Simplify Your Life, Revisited
Recently I reviewed the “Simplify Your Life” page I wrote in 2002. I was pleased to see that those tips are still mostly relevant to life five years later and that I have indeed been practicing most of them during the last half-decade.
The only tip I had to revise extensively was in regards to a cell phone. Five years ago I ditched mine, but after moving from Fremont and traveling extensively, I got one again. Nowadays my cell phone is my primary (only) phone, and I love that. Cell phone technology has really come a long way since then in regards to dropped calls, battery life and features. Unfortunately I find myself guilty of answering the phone while driving once in a while but I will try to be more conscientious about that.
One thing that I didn’t have to deal with five years ago (having an easy-to-care-for townhome back then) was yard maintenance. If you have some simplification tips here that are also cost effective, please let me know! I am spending way too much time in the yard and garden each week, time I’d rather spend doing other things. Weeding is a big issue (both within and outside of the lawn), something that even setting up weed barriers under new mulch has not mitigated much. Help!
There are 4 comments.
Wow, you had lots of great stuff on the "Simplify Your Life" page! I'm on a decluttering and organizing kick these days... here's hoping it'll stick. As far as your garden, have you considered gardening with native plants? And if life gives you dandelions, you can always have a dandelion green salad. :)
Hey, fellow Stanford alum! (We graduated YEARS before you, though :-)
Weeding is a pain, but this year we started using kid-power -- it's amazing what kids (ages 8-10) think are fun things to do, especially when they are bored. Our neighborhood kids pulled our weeds for fun, but we didn't want to take advantage of them, so we paid them a buck each.
As for decluttering, we Freecycle items that are still in good shape that other people could put to good use. When we remodelled our two bathrooms, everything -- lights, toilets, vanities, sinks, bathtubs -- really, everything got claimed by various diligent Fort Collins Freecyclers.
As an avid but not currently practicing gardener, I can say that at my old house, years of adding compost to the soil made weeds come out super easy. It was a pleasure knowing the weeds (if pulled before going to seed) cycled back to make a very rich compost.
About the cell phone, I found when I got mine, my life was more simple. Prior to getting mine in like 2003 I would come home, check the machine the caller id, email accounts and im accounts. Missing calls or worrying about missing communications, added to the stress of my life. Now I have a pda phone, having everything built in has simplified my life. I have a money manager system, calorie counter, camera, mp3 player, journal, note pad, to do list, full internet, calendar, calculator, email accounts, IM, and myspace. I write my shoppping lists in the notepad, saving paper and hassles. I "balance my checkbook" (keep track of my budgets) right from my phone. Everything is in one place, that's simple.