Welcome to Simple Living Saturdays, where we are all seeking to encourage one another in purposefully simplicity for the glory of God! Today of which I am honored to host this wonderful carnival due to Stephanie @ Keeper of the Home’s absence.
I thought I would share a few simple ideas I am learning for simplifying my time and freeing it up for more important things…
1. Do all my laundry in one day - on the same day each week
This helps me get the job done and completed each week without dragging it out over the week. My husband also appreciates having consist clean clothes. I wash all our clothes on one day and fold them the next.
2. Limit my outside errands to one trip a week
Especially when juggling a child, it is so much more difficult to get out the door and manage at the store several times a week. I just can’t do it peaceably! Keep a list of your needs on your refrigerator and add to it as something comes to mind. I find I can save alot of time and money this way, because often times with further thought I realize I can live without that item altogether or stretch the time of need.
3. Avoid the telephone or multi-task!
I am working on avoiding the telephone and keeping most of my communication to emailing. If I have a simple question to ask a friend, sending an email takes a lot less time then getting on the phone and then talking about other topics. If I cannot avoid it altogether, I will talk while washing the dishes or doing another household task so as to accomplish both things at once.
4. Limit my computer usage
Okay, so I am far from figuring this one out completely. The computer can definitely consumer a lot of my time. My goal over the next week is to develop a computer schedule and limit my time to 1-1/2 hours each day. One hour for writing, reading and research and the other half hour for responding to comments and emails. I realize that this computer time needs to be accomplished while my daughter is sleeping, otherwise it distracts me from my first most important priorities. I need to start setting a timer! So how can you schedule in some computer boundaries to keep your time more guarded?
Those are just a few little ideas from this end that I am in the process of learning to simplifying my time in order to focus others! I would love to hear other ideas, especially on limiting the computer time!
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Living Simply Saturdays are an opportunity to share what is bringing more simplicity and purposefulness to your own life, and to glean from the lives of others.
To join in, post your contribution on your blog, then come back here and add your link below. Please make sure that you link to the specific post, and not to the homepage of your blog, and make sure that you include in your post a link back to this post. Thanks so much!
If you don’t have a blog, I welcome your thoughts and suggestions in the comments section!
Related Posts
- My Simple Living Prayer
- Simple Saturdays: Simplifying Canning!
- Rejoicing Despite Circumstances
- Mission Minded Budget
I have switched to doing errands 1 day a week. If I run out of something I try and figure out what to do instead. I think it saves a lot of money. It’s tiring because we are out all day (for me anyway). I enjoy going out with my son though and we usually go out to lunch together (which I guess uses up the money we saved). It’s a great way to spend time together. Of course he’s going to school now so I miss that
I can’t do laundry in one day it is too overwhelming so doesn’t get done. For me it is simple to do the load a day and put them away. I know that is different for different people.
I don’t use the phone very often (I have a phobia). I decided to get a hands free headset for when my sister or son calls though so I can do other things. I get bored.
Good luck on the computer thing. Blogs are so helpful and informative to me but they do take a lot of time it is difficult to budget.
I like your idea of washing one day and then folding the next. I normally try to wash and fold both in one day and something always gets left undone. I’ve had to start running my errands in one day as well. We don’t live far from some stores, but with the price of gas, I’ve been trying to run my errands after Isabella has gymnastics, that way we don’t drive around too much. I hope others have some suggestions for computer time as well. I told my husband I want to make a schedule up for myself — I know it won’t be perfect and could change due to my girls, but I have got to become more organized in every area of life. I think a timer sounds like a great idea because even if I said, “I’m only going to sit her for 30 minutes” and hour could still easily pass by. I actually hadn’t thought of that before, Thanks!
Computer time is definitely my most difficult area to keep perspective on. The main thing for me is just setting limits and sticking to them no matter what. I set a time, and then I am off. I have also begun to only go on the computer as a reward when my other duties in the home are complete! It is still a struggle, but I am making some headway.
Also putting my favorite blogs in my google feedreader helps me to quickly scan the titles and read what interests me. This lessens my time browsing!
This is a great list. I try to do all of those things already, but it’s good to see it in writing and as a reminder. Have a great weekend.
