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If you found this blog, you’re probably on board with the idea of simple living. You might aspire to totally transform your life. To move to a cottage, quit your 9-5, and raise chickens.
All that is probably great, honestly. But it’s not actually necessary in order to drastically improve your life. A while back, I shared 10 ways to simplify your life today. I wanted to prove that you can take action immediately to start simple living. You don’t have to dream about “someday.”
And I want to share these tiny simple living habits that changed my life for the same reason. These are extremely simple changes I’ve made that have majorly upgraded my life.
Sure, there were some bigger life changes I gradually implemented over time that really made a difference – eating a whole foods diet, minimizing my clothes and starting a capsule wardrobe, minimizing my possessions, saying “no” to things I don’t want to do, etc.
But this list is about things that were honestly quite easy. And so effective that I thought, “Why on earth didn’t I do this sooner?”
1. Prioritizing Sleep
If I had to reduce this post to one simple living habit, it would be this. For so many years, sleep was the thing I sacrificed to make time for other things. I was also the queen of revenge bedtime procrastination. (Largely because my days were filled with so many things I didn’t want to do. And nighttime was the only time I could actually do anything I liked.)
After having a baby, I realized how absolutely vital sleep is. I started prioritizing it as an important activity in itself. This involved simple changes like dimming lights early, committing to an earlier bedtime, reading a book instead of scrolling before sleep, using earplugs, and investing in nice mattress.
But the main idea for this list is the simple mindset shift. I started thinking about sleep as an important part of my day. And that’s what made all the difference.
Everything in your life feels harder when you’re not getting enough sleep. Just ask the parent of a newborn. If you don’t believe me, experiment with sleeping nine hours one night. You’ll feel like you have superpowers.
2. Stretching for 10 Minutes in the Morning
Taking 10 minutes to stretch every morning before starting my day was a complete gamechanger for how I feel.
You can do this in different ways. You can watch a guided yoga video. Or you can stretch intuitively while meditating, listening to music, or listening to something inspiring. When the weather is nice, I do this on my balcony. I get an instant mood lift and inspiration for the day.
So many desk workers don’t even realize how much pain they’re in daily. This habit takes no time at all and will save you expensive therapies and massage treatments down the line. Like with many simple living habits, you’ll find that it saves you time and money.
3. Making My Own Household Cleaning Products
I encountered recipes for homemade cleaning products from simple living influencers years ago. But I always assumed the process would be messy. Plus, I was so brainwashed by advertising that I thought a cleaner wouldn’t work if it didn’t have bizarre chemicals in it.
Over time, I even developed allergies to ingredients in certain products. That made shopping harder, but I still didn’t get the hint.
What finally got me to change was watching a documentary about microplastics. And deciding to curate a (mostly) plastic-free home.
It turns out none of my assumptions were true. Making a homemade cleaning product was both super easy and effective. It costs almost nothing (it’s mostly water!). And you actually know what the ingredients are.
4. Waking Up Earlier Than My Kids
I know, I know…another simple living tip related to sleep and being a morning person.
I agree that this advice is annoying to hear when you’re a night owl because I was one for 35 years. But the sleep-related habits made the biggest difference of anything on this list.
Obviously, this is hard to pull off with a tiny baby. But once kids are a bit older, they should be sleeping longer than you every day. (If your kid is older than a few months and still not doing that, you can check out this book that saved my life during the newborn phase.)
Take advantage of this fact by starting your day 30 mins to an hour before they wake up screaming, demanding things, and making a mess. Use the time to do mindful activities that set the tone for the day. Check out this post for ideas for morning activities that will set the tone for a peaceful and inspired day.
On occasions when I don’t do this, my whole day suffers. I wake up in panic mode responding to my kid’s needs and stay in that fight-or-flight mode until he’s in bed again.
Trust me, this habit can turn around your mindset, mental health, and relationship with your kids.
5. Drinking Coffee After Food
This is another piece of simple living advice I heard years ago and ignored. I’d hear, “It’s bad to drink coffee on an empty stomach!” And I’d think, “Yeah, well…I won’t have energy to make breakfast if I don’t!”
I was completely dependent on immediate caffeine upon waking that I thought it could never change. It was so bad I dreaded going on vacation and not having immediate access to coffee in the morning.
Finally, I did some research that convinced me that this habit was terrible for my hormonal balance. And I tried a tiny shift.
When I enter the kitchen, I first heat up some water and start making a simple breakfast. I drink the hot water first, and then I slowly enjoy my breakfast while reading. Only after that do I drink coffee.
Switching up the routine made me much less desperate for coffee first thing. I now wake up functional, do a few pieces of my morning routine, and then slowly enjoy a cup of coffee while reading or journaling. Instead of frantically chugging it while groggily applying makeup and rushing around my house.
I don’t have test results to prove it, but I absolutely think it lowered my cortisol and improved my health overall.
6. Scheduling Life Admin Days
I described life admin days in another post about simple living recently. Basically, these are days you set aside to handle all the “life admin” tasks that have piled up. Examples include paying bills, scheduling appointments, buying gifts, returning purchases, or filling out paperwork.
