What Does "Simple Living" Look Like?

All of this talk of "simple living" and "simplifying" has got me in a tizzy. What does it actually look like? Is it even possible? Or is life inherently messy and complicated? Is "simple living" actually a unicorn? Like... it doesn't exist?

There are certain things that certainly "simplify" life... like automatic bill payments and recurring events in calendars. But do they actually contribute to a "simple life"? Probably not... if we really wanted a "simple life"... we would sell everything and travel the world. Although... while that may simplify some aspects of life, it complicates others.

So, what does "simple living" even mean? Perhaps it means that we spend less time on activities that take a lot of energy/time but give low fulfillment. Or we find someone else to do those things. Like mowing the lawn... not a lot of fulfillment in that and it's a hassle... get someone else to do that? Or cleaning the house? Although I do get some fulfillment out of that. When I do it... the trick is just getting me to the point of doing it.

Perhaps "simple living" is just less... less of everything. Less appointments. Less stuff in the calendar. Less work. Less chores. In exchange for more fun?

I used to think that computers would simplify life... hah! And digital cameras? Hah! So much "easier" to send photos and store things but... simple? Nope... not at all. Not when you have 10,000s of thousands of photos cluttering up your hard drive. 

And that is an important distinction... simple does not mean easier. Sometimes the simple life is a hard life. So is it really "simple" living that I want or an "easy" life? And if life is easy... without challenges... does that just atrophy me?

The AI Weighs In on Simple vs. Easy

I thought I would ask the ChatGPT AI the question...

"Making life "simple" means reducing complexity and removing unnecessary complications, while making life "easy" means minimizing effort and avoiding difficulty. While the two concepts are related, they are not the same thing.

Simplicity focuses on removing distractions and reducing the number of choices you have to make, making it easier to prioritize what's important and make decisions. It can help you stay focused on your goals and reduce stress.

Ease, on the other hand, often involves delegating tasks or relying on external resources to handle things for you. It can make life more convenient and comfortable, but it may not necessarily lead to personal growth or a sense of accomplishment."

Yes... that is exactly the question I am pondering... do we really want a life of ease? Or are we looking for a simple life? Because a simple life would get to the point where we don't need to delegate things because we have eliminated the things that complicate life. 

So, perhaps the real question is... what would a simple life look like for us? In our situation. How can we simplify things as much as possible?

How to Make Life Simpler

Now, I know this isn't rocket science but... given the tizzy we are in... or I am in... it bears repeating.

1. Declutter: This is a no-brainer. Get rid of the things that are taking up space in the house (and the hard-drive) that are no longer used. And won't be used in the future.
2. Minimize Commitments: This requires me to identify what are the key things I want to keep in my life and to prioritize them. I think this is where "easy" comes in as well. If I want to spend more time hiking... then maybe it's time to de-prioritize house cleaning and delegate it to a cleaning service.
3. Focus on the Essentials: Similar to the one above... prioritize the things that matter the most to me and avoid getting bogged down in non-essential tasks. There are a lot of things that I do which are "nice to have done" but are they essential? Maybe not.
4. Establish Routines: Yep, routines help avoid decision fatigue and make things go smoothly.
5. Limit Distractions: Like social media and the news sites. Because they do suck up an inordinate amount of time and energy. If I say I don't have enough time for things... and then spend hours watching TV... that doesn't... quite... jive.
6. Automate tasks: Yes... like paying bills and grocery shopping. Although... during the pandemic I would go to Superstore to pick up my online order and end up sitting there for 45 minutes waiting for them to bring it outside. I am not sure that automation always simplifies things!
7. Simplify your finances: This could be helpful - rather than having bank accounts in 3 banks... and multiple credit cards... pull it way back and consolidate all of these. Maybe. I don't like having all eggs in one basket but not sure that 6 credit cards, all with different banks, are really necessary!
8. Get organized: Oh yes... this is a big one. My list of "to scan" papers has been growing larger every week and... tax season is always a stress. If I scanned regularly... tax season wouldn't be so bad. But it's a tedious task and so I put it off... even though it would make my life simpler... it isn't necessarily easy.
9. Prioritize self-care: And this makes sense too - taking the time saved from all of the earlier ideas... I make time for exercise, meditation, and spending time with family and friends. It reduces stress and makes me more able to handle the complexity of life...

All of these seem to have one thing in common... reducing stress. Consolidating things so there is "less" to worry about. "Less" stuff to take up mental energy. So it is for me to look and see... what are the main things that are causing me stress. Because it's going to be different for all of us. And really... I should clear the decks and then start with #9 - Prioritizing Self-Care... because when I neglect that... things start to fall apart quickly.

How to Make Life Easier

When you do a search for this on Google, you find a lot of the same ideas as above... ways to make life easier overlap quite a bit with making life simpler. But there are a few extra ideas...

