The second week in The Simply Luxurious Life’s three part series on simplifying your life involves a few heavy undertakings combined with some suggestions that are quite simple to incorporate into your life.  If you missed last week, click here to read up on the first five suggestions to simplifying your life and click here to view the third part in the series.  Again, with the help of Elaine St. James’s book Simply Your Life, I’ve chosen five tips that I can honestly say help to decrease the clutter – whether it be emotional, stress-induced or unnecessary professional clutter – as I have introduced them each into my life.  Especially suggestion number one – why didn’t I think of that sooner?

Have a look and let me know what you think.  Do you agree?  Disagree?  Would you tweak any of them?  Be sure to come back next Wednesday, when we’ll be wrapping up the series.

Take the Stiletto Off the Pedal

If you are one who drives in any capacity at any time, the simplest way to take one stressor off of your plate is to drive the speed limit.  This sounds simple, but so many are so focused on where we’re going that we think if we just go a wee bit faster, it will make a tremendous difference.  The fact of the matter is, it makes a minimal difference and a heavy weight on your pocket book if you get pulled over, as well as at the gas tank.  Your miles per gallon decrease with every pressing down of the pedal.  Save money, drive like Miss Daisy might!

Have a Sense of Humor

One of the cheapest (it’s free!) ways to reduce stress is to laugh.  Laugh with others over a drink or dinner, laugh at a funny cartoon, laugh when things get frustrating.  One of the easiest ways to defuse a situation is to laugh about it.  Not at it, mind you, because often times someone might be offended, but by bringing laughter into the situation, eliminating the need for anger, the tension is broken.  Not everything needs to be taken so seriously.  Every once in awhile it is okay to step back from the situation, have a chuckle, allowing yourself to take a deep breath and then step back in and get the job done.

Stop the Busy Work

Any nonproductive work that delays the tasks that really need to get done, however, if someone where to see you, they’d believe you were hard at work – you know what I’m talking about.  Stop wasting precious time, and second of all, keep in mind that once you’re done, you can take a break.  Often times, people feel they must be doing something at all times. This is ludicrous!  By simply doing something for the sake of doing something is zapping energy that could be used later once you figure out what you should or want to be doing.  By motivating yourself to at first do what must be done, the reward is knowing you can relax and do something pleasurable and not feel guilty afterward.  Think about it . 

Clean Up Your Relationships

If you have ever had a relationship that has depleted you rather than filled you up, left you high and dry instead of being motivating and encouraging, you know that it is necessary to find the courage to let it go.  This is not an easy task, but as I heard recently stated, “If you can’t be a blessing in my life, I don’t need another burden.”  Now I realize that any relationship can have its ups and downs, but what I’m focusing on are the people in our lives that don’t add, but instead subtract from the quality of our lives.  The difficult part is figuring out the best way to let go so that you can be at peace with it. The blessing, however, is that when you find your way, you’ll find yourself releasing a huge sigh and even more room to seek out those people who add respect and support to your life.

Trust Yourself

Trusting our intuition is something that we all need to do, but by not doing it on a regular basis, we tend to be weary of it.  Due to so many of our frantic lives, we haven’t the time to slow down just a bit to listen to what our conscious is telling us in situations that while there is no tangible proof, we still know it to be something we shouldn’t be involved in.  Take the time to listen to your compass, your inner voice that tends to be correct more often than not.  The more you use it, the more you’ll be spot on.

Click here to read the third and final part of ways to simplify your life.