Cut the Ties that Bind and Simply Unsubscribe

Welcome back from the weekend! The last time I was here, I talked about how life is simple but we make it complicated.  In so many ways we create our own stress. Every day things are made to be such a huge task that eventually we either hit the delay button aka procrastinate, or we don't do it at all.  In the last week I've started focusing on the things in my day that have become a time consuming and/or stressful task.  One of the first things I found was that my personal email was a serious problem.  Looking at it you would think that I had given my email to every retailer out there, it's possible, I love a good deal.  Also, with my Facebook and Pinterest accounts dumping into it, the number of emails in my box had stopped being manageable and had started being ignored. I was aware of the situation but I just didnt have the time to deal with it. I tried the daily approach, that didn't work. I tried doing it on the weekend but by then I had amassed so much mail that I either didnt want to, it's the weekend hello, or I simply didn't have the time to go through it, there was important stuff in there too. Which brings me to last week when I had targeted the problem and began my strategy of attack.  One by one I deleted the various " here's what's new" and "end of season sale" emails from my favorite stores. I watched as my numbers slowly decreased and I could feel the weight lifting off of my shoulders but the true freedom came when as I reached each stores final email, I opened it, scrolled to the bottom and clicked UNSUBSCRIBE. Ah at last the emails were gone and now they were never coming back.

It's been days since I completed Project Email Clean Sweep, and my mailbox is clean, organized and most importantly no longer stressful.  I've also noticed that because I'm no longer getting the notifications of sales, etc. my urge to shop has died down.  Out of sight of mind I guess.  I'd say for anyone that has the same problem that I had, try it out and see if you dont feel ten times better with that little change.

Your email is like your phone number, you don't want to give to just anybody.

With that task complete, I'm on to my next one so stay tuned...

~KG

Preparation Meet Simplicity-(life is simple, people are not)

Life is crazy.  Life is stressful, right? Wrong. In fact life itself is quite simple, it's us a people who make things difficult. We live beyond our means, we inundate ourselves with useless information, we procrastinate on everything from paying bills to getting a haircut. Yes, I said a haircut and no it's on the same level as say being stranded on the side of the road but it is a stressor. Think about it, every day that you don't call and make an appointment, is one more day that you're thinking ah I need to get a haircut. A waste of energy and thought space when really all it takes is a simple phone call, appointment made and off the to-do list but better yet of your mind. The "big" things like a flat tire, stay at the forefront but it's the little things like that haircut I just mentioned, that add up, that build up and drain our energy and make those "big" things and life in general even more difficult to handle.

Vacation. That's a nice word isn't it. Everyone gets excited when they hear it. I don't know about you but I feel like a kid at Christmas when I'm planning a vacation and by planning I mean choosing a location. After that it's a one-way ticket to stress town. Travel dates have to be chosen, but wait let's check the calendar first. Then there's the question of how will you get there? What's the most beneficial time-wise? What's the most cost effective? Oh and where are you going to stay? Whats the best deal? Whats the best location? Oh and does it have a pool? Ah finally the reservations have been made, you're home free right? Wrong again. Now you have to decide right down to the last minute what you're going to do when you get there and man are you disappointed when you don't see and do everything on the list because you wanted to make the most out this vacation. Once, the questions started being asked, the fun, the relaxation, the vacation ended. Yup right then and there because like we do with everything else in life we made it complicated.  Planning ahead is one thing, a little preparation can save us a whole lot of headaches but theres a difference between planning and over-analyzing or even micro-managing a situation. WE make life crazy. WE stress ourselves out. WE are the problem but with a little healthy preparation, life can be much simpler and we can be much happier.

Stay tuned for tips and ideas on what I like to call Preparation meet Simplicity.

What's Left Behind?

Recently, and by recently I mean about 20 minutes ago, the thought passed through my mind that my time here could be over in the next 5 minutes, the next 5 years or maybe I'll stick around and see the next 50. It occurred to me how lovely that would be to see and experience that much life.  I think about all the things that my grandmother was apart of, the lives that she touched, the moments that she witnessed and the feelings that she felt along the way.  We're living longer now than so many generations before us did but we're doing so much less with our time.  Ours it seems, is spent on things, and less on people. We fill our lives and our time with more wants and less needs.   I wonder, at times, how much better off we would be if we decided to own less and have more.  More time with family, more memories with friends, more willingness to give to those that are simply grateful to make it to the next day.

Every life has the ability to be amazing and either through simple existence or with a little added effort, every life has the ability to touch and change someone else's in an extraordinary way.  Every soul, no matter how many years it has attached to it will leave behind something worthwhile as long as we focus on one another.

What we do for each other is what truly stands the test of time...we are our legacy.

~KG