1. Delegate Tasks: If I have done the above items... and re-evaluated my calendar and my priorities... I might decide that lawn-mowing is not a good use of my time. In which case I could get someone to come and mow the lawn. I am trading money for more time. Is it a worthwhile trade?
2. Stop Procrastination: Ugh. Again?!! Still?? Yep. Because the things that I procrastinate on really complicate my life eventually... and everything becomes harder when it is pushed and pushed and pushed into "tomorrow". Procrastination just makes life harder than it has to be.
3. Plan Ahead: Yep, this is a good one. Do some meal-planning for the coming week. So we aren't standing there 30 minutes before meal-time wondering... "What are we going to eat". There are lots of ways to create efficiencies that make life "easier".
4. Clear Emotional Space: This is one that bogs me down a bit. Forgiving people. Letting go of toxic relationships. Letting go of old grudges. 
5. Grab some Perspective: Compared to most of the world... we have incredibly easy lives. We don't have to carry potable water for miles. We don't have to scrounge for firewood to heat our food. We can communicate easily via email, phone, text. That helps to put things in perspective. And a daily gratitude habit might help as well...

The Nubbin at the Heart of This

Well... I see that I have some work to do. Before I get to the exterior stuff "out there" though... I think it requires me to start with the interior stuff first.

Step 1... get my self-care back on the front burner and stop nudging it to the back burner.

Step 2... clear some emotional space and practice some gratitude.

Step 3... stop procrastinating

I keep thinking that if I make the exterior of my life "simple" and "easy"... then that will reduce my level of stress. Truth is... if I don't handle the interior stuff first... then exterior changes aren't going to make one jot of difference. Less Stress is an inside job...  Sigh...

Staying in Place and Living Simpler Lives

We really desire a simpler life, a life with less stress, less responsibility and more fun. We think that would happen if we sold the house with all of its garden and house maintenance. Which would also mean no Airbnb and all of the headaches that go with that. No house & no Airbnb = Simple/Stressfree living! But does it?

A few weeks back, I shared a post that I had written in March 2023, when we were convinced that selling the house and moving into a condo would solve all of our problems. Well... we haven't sold the house! We quickly learned that condos are expensive and not always without headaches. So many of the ones we looked at, in our price range, were being raced with special assessments for things like building envelope repairs. Not so simple... not so dreamy.

So we backtracked and recalculated... if moving out of the house was not the solution and not an option... Could we live simpler but stay at the house?

Because, while I might blame the house, there is a deeper truth. I do contract work and essentially trade my time doing that for money. And I save us money by doing the yard work and home maintenance. Maybe it is time to actually take some of that contract work money and spend it on things like house cleaning and yard maintenance? To save me the time of doing that... and have more time to walk and hike and travel?

So, we sat down and brainstormed things that would make our life "simpler" and/or "easier". And then we played it out over the summer to see how it went...

1. Airbnb Summer - Ease up on the Airbnb - instead of allowing 1 night stays... make it 3 night minimum stays from May-Aug and don't fill the intervening nights, unless we want to. We don't need to go full-bore and earn the max $$$. Not if it almost kills us!
   Results: We did that over the summer and other than one spate of five back-to-back 1-night stays... we did OK. We even accepted a month-long booking from mid-July to mid-August to give ourselves a break. and it was nice.
   
   
2. Airbnb Winter - Only accept bookings longer than 14 days for Sept-April - less turnover, less cleaning.
   Results: We are doing OK with this! A one month stay from late Aug to late Sept and then a 48 day booking from Oct 1 to mid-November. Yes, we aren't earning as much as we would if we did shorter bookings but... it's not all about money. We are still making our minimum average for those months and that is pure gold.
   
   
3. Airbnb Cleaning - hire cleaners - less headache or more headache?
   Results: Well, we hired a cleaner for upstairs, for our space and... so far, the cleaner is not hitting the quality of cleanliness we would need for the Airbnb. Maybe in the future...
   
   
4. Airbnb Blocking - block it and take the time/days that we want
   Results: We did this too over the summer. If we wanted a break... we just blocked the nights. Less $$ but less stress and more life balance. If we needed an extra day for cleaning, we often blocked a night after a reservation.
   
   
5. Go Off-Platform - advertise on Kijiji or FB Marketplace and get an off-platform rental instead of giving Airbnb $$$ in service fees
   Results: We haven't tried this yet...
   
   
6. Convert to LTR - Turn the suite into a full-on long-term rental with a tenant - less money but less work?
   Results: We haven't tried this either. It would certainly take a big load of work off of us (Airbnb is NOT passive income) but... we are doing OK right now with the Airbnb.
   
   
7. Scale back my contract work hours - There were some weeks where I was doing a half-time job instead of a very part-time job! And that, combined with cleaning the Airbnb was leaving me exhausted.
   Results: So I talked to my contract guy and we have scaled it back to what I had initially committed to... and it's been working so far!
   
   
8. Yard - get someone to help with projects and lawn mowing - costs money but less work
   Results: We did this! And it was nice notto have to do the heavy lifting on some of these! Not sure about regular lawn maintenance though...
   
   
9. Our Cleaning - given all of our Airbnb cleaning... I am too pooped at the end of the day to clean our own place, so... get a cleaner, for us.
   Results: We did this! And it does make a difference. Now, the quality isn't up to my standards but... I am learning to be OK with "clean enough".
   
