What made your life easier ?

[GreenCandleWarmth]

Now I'm in my 30s I've started to make my life easier and realise how much time I wasted.
I let bitchy work colleagues get on with it and don't get embroiled.
I let flaky friends go.
I love my job but it's a job so no more sleepless nights or worry.
My ex doesn't parent the way I do. I let him get on with it as I can't change it.
Life is so much easier.

robot Hoover !

To understand that good enough is good enough. I don't need to seek perfection in everything.

Getting a second fridge - honestly it used to stress me out so much when I knew I had to shoehorn the big shop into one fridge when we eat lots of fresh food and I have to buy quite a few days worth at a time as we don't live that close to the shops. Got a second fridge and bam...I use one fridge for raw stuff and one fridge for ready-to-eat / cooked stuff. Changed my life.

Realising I'm only the main character in my own life helped me stop over thinking interactions.

The day that I realised not everyone will like me and it’s not my job to make them like me really changed my life.

This - and realising that if there were people I didn’t like, then them not liking me was ok.

On a more mundane level, with 3DC when I no longer had to take everyone everywhere and various combinations could be left at home and make their own way places.

Meal prep services. Hello fresh etc … the thinking about, talking about and then shopping for meals for the family is the bane of my existence. This has removed all that noise

Here's what has changed life for the better (I think):

• remember nothing is perfect in life -- stop striving for impossible perfection in work, cooking, relationships, house etc
• do not burden yourself with the pressure of being seen as 'special' i.e. super successful/thin/glamorous/rich/talented etc. -- enjoy each day as you are
• use tragic life lessons (close friend's suicide) to do better and be better with your family and friends

Weekly meals delivered
Weekly cleaner
Euphy vacuum cleaner
two dogs that get me walking daily
paid subscription for online strength training classes
EV car
hardfloor downstairs to stop worry about staining carpet with wine coffee dogs etc
low maintenance garden
working part time so I can visit parents friends and have time to myself

I dont have kids im childless.
Your just trying to pick.

Gousto.

I became single

Oh I completely agree about paying for school lunches rather than making them! One less thing to have to do in the morning, I just book them in advance on the app a month at a time. For £2.50 a pop I'd rather them just have a school dinner and not have the hassle. Luckily they're not fussy and eat everything on offer.

You get your youngest teen to do the stairs!
(because dishing out domestic tasks to young males is a good thing)

Becoming a sahp a few years ago. Now I can pace myself and not risk my health.

Watching our babies grow into lovely young men makes life easier.

They are great for fun teen gossip, new points of view, their opinions and ours mingle on all things (shallow and deep) keep everyone’s conversation on their toes.

If they are ok, life is ok, of course there is extra work with them, but I wanted to be a mum of two, and it never loses its joy.

They will be gone to uni in the not too distant and I (and H) will miss them deeply, bereft, so whilst they are here, join in family kitchen table time, I am going to squeeze every moment out of that. It makes the humdrum, mundane life totally worth it. I love their friends, jokes, memes, it’s all very entertaining, I was going to say cheap/free fun/love but it’s not cheap at all!

The evil ice cream can man arrived on the road this evening, so I said “make mine a 99” and then of course we had to play The KLF (and any excuse to play KLF is a good thing).

This is what makes life good, and it’s free sort of (teens paid for ice cream from their wages)

Robot hoover

I think I'm pretty much on top of house "stuff"...
Costco run once a month for toilet rolls, laundry liquid, meat, etc.
Upstairs cleaning cupboard duplicates of cleaning things
Decluttering is a way of life here, one thing in, at least one thing out.
Post/paperwork touched once and either filed or shredded
Shopping collection once a week.

In terms of life - don't sweat the small stuff, get good at saying no. Just because someone asks you, it doesn't mean you have to say yes.

Fill your jar - big rocks, small stones, gravel, sand.

Learn to love yourself. You are important, there's only one of you and you need time to be you, not a daughter/sister/spouse/mother or friend. You aren't perfect - no one is, so if you strive to be that perfect version of yourself, chances are you'll lose sight of who you really are.

A problem shared is a problem halved, so talk, get it off your chest, but don't take on other people's problems (children aside) empathy not sympathy.

Life is very short, don't prioritise dusting the skirting boards over a cuppa with a friend - they will be dusty again tomorrow.

wow, a laptop upstairs and downstairs,
I've never heard of anyone doing that but sounds marvellous

Similar to a pp, my adult DS said to me ‘Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good’. For example, my neighbour threw out an old shelving unit, I picked it up and painted it sage green and it’s now in my garden as a shelf for plants. It’s not perfect, there are drips and uneven bits but it looks nicer than it did and I enjoyed doing it! So I am going to keep doing things I might not be very good at but will have a go anyway!

It happened by accident. The downstairs laptop is a piece of shit which won't load Word. I use Word to write, so I bought a new laptop and I mostly write in bed so that went upstairs. The downstairs one I use mostly for Social Media, noodling on Mumsnet and other fora and general time wasting. The upstairs one is the important one!

But I was sick of carrying one up and down...

Lots of good ideas here x

Divorce!
supermarket deliveries
laundry service (especially in winter when it’s hard to get things dry)
enjoy life, it’s too short to spend it sulking or being in a bad mood

When I get down, I remember that 100 years from now I'll be dead, and so will everyone I know. Its highly unlikely anyone will ever remember I existed.

All the stress, angst, intrusive thoughts that we torture ourselves with mean nothing. In the grand scheme of things, our lives are short and meaningless. It gives me perspective and the ability to shrug things off.

Not having young adults at home. Life changing. I love them all but they are collectively exhausting for my brain power.

We have a cleaner that cleans the house fortnightly and we also use a company that does an annual deep clean of the house.
We have our weekly Gousto and Waitrose deliveries delivered to the house and we meal plan.
We have a gardener to sort out a minimalist/low maintenance garden.
We share a family calendar on Google. There is also a dry erase calendar in the kitchen which has each family member's name and their activities for the week as well as a list of what we will be having for dinner.
We try to do chores during the work week so we have more time on weekends and we assign a few age-appropriate chores to the kids.
We try to plan holidays a year or several months in advance and we try to plan out our weekends as best we can so we can make the most out of the weekends.
Aside from the kids' various sports classes, playdates and birthday parties, we have a seasonal bucket list of places and things to do that we do as a family on the weekends.
I have an excel doc which lists all the extracurricular clubs, sports, activities, reminders etc. that my kids do and will plan to do by age. It makes it easier for me to jot things down there, and add reminders as well as list info for the sports and activities where they are on waiting lists for.
We try to focus on experiences and traveling rather than things. We're quite simple and minimalist at home when it comes to clothes, toys, home furnishings etc.
We live off of a seasonal capsule wardrobes. I don't go shopping for myself often but the pieces in my wardrobe are quality or designer. I like to repair rather than replace things. I have a uniform for work, school run, and going out etc. so I don't have to spend too much time making decisions.
To save some time, we often get our dry cleaning delivered and we reserve books in the library.
I work freelance/part-time so I have time for hobbies and volunteering/attending school functions.
We have a home near the high street, public transportation, parks, woodland areas and schools.