Lindsay, here is some free time management software for your internet use. I hope this helps! I haven’t tried it myself, because frankly I’m scared of the results already!
http://www.getrichslowly.org/blog/2008/05/07/rescuetime-free-time-management-software/
The thing that above all has simplified my life is a shopping spreadsheet. I have used this for years and years, and when I was on bed rest once for months during a pregnancy, it showed its worth to my husband as well. It’s a simple spreadsheet with the item, name, store, size, price, and how much we use per month (or whatever time frame) and the month I anticipate buying it next.
At the beginning of a month I sort by the month I am in, then look at what I have in inventory. If I have in inventory what I would need for that month, I update the list for the next time I would need to buy it. This, in combination with a meal plan, has saved soooo many trips to the store and panic attacks when an ingredient is missing. When I come back from the store, I quickly update the spreadsheet with what I bought and its price (which also helps with budgeting). In the middle of the month I usually only have to buy perishables.
As far as the computer is concerned, I like to quickly check my e-mail and the news first thing. Of course, one has to be careful that checking e-mail does not entice one on and on… Then I check e-mail again in the afternoon and late in the evening. I give myself a little more leeway at this time to read articles, do research, etc. I am beginning to discipline myself to using the weekends for significant computer tasks, like commenting on blogs.
It’s a work in progress, but I appreciate that so many understand that the computer can become a lonely love affair that leaves our families out in the cold.
Hi! This is an awesome idea, living simply seems so simple, yet so hard to implement. I love reading other’s ideas.
As for limiting computer time, I have problems with this myself. Unless my daughter has a computer class that day, I don’t turn on the computer until after everyone is safely tucked in their beds. Then I can turn on the computer and spend an hour or two in silence to do what needs to be done, or just relax, surf and read blogs
If I turn it on during the day, I get caught up in it, reading page after page, surfing and realizing that the kids just took every toy out of their rooms and are now all over the house! LOL It’s happened. When my daughter does have a computer class, or if my hubby calls and asks me to research something for him, I turn it on, do the task at hand, then promptly turn it off until later. This seems to be the ONLY way I can limit my time. Hope this helps you!
It is late (at least for me) Saturday night and I just discovered this carnival. I love it and will be prepared to participate next week. I am enjoying reading the thoughts of others, being inspired, encouraged and accountable on this journey towards simplicity which is anything but simple!
I had to laugh when I read your laundry tip, because I think if I had to pick the NUMBER ONE thing that helped me get housekeeping more under control, it was to switch from doing laundry once or twice a week & just do one load every day! I was “forced” into it, when I switched to line drying because I only had space to line dry one load (now I could do 3 if I had to, when the new baby comes I’ll have to do 2 at least once or twice a week w/ the extra diaper loads, and if rain or being out of town backs things up I’ll do 2 or 3 loads one day to get caught up) But by basically never letting the laundry pile up I find it SO much easier to keep on top of, I can almost always find time to put away one load of laundry, but having a whole bunch at once overwhelmed me. It means we can get by w/ less clothes because things are almost always clean. It means it’s ok when one of my kids goes through an “I want to wear this dress (or whatever)every day” because as soon as they wear it, it will get washed the next day, instead of having to wait till wash day.
Whatever works for you! It really depends upon your season and how much clothes you have to wash. We have simplified our wardrobe quite a bit, and yet we still only have three people, so getting it all done in one day is quite easy. I used to hang all my clothes, but with the limited space I have, and a container garden on my deck, I had to cut back to just hanging one load per week. That works for us right now!
I have a question…if you wash your laundry all in one day, and fold the next, how do you keep things from getting wrinkled?
Thanks!
I thought the exact same thing!
I can’t do it all in one day. When it was just me (and living on my own) it took me 2-3 days. I was usually too busy to do it all in one day.
Now with the 4 of us, I do at least a load or two a day. Always towels to be done!
I hang anything to dry that would normally get wrinkled (nice button up shirts, skirts, etc). Wednesday is ironing day if it is necessary.
hmmmm that reminds me!
Any tips on dry cleaning only clothes? I have clothes that are dry clean only as does my husband. He wears suits and the like daily. Most of his pants are dry clean only.
Tips as in how to save money. Our dry cleaning bills are ridiculous some weeks.
I would like to give this a try. Right now, I do 1-2 loads per day. If I could wash everything one day, fold everything the next, iron what NEEDS to be ironed, I think I might like this new system, but not sure if it will work for us or not. We homeschool upstairs, and the laundry room is downstairs. It’s worth a try to see if it would indeed simplify things for our family:-)