Do Less (13 page)

Routines are an integral part of an exciting and fruitful life. Surprised to read that? Routines get a bad rap for their association with boredom or monotony, when in fact they can be a gateway to productivity and make room for spontaneity and excitement. The important step is to identify what areas of life are ideal for routine and what areas are best kept free for last-minute decisions. This gives you more room for choice where you need it and when you want it. Ask yourself where you like choice and where you like routine:

• Do you need variety in your breakfast or are you a creature of habit and eat a bowl of cereal six of seven mornings a week?
  
• Would you be comfortable wearing the same outfit every Monday to work or do you like deciding what to wear every morning?
  

To get the benefit of routines, first look for the ones you already have and which ones you enjoy most. The goal is to batch small decisions into routines so you don't have to put any energy or time into making choices.

Routines simplify our lives. Taking the same route to work, catching the same bus every morning, sweating through the same spin class every Tuesday night—all those things make our lives easier and leave more energy for the bigger goals and dreams we have. Consider:

• If you eat salmon every Tuesday night, you don't have to waste time that afternoon thinking about or planning a meal.
  
• If you always go for a run first thing Saturday morning, you don't hesitate or debate putting your running shoes on and getting out the door.
  
• If you wake up at the same time every weekday morning, and conversely go to bed within the same half-hour window Sunday through Thursday, you don't have to debate if you should stay up an extra hour to finish that book or watch more television or surf the Internet.
  

Routines declutter your daily schedule and give you more time. When you're looking for ways to get more of what you want, be it time for work, rest, or play, one thing that can help is having set morning and evening routines. When you wake, you're on autopilot for your first hour preparing for the day ahead and you arrive at your desk awake, on time, and ready for an efficient and productive morning at work.

Make note of the routines you keep. Does every day start and end at a different time? Do you awake and instantly start asking yourself, what next? Are there dozens of decisions to make before you put your coat on and go outside? Do you spend Sunday night wondering how you'll make the time to pay bills or do housework in the following week? Remove these questions from your life by building routines for them.

There are many things you can turn into a set routine to free up your time. Here is a list of tasks you can automate for yourself.

• Meals:
  Have the same breakfast all week at the same time. Set a dinner hour and stick to it.
  
• Sleep:
  Go to bed in the same one-hour window each evening. Enjoy half an hour of screen-free time before you hit the sheets. Set your alarm for the same time each morning.
  
• Clothing:
  Select five outfits, one for each weekday, and stick to the same Monday-to-Friday rotation.
  
• Housework:
  Set a weekly cleaning and laundry routine. Be specific about the tasks, the time of day you will perform them, and how long you will take.
  
• Grocery shopping and meal preparation:
  If you have a traditional Monday-to-Friday workweek, shop for groceries at the beginning or end of the week. Commit to just going to the grocery store once a week with a meal plan and list in hand so that you don't have to waste time, energy, and money on last-minute trips to the store for ingredients vital to the evening meal.
  

Paper clutter is insidious. We all have it: the opened but not filed or shredded bills that sit on the kitchen counter for a week before you move them to the home office, where they languish for weeks; fliers and junk mail that need to be sorted, recycled, shredded, or filed. One way to reduce the work involved in staying on top of clutter is to limit what comes into the home. Get rid of as much junk mail as you possibly can. Here are some tips:

• Start by contacting your local post office and finding out how to get off their flier delivery service.
  
• Do you get thick stacks of seasonal catalogues? Contact the companies directly and get yourself removed from their mailing lists. Most, if not all, companies have websites you can browse if you prefer to shop from home. A few phone calls and e-mails can save you several hours a month of sorting paper clutter.
  
• Going “paperless” was supposed to be a milestone for the new millennium. Yet, we seem to have more paper to deal with and now more electronic statements flooding our e-mail than we did just a few years ago. Staying organized has never been harder. The solution: truly go paperless. Notify your bank and any company you receive a statement from that you only want to receive electronic statements. Some companies will allow you to make this switch on their website, whereas others will require that you call them. Be sure to request paperless statements for every bank account, investment account, and credit card. To avoid ending up with digital clutter from the online statements, create folders and categories within your e-mail account to save electronic statements. If the statement arrives as an attachment, create a folder on your computer to save all your statements. Remember to stick to the same naming scheme for all folders and subfolders, such as year, company, and account name.
  

Now that you have less coming into your home, you can finally tackle all that paper clutter in your home office. Check back in the Home section for more ideas for culling all the paper clutter in your home.

How many photos do you have of your infanthood? Most likely you have far fewer photos of yourself crawling, eating birthday cake, and enjoying your first beach vacation than the average child today. Digital photography has changed not only how we take photographs but also how many pictures we take. It's so easy to take photos that we take thousands of them a year instead of just a few dozen on special occasions. We take photos of our meals and send them to friends and post them on social media websites. We take multiple photos as we try to capture the perfect smile. Are all these photos worthy of framing and being displayed in our homes? No. Yet we keep all these digital files and they clog up our computers and cell phones, making it impossible to find the ones we need when we need them.

The two best ways to reduce all this electronic clutter: take fewer photos and delete everything but the best.

1. Wait for those really special moments before you pull out your camera. Not only will you capture better images, but you'll also see more and enjoy more when you're not constantly trying to document everything.
   
2. After you've taken photos, quickly delete from your camera any that you know aren't worth keeping. When you upload photos to your computer or a digital photo album, edit them again to include just the very best pictures.
   