   
10. Interior Painting - get someone to paint bedrooms rather than me
    Results: We did this!! And it was soooo nice not to have to paint!
    
    
11. Garden Irrigation - my partner spends a LOT of time watering our veggie beds in the summer... a drip irrigation system would make a big difference. It costs $$$$ but... haven't we earned it?
    Results: We did this!! And it makes a huge difference!
    
    
12. Downsizing - could we downsize at home? Could we simplify our life, our hobbies, our commitments? Could we take back our spare room? Could we use the Airbnb as guest accommodation? In order to give us back our space?
    Results: We did get rid of the bed in the spare room! And then put in a murphy bed with storage on either side. Win-win! We get space back and we get storage. Still working on decluttering!

There's a rule of thumb for an overwhelming to-do list...

1. Automate
2. Eliminate
3. Delegate
4. Postpone

We experimented this summer with all of those. We automated the watering of the veggie beds. Everything is on a timer and it works amazing! We eliminated (more or less) one-night bookings as they caused us a lot of stress and exhausted us. We delegated several tasks like cleaning our space and some yard work and painting. We also postponed some projects and tasks.

I realize that it has been a struggle for me to (a) acknowledge that I can't do everything, (b) be open to the idea of spending money and (c) be open to the idea of getting help. I've been a Saver my whole life and it takes a bit to turn into a Spender. But burning myself out trying to do it all myself is not a solution either! So trading our money for some sanity and breathing space seems like a fair trade at this point!

Time to Sell and Simplify?

 We've lived in our current house for 10 years. That is the longest that I have lived in any place, other than at home when I was a kid and teen. Our house has a basement suite that we've been renting out on Airbnb. And we have a large yard (8200 sq ft) which requires a lot of maintenance. With a partner that has a chronic health condition, a lot of the work for the yard, house maintenance and the Airbnb falls on me. While my partner and I had both hoped that the health condition might improve... it would appear (7 years into it) that that is not the case. I'm not getting any younger and I am tired. Tired of the yard maintenance. Tired of the never-ending house maintenance. Tired of everything that we put into the Airbnb.

And so... a few days ago (Feb 28, 2023)... we began to seriously consider selling the house. We could sell it and then buy a condo, for easy, simple living. No Airbnb. No yard. No roof maintenance. No gutters. No perimeter drain. Somewhere in walking distance of stores and coffee shops and hiking trails.

We scrolled through the Realtor.ca app and identified a few top contenders. We messaged our realtor and said... we are ready to pull the trigger. Her response "Cool! So you have decided life is too short and want low maintenance, inexpensive, easy living and time to travel?" YES!! That!! Exactly!

So, tomorrow we are going to look at some places.

Now... this might all seem ass-backwards. Shouldn't we be selling the house before we look for something? Or at least know what we can sell our house for? Probably! I'm sure our realtor will have all of that ready for us tomorrow.

But in the meantime... in the last few days since Feb 28, I trotted down to the liquor store and came back with armfuls of liquor boxes. We have decided to send a message to the universe... We are ready to sell! So we have started by packing up nic-nacs and tchotchkes... all of the extras that clutter up the surfaces. We've packed up "extra" stuff... craft projects and supplies. We have packed up a bunch of books as we look to reduce the amount of furniture in some rooms.

We are looking at paint touch-ups. We had new door, window and floor trim installed a year ago (2 years ago?) and the brad-nail holes were spackled and sanded but need to be painted. The spare bedroom has a gazillion nail/thumbtack holes in the walls and needs a full paint job. Some closets had the rods taken out and extra plywood shelves put in for all of the craft stuff. So... clear out the stuff... take out the shelves... patch and paint the closets and... pack it full of boxes.

We may get a storage locker in March... we'll see how it goes. We need to hear back from our realtor...

And... yes... this might all be a lot of work for nothing. At the very least, we might be doing The Minimalists big declutter event... pack everything you own into boxes and, as you need things, open up a box and pull out that item. Maybe... after living without all of these "extras", we will decide that we like the open and clear house! Maybe we will be more inclined to let-go of things? Maybe.

And we have legitimately been decluttering as we pack up all of this stuff. The thought of schlepping it around to yet another living space is just too much. "I haven't used this in 20 years... it's time for it to go."

There is a freedom in all of this. And a fear as well! I hate moving. I hate the whole process. I hate the upheaval. I am scare of moving to somewhere new. I have had 10 years to put down roots in this house and a part of me just likes the old and familiar. But the other part of me wants less. Less house. Less responsibility. Less work. Less stress. Less complexity. I want more. More time. More free time. More walks. More simplicity.

Letting go of the old can be hard. It is warm and comfortable and familiar. Even if it is a lot of work. 

Sooo... as I write this on 3 March, 2023... I'm not sure what the future holds. This post is scheduled to come out in early September... that is a full 6 months away. Will next week's post have exciting news about a house sale and new condo? Or will we have reversed direction? Or maybe it will simply be an update on our progress... not sure... stay tuned!