These are often small tasks, but they feel impossible to squeeze into days that are already so busy.
Enter the life admin day. On this day, if you work, you take leave. If you’re a full-time parent, you arrange help with childcare for several hours in a row.
And then you dedicate your full energy to knocking out these tasks.
By the end of the day, you feel immensely accomplished. And also silly for procrastinating so many tasks that took you 10 minutes each.
But here’s the thing: everyone does that! It’s legitimately hard to find energy for these things on a daily basis. Dedicating a day just for them saves you so much stress.
When you add another item to your to-do list, you don’t need to feel stressed or anxious. Because you know you have a day coming up soon when you’ll have time to tackle it.
7. Changing My Mindset to Embrace Peace and Relaxation Now
This one is a bit hard to explain because it was simply an attitude change. In that sense, it’s both much easier and much harder to embrace than other simple living habits on this list.
I spent years of my life rushing around, stressed, and thinking I just had to get through this busy time. I just needed to clear my to-do list, then I could finally relax. Start simple living, do something just for fun, finally get some sleep. All of that.
Two books from Oliver Burkeman are great resources if you want to shake yourself out of this myth – Meditations for Mortals and Four Thousand Weeks.
The fact is – you’ll never clear your to-do list. Because you add more things to it every day! It may be depressing to realize that it’ll never stop. But it’s also liberating. Because it means you can stop being a slave to it.
Accept that you’ll always have a list of things you should be doing. And that doesn’t prevent you from enjoying your life or resting now. Your to-dos will always be there, and you’ll get to them eventually.
But in the meantime, you can have a happy life and enjoy all the pleasures it has to offer.
Once this clicked, I was finally able to “get” all the other simple living advice I’d read.
8. Not Following the News
This one is controversial. Where I live, everyone is quite political. I almost wrote “politically involved,” but I stopped myself. Because the fact is – they mostly aren’t involved. They’re just absorbing a ton of headlines, getting upset, and talking about them.
Still, this peer pressure means I’m hyper aware that a statement like, “I don’t really follow the news” can be perceived as the epitome of privilege and self-absorption. “Must be nice to have so much privilege you don’t have to follow the news!” is the common response. Along with an admonishment about how you should be keeping up with the many injustices around the world in solidarity with those affected.
I won’t take time on this quick list of easy simple living ideas to try to change your perspective if you feel this way.
But if you find you’re getting news pop-ups on your phone that leave you outraged and disgusted – even ruin your day – consider that you can turn these off. Remember that writers engineer headlines to grab your attention and elicit an emotional response. Although they’re informational on the surface, they are manipulating you just as much as other marketing is.
If you want to take a break from it, it doesn’t make you a bad person. Simply hearing the news and feeling upset, to be blunt, isn’t actually helping anyone anyway.
If there’s a cause you’re passionate about, find a way to support it meaningfully (contributing time, money, or whatever else you can offer). And let other exaggerated headlines pass by you. See if it changes how you feel.
9. Drinking Water First Thing in the Morning
Above, I described how coffee used to be the first thing to hit my system in the morning. Delaying that made a huge difference in itself.
But at the same time, I started drinking hot water before anything else. (The “hot” part was a recommendation from an acupuncturist based on traditional Chinese medicine. I enjoy it but I’d say it’s optional.)
I read something pointing out that if you’ve been asleep for hours, your body is dehydrated. Something that dehydrates you – like coffee – is the last thing you need at that moment.
This is one of those subtle simple living habits whose effects really took me by surprise. Because I thought I felt terrible in mornings because I “wasn’t a morning person.” It turns out there were some tiny tweaks that could change that identity.
10. Not Buying Snack Food
I mentioned in the introduction to this post that I changed my diet considerably. From mostly processed foods to whole foods. That took years, to be honest, so that’s not on this list of easy simple living habits to adopt.
But one small and easy change I made that was particularly effective was to avoid buying snack foods at the grocery store.
I still sometimes have the urge to mindlessly snack on processed foods. (Though now they’re the kind that’s marketed as “healthy.”)
This way, I only need willpower once in my week. To simply not buy the foods. After that, when the urge arises, well…there isn’t anything at hand to satisfy it. As I think we all know by now, willpower is limited. And this way, I’m not relying on that.
And avoiding the energy crash that comes from binging addictive junk food has seriously upgraded my life.
11. Blocking My Calendar at Work for Focus
I work remotely. And frankly, it’s amazing. But one side effect is that people will send messages and meeting requests throughout the workday. Colleagues have no way of knowing that I’m trying to focus on something.
For years, I was amenable to these requests. As a people pleaser, I felt a strong need to reply right away and help someone with whatever they needed in the moment.
Then I read Cal Newport’s Slow Productivity and Deep Work. And realized this tendency not only completely destroyed my productivity, it made me anxious and crazy. I couldn’t finish anything that actually required thought. And my days were spent running in different directions to put out low-level fires. This was not only chaotic, but also completely unsatisfying.