If you can make these two things a habit, you will not only need less electronic storage for your photos, but you'll have better images that are easier to find when you need them. Plus, you'll enjoy life more when you're not always behind the camera trying to capture every single moment.

It can seem counterintuitive, but to Do Less in the kitchen you first need to plan more. In the Home section, you reduced your kitchen clutter by just keeping cookware to make six of your favorite weekday meals. Those six meals plus a simple set of breakfast and lunch items will revolutionize how much time, money, and effort you put into cooking healthy and fresh meals. Fast, simple, and healthy beats messy, complicated, and expensive any day.

Meal planning is a cornerstone of a waste-free, frugal, and minimalist kitchen. By knowing what's for dinner in advance, and having all the ingredients on hand, you reduce your daily stress and free up more of your time. No more last-minute runs to the store, or even worse, losing all your cooking motivation and ordering take-out. You don't need an app or a binder or a complicated spreadsheet to meal plan, either. You just need six simple meals that you can throw together on weeknights.

If you've never meal planned before, don't be scared. Meal planning is just another way to live an organized and intentional life. It will help you eat nutritious meals, save money, and never face the four o'clock “what's for dinner?” panic again. Start with your list of six simple meals. They should be meals that you can pull together in thirty minutes or less of final preparation and cooking time. Think grilled chicken thighs instead of a whole roasted chicken, or a stew that can be loaded into a slow cooker in the morning instead of cooked in a Dutch oven for three hours in the afternoon. Save complicated or time-consuming recipes for special occasions.

To cut down on the number of ingredients, look for recipes that have a few items in common with each other. Ideally you have a few crossover items like grains or vegetables that you can buy and prepare in bulk. Don't be afraid to duplicate side dishes in a week. Variety may be the spice of life, but it tends to take up a lot of time and space in your refrigerator.

Create a list of your meals and all their ingredients. If your list is long and dotted with things like fresh basil, anchovy paste, and kumquats, go back to the drawing board. Simple can be just as interesting and tasty as complicated. Simple can be as sophisticated and gourmet as you want it to be. Here are some suggestions:

• Pan-fry salmon with a squeeze of lemon and add a side of broccoli and rice.
  
• Make a double batch of rice and turn it into fried rice the next night with chicken, whatever vegetables are in need of use, and a dash of soy sauce.
  
• A large batch of Bolognese sauce for spaghetti can be quickly turned into chili the following night with the addition of a can of beans and chili powder.
  

Hearty, simple meals are the foundation of minimalist meal planning. Save the experimenting for a weekend when you want to have fun and entertain.

Even the most organized and streamlined life is peppered with the occasional busy day followed by take-out or more leftovers than anticipated. For this reason, only plan for six evening meals a week.

Some people view meal planning as boring and think it removes some spontaneity from life. But in the organized and happy life, meal planning allows for spontaneity in bigger things:

• If you meal plan regularly, you reduce food waste and save money.
  
• If you meal plan regularly, you save time by not having to go to the grocery store more than once a week. Without the stress of last-minute dinner planning you can put your energy, time, and money into bigger goals.
  
• If you meal plan, you create more space in your life for things like last-minute weekend getaways, turning the evening meal into a picnic, and having the funds to enjoy a planned meal out with friends.
  

Of course, if cooking is a hobby that you value, you might find that you
want
to spend more time on it. If so, go ahead! The point of minimalism is to spend more time doing what you love. If that's cooking, then free up time and money using other ideas in this book and spend yours on cooking.

How many mornings does your alarm go off and you regret that extra hour, or three, you stayed up the night before? With the exception of New Year's Eve or a big night on the town, it's rarely worth it to stay up past eleven o'clock if you have to be at work by nine the next morning. If you let yourself get consumed by a book, a craft project, the Internet, work, or bad television, you'll often feel exhausted the next day. There are endless ways to waste the late hours of the evening that will fill you with regret the next day. You might find yourself groggy, late, and short-tempered because you made a small but bad decision to stay up too late the night before.

Going to bed early simplifies your life because it makes your days easier. A good night's sleep brings more patience, energy, and focus for family and work. Make yourself an adult bedtime routine:

• Avoid stressful conversations or activities after 8:00
  P.M.
  
• Turn computers, smartphones, tablets, and televisions off by 9:30
  P.M.
  
• Spend a few minutes on self-care. Floss. Actually clean your contact lenses instead of just shoving them in their case. Do a nice wash and cleanse with those skin products that you splurged on but never make the time to use.
  
• Settle into bed thirty minutes before you hope to be asleep. If you're going to read in bed, set a page or time limit for yourself.
  

What time you go to bed each night has a big impact on your life. Go to bed at the same time each evening and reap the rewards of great sleep and a good start to each day.

Nowadays, there are many ways to watch your favorite television shows. You can watch through regular cable subscription, record the show to watch later, or stream it online. You don't need to kill time watching not-so-great television as you wait for your favorite program to air.

If you want more time for your favorite things—sleep or your spouse or reading or playing ball with your son—watch less television. Set a weekly limit for yourself, similar to what you might do for your children, and prioritize the programs you want to watch. If you're used to the television being on whenever you are home, start leaving it off and only turn it on when you are ready to enjoy a quality program that you have already selected. Resist the temptation to surf channels. Being a deliberate and discerning television viewer is one way to create more time in your schedule and reduce distractions.