10 Habits for a Simplified Home and Life Minimalism and Decluttering

My home used to feel like it was working against me. Every corner held just another reminder of something unfinished, something to fix, something to deal with. And staying on top of it all just felt exhausting, especially with two little ones in the mix. But everything changed when I stopped trying to manage the chaos and I just started letting go. So let's take a deep breath together and I'm going to show you the 10 habits and small rules that helped me simplify my home and my life. And I think they might do the same for you. The 10 minute rule. I started doing these super simple 10 minute resets at the end of the day. You know, I'm a mom of two, so most of my days are just running around after the kids, doing school runs, trying to work on my business here as well. And so at the end of the day, I'm usually quite exhausted. And the last thing I want to do is clean the kitchen before bed. But what I realized is that it often feels like such a huge task, like cleaning all the dishes and putting everything away, you know, giving the counters a spray and all of those feel like they're going to take such a long time and I don't feel like dealing with dirty pans and dirty oven trays and things like that. But I started timing myself because I wanted to see how long does it actually take me to do it? And I've been taking these like before and after pictures, posting them on my Instagram stories, and I would look at the timestamps and I realized for most of them, for like a regular kitchen tidy at the end of the day, the before and after were just 10 minutes apart. Sometimes cleaning your kitchen at the end of the day doesn't have to take half an hour or even longer, especially if you also try some of the other tips I'm going to share with you in a second in this list. But it's only 10 minutes and that makes such a big difference. I always think at the end of the day, when I put the kitchen to sleep, I give it a reset and a refresh. I'm doing future me a favor. So I know when I wake up the next day in the morning at maybe 5am, I'm going to be like, thanks past me for cleaning this kitchen so that I don't have to wake up to this huge mess because then it starts my day feeling refreshed and feeling like I have an actual reset versus starting my day coming in the kitchen and feeling like, that's something I've been trying to do a lot more. Avoid decision fatigue. It's been said that on average, we make about 35,000 decisions in a day. 35,000 decisions sounds like incredibly a lot to me and at first I was kind of skeptical about this, but when you think about it, all those micro decisions that we make on a regular basis every single day that we don't even think about and it's not just waking up and deciding what to wear in the morning, which actually can feel like such a big decision sometimes, especially for me. I know when I used to have a wardrobe stuffed with clothes, it was such a hard decision to make and it would take me so long as well. But also it's all of these tiny decisions like what earrings am I going to wear today? What lip balm? What bag am I taking with me? What shoes? What mug am I going to use this morning for my coffee? What breakfast am I going to have? So it goes from, you know, the big decisions that we're more aware of to all of these tiny micro decisions that we make without even thinking. Like what time am I going to head out the door? What time am I going to come back? What time am I going to go to the grocery store? Am I going to park in this spot or in this spot? There's so many tiny decisions we make and it can really add up to that decision fatigue that we feel throughout the day. And I know for myself, as a mom, I'm so often just exhausted from making all of these tiny decisions and I realized, of course, there are a lot of decisions that we have to make to survive, like to carry on with our day. There are a lot of things we cannot control when it comes to this, but there are a lot of other decisions that we can make easier and that can start with, for example, decluttering your wardrobe so that the clothes you have in there are actual options for you that day and so that decision feels so much easier versus scavenging through so many piles of clothes that you don't even like wearing. Decluttering my mugs so that I don't have 40 mugs in there, I only have like 10 and then that makes the decision much easier. I also have pretty much the same breakfast almost every day. I have egg and toast, it's kind of my go-to and then some piece of fruit on the side and it might sound boring but actually reducing those decisions might just be the thing that brings more calm to your life and just makes you feel less stressed. Slow down. This is a habit that I'm really trying to incorporate more lately and honestly, this morning was a bit hectic. I did the usual, packed the school lunches for the kids, got everybody ready at the door, dropped the kids off at school, dropped my husband at a train station because he's in London today and now I'm back home to work on my videos which I really enjoy doing but I feel like I need a moment to reset. So maybe we can take a few deep breaths together if you've also had a full-on day. Thanks to Headspace for sponsoring this video. Headspace is such a simple to use app for meditating. It's like mental health in your pocket. I've learned that our 30s and 40s are usually the busiest, most hectic times in a person's life and as a mom of two in her 30s, I really feel that and I think inevitably some days will feel more rushed but I started noticing how I was doing some activities super rushed even when there was no need for it. Like I would put on my makeup as fast as humanly possible in the morning or I would chop veggies for dinner super quickly and it took me a while to realize that all of this is actually not great for my nervous system. Now honestly meditating never really came easy to me and I found myself easily distracted a lot or like I could feel my mind wandering off or thinking about my to-do list but I learned