Making life simple part II

In the last post I talked about the importance of simplifying your life and how we adults are very good at making our life overly complicated. In this post I will give you some ideas what I have done in my personal life and what you can do to to achieve a simpler, less stressful life. Of course in all likely hood these tips won’t be applicable to your own unique situation as is, but think of them as a guidelines or a set of ideas that you can apply (and improve) in your own situation. So without further ado let’s get rolling.

Work & Income

I don’t really know where to start from so I’ll go ahead with the big one, work. Work and finances are by far the largest day to day source of stress for most western world adults right after household chores and relationships. Most of us have to go to work most days of the week for most days of our lives. Our lives are essentially build around work as our livelihood dictates how much and what time of the day we can allocate for our personal life. In case you are unemployed and without other forms of income the stress of finding work can actually be 24/7.

So what we do for a living affects every other part of our lives. Since I can’t know what your profession is I can’t know what your typical working schedule is. But I bet what ever it is you hope it would be less. If you don’t, you might actually have a job your truly passionate about which means this whole chapter doesn’t really concern you since your job is adding to your happy time, not subtracting from it.

There are three things you should strive for in your working life if you wish to live a simpler, less stressful life:

1. Work should take the least amount time possible of your day – considering your current situation and needs
2. Work should always stay at work. You really should not have to answer the phone at night or think about business 24/7
3. The work you do should be enjoyable instead of a chore

So those are the goals, quite simple yet very hard to achieve. If you look at your work situation at the moment and it meet even one of the goals above you should be really happy and realize you’re actually quite lucky. The wast majority of people have to think about their job at home, don’t really enjoy their job and have to dedicate a large chuck of their existence to it. The best advice I can give to you for achieving those goals is to get an education in a field that interests you, specialize and become an expert. I’ll write more about this topic later but for now you have settle for goals you should strive for.

Finances

This is a quick one related to the previous one. Make sure you have enough income compared to your expenses so you don’t have to worry about bankruptcy. Easier said than done but you just have to find a way to make the ends meet – cut your expenses or acquire more income – it’s simple as that. It’s a lot easier – and less stressful –  to keep your expenses low than to increase your income so I suggest you consider very carefully and realistically every big investment you make. I.e. If you don’t have savings and steady income, please don’t take a mortgage and have children – you’re digging your own grave and asking for a very stressful and troubled life if you do. Be smart about money. I understand there are people in great debt and single parents with no steady income and four children to whom these are empty words. I truly feel sorry for people in such situations and encourage them to do the best with what they have and never lose hope.

Assuming you have your finances in order otherwise – automate everything. These days it’s possible to get all your bills, payments and transactions automated in your online bank service. It takes a bit of time to set everything up but once done all you need to do is check everything is in order every couple weeks. I use maybe an hour a month tops to take care of my finances due to automation.

That’s pretty much all financial advise you’re going to get from me since this is really not my expertise otherwise. So in summary – be smart about money and automate.

Transportation and logistics

This is something surprisingly many people don’t seem to think about when making decisions about their lives. I’m always shocked when I hear a friend or a colleague bought a new house – an hour away from their job. It was really nice and cheap they say, they like the peace and quiet they say… Sure it’s cheap and peaceful because it’s in the middle of the freaking woods. That’s fine by me if you like to live on the outskirts of civilization amongst the polar bears and reindeer (which both are rampant in the Finnish forests), but surely you took in to consideration the cost of two hour daily drive to work five times a week while calculating costs of living? No? Maybe not the greatest deal after all…

The thing is this. Transportation is expensive and long commutes are stressful. Even if you think they aren’t to you – they are. They also increase your risk of getting in to a serious traffic accident (directly proportionate to your daily commute length). That’s why it’s smart to have all your daily destinations as close to your home as possible. This means your job, grocery store, hobbies, school etc. anything where you need to go daily or several days a week. Once again I do realize it’s possible that maybe one of your hobbies is far away or maybe your job is in different city then your spouses and one of you has to commute or what not but that does not change the fact that you should strive for a better situation. Less commute, less stress and more fun time.

Exercise and training

We humans as species need a certain amount of exercise to function optimally. Even though many times exercise feels like chore when you’d rather take it easy on the couch after a stressful day at work exercise is guaranteed to make you feel better and more relaxed afterwards. From stress reduction and mental health perspective it really does not matter what kind of exercise you do as long as you enjoy it and you do it regularly. For overall health and fitness you need to add in some resistance training and cardio to optimize your health.

I love heavy lifting and am an avid proponent of it’s health benefits and bang for the buck from time invested when compared to extensive cardio. Regular heavy resistance training will make make every single part of your body stronger. This includes the obvious like muscles, ligaments and bones but it’s also very taxing on the cardiovascular system and offers almost the same benefits as dedicated cardio, it builds character as you force yourself to lift heavier and heavier weights, it has been shown to increase your confidence and relieve stress, anger and depression. So it’s a no-brainer to include some form of resistance training in your routine.

