Recently, a reader provided me with a great suggestion for a post: tips and ways to simplify day-to-day life. Believe it or not, my life wasn’t always so complicated and busy. Sometimes, I wish I can go back to that simple life or a lazy life.

Life was at its simplest, for me, when my mother went to basic training. I lived in an apartment. I didn’t have to worry about anything breaking or malfunctioning. Best of all, I didn’t have to spend hours and hours lugging a large bucket of water back and forth cleaning the floors and I certainly didn’t have to drag the vacuum up and down three sets of stairs. It was just me. I go to school, I come home, eat, do my homework, and sleep. That was it.

I’ve lived in my current home for six years now and I have never wanted more than anything than to go back and live in an apartment. A 2000 sq. ft home for two people is just too much and it feels like that’s what is complicating things at the moment. Worst decision ever made, pushing my mom to buy a house when the tax credit was available.

So I decided to put together four tips to guide some of you to a simpler life.

TIP #1: unless you have a big family, pick a place with manageable size to live.

By myself, I think I would prefer to live in a one-bedroom apartment or a studio even. I don’t have to worry about maintaining the yard or hiring anyone if anything broke. If anything breaks or stops working, I can just let the manager know and he/she will have someone to take care of it.

TIP #2: Manage your meal time or if you have too many prescription medications, consider using a pill box or even an online pharmacy such as PillPack to deliver your medication in dosage. Two years ago, I wrote this post on my other blog.

TIP #3: unless you’re have five or six kids that need to be fed, don’t pile your fridge with food. Piling your fridge not only waste electricity but it also waste food. Food goes spoiled and you will have to throw it out and if you’re a procrastinator like me, it might take you weeks by which time, the fridge will smell like rotten food.

I know this tip may not apply to anyone because some of you are big eaters and snackers, you can’t go through 5 or 10 minutes without raiding the fridge. I’m not the kind of person that eat snacks. I’m the kind of person that just have three meals with a couple of servings of fruit in between. So if I’m alone, I tend to leave my fridge pretty empty, only go grocery shopping when absolutely needed. 

TIP #4: Give yourself a little leeway to do household tasks. Do a little each day but not when you’re exhausted and just want to rest. Do it when you have enough motivation. However, don’t pile household tasks into one single day either. I know I don’t want to do that.

Lastly, life is worth rushing over. Take your time, take it slow. If you need to repair things, don’t rush, you’re just do a crappy job.