Good time management skills are a great thing to have, they can however be used for differing outcomes when you are trying to achieve a simple life. You either use these skills to free up your spare time in order to do fun things, or you use these skills to fit in as much as you can every day of the week. I currently fall into the latter.
Rachel at Small Notebook recently posted about this, it can be very difficult to do less. Take this weekend. I’ve given myself a list of tasks I want to complete, when I know that I have a report to do for work, a football match to attend and my brother-in-law staying the night. Now I definitely have to do the work report, however if I don’t finish my financial tasks then it doesn’t cause me any problems as such, but it will make me mad at myself. I will then try to complete it during the evenings next week adding further pressure to an already full time table. This is not simple living!
Sara at On Simplicity recently wrote a post about how you need to adopt Guerrilla Tactics to achieve a simple life, and she’s right. It’s not always easy to achieve simple living, it takes hard work and commitment when you’re life is busy and complicated. The thing to do is to work on it bit by bit. Take each aspect of your life down to the last detail.
Example: I used to have eight magazines delivered to my house on subscription. To stop them took me some time, as I either had to email, telephone or write to cancel them. I then had to cancel the Direct Debits with my bank. Once this was completed though, less paper mountains in my house, less direct debits coming out of the bank and less exposure to magazine advertising. A win win situation.
Achieving a simple life can take time and be a real effort, in my case, it may well take me another 3-4 years, however as long as you are working towards it bit by bit, then you will get there eventually.
Subscribe to Move to Portugal here
photo credit: leo reynolds
{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
I so agree – time management is such an important skill, but it’s not just about getting everything done. Time is also for enjoying. Lots of people neglect this as part of their time management and I think they’re worse off for it.
J x
[Reply]
Hi there-yes, it does take time and hard work. well done on the magazines too, I stopped buying them in September and feel the more better off for it too!
[Reply]
Hi. As they say, time is money too.
I stopped buying magazines by subscription a few years ago. I used to buy “Activa” because this magazine offered a monthly cook book. I have books that I never read, so I´ll have readings till my retirment, lol.
Those are the extras we need to cut not only to save money but to simplify.
It´s great to feel free to buy a magazine when we want to, you can vary. If you think well, with the PC we can pass newspapers and magazines.
I have a little gift for you in Mycountryhome.
Cheers.
[Reply]
“You either use these skills to free up your spare time in order to do fun things, or you use these skills to fit in as much as you can every day of the week”
I’m moving from nthe latter to the former and I can’t imagine why I never did it before.
You are doing so well, you are on such an amazing journey and you’ll get there!!
[Reply]
I got carried away with magazine subscriptions and I felt under pressure to read them before the next lot were delivered.
I have now cancelled them all and the pressure is off.
Racheal x
[Reply]
I don’t subscribe to any magazines either. I feel like I get enough input like that just from reading blogs.
I took a few days off this week and just skipped a couple of things, stayed home, didn’t check email. It was great! So now I have a little catching up to do, but I feel so much more refreshed. Totally worth a couple of hours of catching up.
[Reply]
Thank you for all your comments…it seems we’re all giving up our magazine fixes and looking for more free time
[Reply]