5 rules to make life easier

How to become happier? Sometimes it’s enough just to get rid of everything unnecessary. Just five rules can make life easier. Their secret is that they reduce the number of decisions that we have to make every day.

Let’s remember what these decisions are and what they usually concern: all sorts of everyday trifles. What should we eat or wear? Will we have enough time for a run or is it better to postpone it until tomorrow? And why not check your email right now? In essence, the answers are always the same – but we ask ourselves these obsessive questions again and again.

Why are we wasting time on this? The daily routine is exhausting. Freed from the need to do it every day, we will save energy and attention for more important decisions.

The rules can change, along with how life itself changes: what we work on, where we live, what happens to us. Do not be upset if you have to suddenly break one of them. More important is the principle itself: the less we worry about the little things, the easier and happier our every day becomes.

Do important things before everyone else

E-mail, social networks, news, useless calls or messages … You can spend a whole day on these activities, putting off really important things until there is simply no energy left for them. This is a very simple rule: do everything you need to do first, and only then open Facebook. We will feel relief as soon as the guilt of not completing tasks disappears. By the way, in the list of what really needs to be done, it is worth including a walk, breathing exercises or a short meditation.

Clean email every week

Leaving 5-10 emails in your inbox will be enough. Usually our e-mail is overloaded: there are too many letters waiting for a response that we don’t always want to give. We find more important things to do, but always remember that we have unfulfilled obligations. So, once a week it is worth freeing yourself from this burden. Relief will bring the very sight of a folder with a couple of messages to which we will not be difficult to answer.

Dress simply

Or rather, to admit: in our wardrobe there are favorite clothes – and those that we do not use at all. By getting rid of the unnecessary without any regret, we will not lose anything: those who know us will not even see the difference. But the obsessive need to think daily about what to wear will disappear (despite the fact that in the end we still wear the same as usual).

Limit nice things

Many little things give us pleasure. But the more pleasure, the more we abuse it. And this means that time will pass, and the very joy that these little things bring us will fade. Good little by little: let the pleasure not turn into a routine. You can limit communication in social networks, coffee, sweets. It is not necessary to go on a diet, and sweets will become sweeter.

Respect every action

Any business that we are engaged in deserves a serious attitude – like a real sacred ritual. What we have to do on a daily basis, we often do automatically, without a single thought, as if all this is just preparation for something really important. But this is our life, and it deserves to be focused on. Even when we wash our hands, we can linger and enjoy this simple action.

Everything we do is worth paying attention to: every breath is a pleasure, every taste experience at dinner is a joy, every smile shines like the sun. And not only: chatting with friends, taking a shower, walking, paying bills, playing with children, answering texts – if we take these simple things respectfully and seriously, we will feel what a happiness it is to live.

* Based on Leo Babaut’s blog