiting your time on apps, games, social media, texting and overall communication will have a huge impact on your attitude and approach to the day.
19. Prioritize Your Health
Your health is the number 1 priority. That is worth repeating — #1! If you aren’t healthy nothing else matters. Health matters cannot always be prevented but taking care of our bodies and minds every day is the best practice you can take to make life easier and avoid potential health problems. Set and track doctor’s appointments, get plenty of sleep (link to workbook) and strive towards healthy living to make things easier on yourself. Consider our Health and Wellness Planner to journal and organize your health needs.
20. Don’t Overbuy
Stop buying unneccessary stuff and only make a purchase when truly necessary. When we overbuy we may experience guilt, realizing material items do not bring us happiness, but can even do the opposite: being more stuff to manage, taking away from our time and energy. Make little a little bit easier with intentional purchases and not shopping for more than you truly need.
21. Be Intentional With Your Time
In addition to being intentional with your money (see above) also be intentional with your time. Use a daily to-do list and planner to focus on productive activities that produce results. Those results may be practical such as a completed work project or a clean house; or more personal, such as providing you rest or quality time with your family. Use your time wisely to make every day a little more simplified.
Make Life Easier Resources
Quick note: The above items are a few of my favorite resources to organizing and making life a little bit easier, please note they are eligible for commission from Amazon as affiliate links.
Conclusion to Making Life Easier
Life is hard and there is no one way to make it completely carefree and easy. With any sort of responsibility comes tough choices and situations to manage. But the tips above can help make life easier and make a big difference in how you feel daily with the complexities of today’s world.
The decisions you make and your daily intentions will impact how difficult or easy your life is. Finding your priorities in life will also help simplify things so you aren’t rushing after activities and relationships that don’t serve you or your family well.
Try out just one or two of the tips above and see what kind of results you receive. Write your findings down in a journal or goals planner to keep track of the changes you are implementing and how they are helping improve your life, even by just a little bit. Remember, your journey is always about progress, not perfection!