that that's okay. It's not about being perfectly still, it's just about taking a moment in our rushed days to slow down and breathe deeply. Just watching as the muscles in the body soften a little bit. The one thing I noticed after using headspace is always how tight some of the muscles in my body were without me even realizing I was tense. Like after I do a quick meditation it instantly makes me relax my jaw, kind of lower my shoulders and just slow down my movements and honestly it feels refreshing. What I love too is the fact that headspace doesn't require me to carve out half an hour to an hour to meditate each day. It's literally just three minutes, five minutes or even one minute of deep breath. And what I found interesting is that the research behind it shows that using headspace five minutes a day reduces your stress and two weeks of headspace reduces anxiety. So if you ever feel rushed or stressed you can try headspace completely free for 60 days by using my link in the description box or scanning the QR code on the screen. It's two full months of free access compared to their standard two week trial available on their website. So I think that's pretty cool. Cheers headspace. Tidy while you cook. So I mentioned how my evening resets in my kitchen take like 10 minutes and I think one of the reasons why that is is because I do tidy while I cook. So again I do try to think about future me. So while I'm cooking if I'm finished chopping all the veggies and I put them in the pan to cook then that's a sign I can clean the chopping board. So I'll quickly take it in the sink and give it a wash. Once I finished with spatulas or cooking utensils I'll pop them straight in the dishwasher. Once I finish with the cooking oil and salt and pepper I'll put those straight away in the cupboards and it doesn't sound like much but this has become such a habit for me that I don't really even think about it. Like it's just something I do while I cook. I'll just put things away as I'm finished with them and that means that when I finish cooking dinner we're all sitting down to eat. We have our dinner. At the end of that all that we really have to do is put the plates in the dishwasher and then maybe clean the pan that I cooked in but it's not as much as if I left everything as it was while I was cooking. So it's things like this that is such a tiny habit you can change that will make your life so much easier at the end of the day when you're already exhausted from the day. Let me know if you give this a try. The simple evening routine. Something I've been trying to do is to one simplify my skincare routine so that it doesn't take as long and also change the time when I do it. I used to wait until everybody was asleep and then I could take my time and do my routine and then I realized I'm usually so tired by that time that I kind of rush through it. Sometimes I don't do all of the steps that I wanted to do. So what I try to do now is to do my skincare routine and just wash my face, get everything ready, get in my pajamas before I put the kids to sleep. So for example I'll do that when maybe if my kids are having a bath time I can bring all of my skincare in their bathroom and just to do my skincare while they're playing in the bath or sometimes my husband might watch them and I can do my skincare then and then when they're in bed when they're fast asleep I'm kind of ready to go to bed myself which has made such a big difference to me and I've also reduced my skincare routine a lot as well. So what I do is I'll wash my face with a cleanser, moisturize, so those are the two kind of non-negotiables and then on top of that I'll put my retinol on. I actually use a retinoid which is a bit stronger but also has better results for your skin too and sometimes if my skin is particularly dry I'll add another layer of moisturizer on top of that. So that's kind of it but it's not a lot it's only like four products at night and then in the morning my skincare is pretty much wash my face, put on a sunscreen and then I'm ready to do my makeup. So it's simplifying all of those steps that actually I think my skin does so much better when I have less products that I'm using because testing a lot of skincare products and just a lot of products in general on your face I feel like for me at least it's not been great and I like to stick to the ones that I have tried and have worked and I tend to repurchase the same products over and over again so when I find something that works I just tend to stick to that. Simplifying your skincare routine can make such a big difference not just in your bathroom counters so they're not going to be super cluttered but also in how you feel and how your skin looks as well. The Sunday Reset There are a few things I like to do every Sunday that have become such a routine and they just set me up for the week ahead it makes it so much easier like my weeks run smoother when I do this Sunday routine. What I do is I will meal plan for the week and it's not intricate I think people overcomplicate this sometimes or they think it needs to be this huge intricate you know meal plan but it's actually me just planning five dinners for the week I'll look through my list of meals that I know we love eating that I love making as well so I'll look through that list and pick five dinners and the reason why I only pick five is because at the weekend sometimes we'll go out to eat together and then usually at least one night we'll have leftovers as well so that's why there's only five meals on the list and then we've swapped so we're getting our food shop delivered on a Sunday now for the most part so every Sunday we get fresh groceries for the week ahead this has been working great just kind of setting us up for the week ahead so we've got the meals ready to go I know exactly what I'm cooking each night we know what we're having for lunch and everything and it's just made our weeks so much smoother and I also do things like track the schedule for the kids so I'll look at my week and see you know do they have any school trips do they have any after-school