Has anyone successfully simplified their life

[User76745333]

By making fairly small changes?

Im sitting by a pool contemplating. Life is just too much at the moment. I work full time, live on a building site, have two teenagers, a dog, two cats, chickens - oh and a DH who works crazy hours. I’m menopausal and on hrt but still really struggling.

if you have successfully simplified your life how did you do it. Unfortunately cutting work hours isn’t possible (in fact I’ve just gone for a promotion)…

When I started peri menopause at 40 I changed SO many things & I’m so utterly thankful I did. My house had just been sold & I was pregnant with my only child. I bought a house that was smaller but in a better, very safe area. I then worked out all my finances & cut out everything I didn’t need & a lot of luxuries- this enabled me to go part- time. I definitely think the biggest & best thing to do in peri/menopause is to not work as long hours.

Work less. Spend time on your own. Minimise your social interactions & cut out people who aren’t essential. Sleep more. Do less. Stop expanding materialistically -bigger house, more cars, new extensions etc etc. Less is more. Aim to own less, to be less, to do less. To breathe and sit with yourself, and feel happier with less

Then you will find life simple & pleasurable

I am still working on this but I have found that these help:

Leaving my phone at home when I go on days out (unless I need access to apps as part of the day out)
Keeping the ringer off the rest of the time (if they really need to talk to me then they will make the effort to message/email)
Working part time so that I can focus on my kids/interests/hobbies
Getting plenty of beauty sleep and exercise and rarely staying up past 10pm
Prioritising nutrition, no alcohol (ever)
Only keeping a single house pet (my gorgeous maine coon)
Getting rid of all family/friends who do not actively make me feel good
Keeping the love of my life at arm's length rather than doing the whole relationship thing: he is amazing but I do not want to live with him or see him regularly at all. I just need to know that he is ok. If we lived together then we would lose each other rapidly because there would be a huge wealth/income disparity which is completely unsurmountable as he is part of that powerful 1%

Yes during covid. Staying at home and only going to work. I loved it.

Unfortunately things have crept up again in my life.

Maybe, when the dog and chickens die, don't replace them. Pets do take up a lot of time and make work, the cats less so.

I'm currently writing a list of everything that needs doing. I'm going to tick them all off over the next few weeks and buy myself more headspace. I feel like Im constantly rushing about trying to get everything done and my brain is overloaded.

I've identified that I can get caught up spending too much time making small decisions (menopausal symptom) and so my new resolution is to just buy the first acceptable option (I really don't need to spend three hours looking at black school shoes for DS2 or ten minutes choosing ice cream).

I'm decluttering. This is hard for me as a natural hoarder of potentially useful items. I'm also going back to online food shopping (although I have a tendency to over order when I buy online so I need to watch this).

Im going to stop letting the DC off the hook. They used to be great at helping around the house but now not so much.

Social life is being pulled back. I'm quite proud that when my friend tried very hard to get me to agree to do something this week I simply said I couldn't this week but would let her have a few potential dates for a couple of weeks' time. Ordinarily I'd have felt guilty and ended up rushing about to do a dinner or drinks that I really didn't want to do (this was for a celebration for me and not a situation where she needed me).

Can't really change the animal situation but I've resisted buying new chicks..