Now, I’m not afraid of setting a “busy” or “do not disturb” status. And I proactively block off my calendar at the beginning of the week for times when I want to focus.
This is such a simple change to make. But it signals to your colleagues – and to yourself – that you are not constantly available.
In an office setting, you can do the same and also shut your office door. If you’re in a cubicle, putting in headphones or a sign that says “focusing” usually works, too.
12. Quitting Soda
Yes, this is another diet-related entry on the list. But it was surprisingly easier than other changes I made in my gradual move toward simple eating and a whole foods diet.
I grew up drinking soda – mostly diet soda. Some people are shocked when I tell them I didn’t really drink water. My family survived on Diet Coke.
At the time, it seemed harmless. After all – there are no calories, right? And we all know calories are the only things that matter when it comes to your health. (Yeah…not the case as it turns out.)
Most sodas have tons of sugar. Diet sodas have artificial sweeteners, which, it turns out, also negatively affect your health. And then of course there’s the caffeine content. It’s not surprising that several other items on this list mention poor sleeping habits. I was so hopped up on caffeine I honestly thought it didn’t affect me.
After growing up this way, I frankly did not “like” plain water. But a few things helped me ditch the soda habit very quickly.
The first was seltzer water. It’s carbonated like soda, so it’s a similar experience but still essentially water.
And the other was kombucha. I started drinking kombucha because I wanted to heal my gut microbiome. It’s a powerful probiotic. But the added benefit is that it’s carbonated and lightly sweetened – making it another great soda replacement. (Though due to its price and mild alcohol content, you wouldn’t want to drink six a day like I used to with Diet Coke.)
These replacements helped me to quit soda cold turkey and eventually learn to love plain water. And that habit change was one of the most impactful for fixing my health issues and improving how I feel.
13. Reducing Caffeine Overall
Years ago, I would have asked why everyone made such a big deal about caffeine. It hardly affected me after all. I could drink a huge iced coffee and go right to sleep.
But if I had looked a little closer, I would have seen that my sleep quality was terrible. My hormones were not in balance. And I was in constant fight-or-flight mode without realizing it.
To be honest, I didn’t take the caffeine thing seriously until I got pregnant. That’s when many of us start really thinking about what we put in our bodies.
Once I was back to a reasonable equilibrium, I could compare how I felt to how I had been feeling for years. And it was way better.
I see overuse of caffeine as a consequence of a sick system in general. So many of us can’t get enough sleep but need to push hard to do a million things regardless. We need to focus – to study or to work – even when we’re exhausted. And in that context, of course it makes sense to use stimulants like caffeine to get through it.
But the healthier option is quitting the system and embracing simple living. Instead of wondering how you’re going to get the energy to perform on all your commitments, you should be questioning why you have so many responsibilities. And if it could be different.
14. Single-Tasking
Before learning about simple living, I didn’t realize how much of my life was focused on multi-tasking. I took pride in my ability to multi-task. And to be honest, I got bored with doing one task at a time.
I always thought, “I need to do this task…but how can I get another one done at the same time?”
That led me to call relatives while cleaning my house, listen to audiobooks while doing chores, check e-mails while walking my dog, and so on.
I was also never focused on one task. I often found myself starting one task then flitting to another. I’d start to load the dishwasher then realize my cat’s food bowl was empty. While filling his bowl, I’d remember I wanted to wash a load of towels and rush out to grab them.
Just this glimpse into mundane daily tasks should give you an idea of how frantic and chaotic my mental world was. But it felt normal to me!
After reading about simple living, I decided to consciously commit myself to one task at a time. When I feel that urge to drop one thing to work on something else that just came to mind, I tell myself “No.” I practice things like just commuting on the bus – without trying to get something done while I’m sitting there.
If you’re used to a frenetic pace, it will feel a bit agonizing at first. But after a bit of practice, you’ll discover something you haven’t felt in ages – peace.
15. Hiding My Social Media Apps
I’ve mentioned this before as an easy hack for simplifying your life today. But I have to include it here because it was both so easy and so life changing.
I didn’t even deactivate my accounts or delete the apps from my phone. I simply filed them away in a group with a bunch of other apps I don’t use.
Previously, even though I had very little interest in these apps, I found myself clicking on them without thinking when I was bored or looking for a distraction.
And once I opened them, the apps of course did what they were designed to do: hijacked my attention for several minutes.
Finally fed up with this cycle, I simply moved the apps one day. After that, I found myself swiping through my phone mindlessly, not really knowing what I was looking for. After a few seconds, I would realize I was repeating the habit of opening these social media apps. When I couldn’t find them on autopilot, it snapped me out of the cycle and I was able to remember I didn’t actually want to spend time on them.
Of course, I still advocate for deleting accounts entirely – or at least removing apps from your phone. If that’s something you’re interested in. (And if so, check out these ideas for conquering your phone addiction.)
But it turns out most of the problem can be solved even more easily than that.
What Do You Think?
These are just 15 small simple living changes I made that I have made a huge difference in my life. What habit shifts have made the biggest difference in your life? I’d love to hear from you in the comments!
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