clubs do we have any doctor's appointments anything like that that I kind of need to be aware of so I'll just have a glance at that and I also make my business plan so which day am I filming which day am I editing and everything that I need to do in my business make it easy is something that I actually learned from the book Atomic Habits and that book has literally changed my life I've learned so much from it I even did a dedicated video just on that but making it easy on the habits that you want to do more of so that means looking at the habits I want to do and reducing the friction for those so I want to work out three times a week what's kind of stopping me from doing that or not necessarily stopping me well what makes it harder for me to do that so it might be things like setting up my clothes the night before and just kind of setting up time in my calendar of when exactly I'm gonna do that because I feel like when I look at my day and it's already so busy like I already know it's gonna be a busy day if I don't have a time slotted for my workouts it's very unlikely that I'm actually gonna do them and this is how I've been able to stay consistent with my workouts my current streak is almost a year of working out three times a week and that has changed my life and it can also be things like looking at my home like what's making it harder for me to keep my home tidy and how can I reduce that like for example if I find that my dining table is always full of stuff then I can look at why that is like is it because I don't have a system is it because I don't have a place where all of these things go and if I can reduce the friction like maybe just put a basket close to the dining table where we can put all of these items that just need a home then that can be super helpful if it's artwork from the kids like maybe creating a basket or a tray where they can put all of that in there instead of having it laid out on the table so it's just about thinking how can I make it easier so that I can do it more often so that I can do it easier but also the other members of the family can just do it easier as well try a digital wardrobe I started working on my digital wardrobe over a year now and I've been using the free index app for this so you basically either take pictures or you take screenshots of some clothes that are in your wardrobe so that you can add them digitally in this app and then you can create outfits with those clothes and it's super fun it's been really interesting as well just to kind of track my outfits I've tracked all of my outfits for a whole year and this means that I was able to see exactly what I was wearing what I was not wearing what was in my wardrobe that hadn't been worn in like years or that I had worn zero times in a year and that made it so much easier to declutter so if you're struggling with decluttering your clothes I would try doing a digital wardrobe also shop less it took me a while to realize that shopping a lot was not just a waste of money which obviously it is it also added a lot of clutter to my home and for me I know kind of my weak spot was always clothes and to some extent it probably still is but this is something I've become a lot better at and just shopping less means that you're going to save so much money your home is not going to get cluttered and also if I am bringing new stuff in I will have a look at the old clothes and think you know can I sell this? can I give this to someone else? can I declutter it? because there's no point in just buying a whole bunch of new clothes and keeping all of the old ones in there too because then things are just going to pile up my wardrobe is going to become super cluttered again and that's just not fun and also for myself I've made this rule that if I am willing to shop to go shopping online then I have to be willing to return as well and that means I have to be willing to return within that like 30 days or however long it is for the shop I have to be willing to go back to the post office and take it back if it doesn't fit if I don't like it if I'm not impressed with the item and also I have to be willing to pay the shipping back if I want to return it if I decide I need to return it and those two rules have made me be a lot more intentional with what I do shop for and also I've been so much better at actually returning the clothes because there's a lot of statistics that most people will buy things they'll bring them into their homes thinking that oh if I don't like it I can just return it but they never do like most people are just busy we are all right busy and overwhelmed and stressed often and so taking things back returning them feels like such a hassle and that's what a lot of online shops are banging on you know getting you to do impulse buys that you might regret buying but then you're just too busy and overwhelmed to actually return them and also try a no buy month I have tried a few no buy months in the past and they have been such an eye-opener for me I didn't even realize how much I relied on shopping and like browsing online and looking at things and putting them in my cart because it is that dopamine hit we do feel that but a lot of studies have shown that dopamine hit goes way down the second you get home with the clothes that you bought or the second you open the parcel and you put them in your wardrobe that dopamine crashes and then we feel the need to do more and so I always see a no buy month as kind of a reset to my system to kind of get me back on track to appreciate the items that I already have more and to also be a lot more intentional with what I buy but we're all juggling so much and taking these small steps to simplify your life can make such a big difference to how we feel I hope you can take a deep breath at the end of this video and just know that you are doing enough thanks again to Headspace for sponsoring a part of this video and don't forget to grab your free 60-day access by using my link in the description box or scanning the QR code on the screen and thank you so much for hanging out with me today see you in the next one