Here’s what I do to minimize my exercise and still get all the benefits:

First is to ditch the car and walk or bike everywhere when possible. For example I have a work commute of about 2 kilometers. If I walk or bike that twice every week day I will get more then enough cardio for the health benefits and I don’t necessarily have to go for a run or walk just for the sake of it. Although I do enjoy slow pace evening walks as they are great for stress reduction.

The second part is to do at least two 30 minute sessions of weight training a week. Yes that’s right – all you need is an hours worth of working out a week to reap the benefits and keep yourself healthy for life. This is best done either before or after work since it’s much more likely you get stuck on the couch if you go home in between. So find a gym near your place of work or maybe there’s one at your office and get banging couple times a week and you’re done. I you have true fitness goals you do have to work a bit more – I go to the gym 3 to 4 times a week for around 90 minutes of which I use about 60 minutes for the workout and rest is for mobility, accessory work and warm ups. But that is not necessary for most of the health benefits.

So when you sum that up it’s basically one hour of exercise a week if you substitute a car commute with walking or biking. I left out possible hobbies that include exercise and I really think you should also see them as a plus and count on your work week exercise to make up the bulk of your total. This way you will make a daily routine of exercising. I will have whole section about exercise on this blog since it’s one of my passions but these basic steps will get you far health wise in your day to day life.

Health (rest, sleep, diet)

Most healthy young people don’t stress about their health that much. This is logical as our brains tend to focus on things we can perceive and when we don’t have health problems we can’t really feel our “health”. Now as you get older you start getting all sorts of nagging little problems like back and joint pains, vision problems, tooth decay, hemorrhoids and all kinds of fun stuff. Maybe the doctor tells you that your blood pressure is a bit on the high side and you are over weight.

If you don’t get concerned about your health at this point you will eventually when the shit hits the fan big time and you get serious health issues that effect your quality of life due to pain, restricted mobility and even disability. Those of us who are not so fortunate and have chronic illnesses or maybe disabilities from birth usually worry about their health from day one and do their best to not achieve any additional health problems naturally. As always there are exceptions.

Now how to avoid all that shit to the best of your ability? First off let me state that of course there are diseases, accidents and disabilities that we have no control over. These are the kind of health problems you need to accept as no fault of your own. Deal with them in cooperation with your health care provider and do your best at living an otherwise healthy life.

What we humans need to live a healthy life is actually very simple. Just have a healthy balanced diet, sleep and rest enough, do a bit of exercise every day and have some social contact with other people. This is what your (hopefully) parents, teachers and doctors have been telling you your whole life so it’s not like I just stumbled about the secret of healthy living.

What you don’t need is crazy trend diets (low carbs, no carbs, no gluten, just gluten etc.), crazy amounts of exercise like going to the gym every day or running marathons, eating supplements and a shit ton of protein shakes. Yet somehow alarming amount of people seem to miss these basic building blocks of a healthy lifestyle.

What I have personally done is to prioritize my sleep, diet and exercise on my daily task list. They don’t take any extra when you have routine to follow on a daily basis and you don’t even have to think about your basic health needs.

I make sure I get to sleep around the same time every night on work nights. On weekends I don’t worry about my sleep schedule too much but if I attend to a party and have a late nighter, I try to make up for the very next night to not disrupt my sleep cycle and circadian rhythm too much.

I eat healthy wholefood based food on almost every meal and when I eat out I try to stay on the healthier side most of the time but I do enjoy some burgers, pizza, candy or chocolate on weekly basis. I have a full chapter on eating later on.

When I’m healthy I aim to get some exercise every day. This can be as simple as cycling or walking to work but I enjoy going to the gym 3 to 4 times a week and doing progressive strength training. Simply walking an hour every day and maybe doing some yard work is enough for the average people to get all the health benefits of exercise.

Living (home, condo etc.) 

First of, If you can afford it, buy an apartment or a house. This way you won’t have to stress about your landlords demands.

Secondly, choose the right size for your needs. Bigger housing = more chores and more dough. So invest in larger apartment only out of need or if you can afford help to take care of the chores. Don’t underestimate this.

Todo list

This is a true life saver for scramble headed fool like myself. I can barely remember my own name and address let alone all the shit a have to get done today, tomorrow, the week etc. That’s why I have a todo list on my smart phone. I pretty much put down on it every chore as they come up no matter how small it might seem. This way I don’t have to actively think about them and I free much of working memory for more useful purposes and get much more shit done.

I like to use a simple android app called ColorNote (not affiliated in any way what so ever) to make checklists. I have a checklist literally named Todo that I update daily and I have checklists for groceries and for luggage when going on trips. I bet there are much more sophisticated apps for this but I like to keep things simple. Of course I also use the calendar on my phone for meetings and dates. Use what ever feels comfortable to you but do it regularly and you’ll be amazed how much more shit you can get done.

Chores

Do them little bit every day. That’s truly the only secret there is – it’s an never ending uphill battle against laziness. Right now this post is starting to feel like one so I don’t think I can manage to write more about this topic. Maybe I will share some of my tips to minimizing chores and the time spent doing them later – maybe I wont since it feels like a chore ha ha.

So those are my random somewhat obvious tips for a simpler life. I bet you have better ones so please share on the comments below!