5 Easy Steps Toward Simplicity

Wow, that sounds like a self-help book, right?

Ha! I'm hardly a guru, but I do think about simplicity a lot and want to share a few things I've done in the past year to simplify my life. They're small things, and I found them easy to do (I'll write about bigger things in a future post). As an added bonus, they're all things that have saved me money and/or time:

1. I quit the gym.

When Dave and I first joined a gym in San Antonio, it was the YMCA. In February '08, we upgraded to a really nice club, once called Concorde Athletic Club (but since purchased by Spectrum). It's one of those high-rise, steel-and-glass places with restricted kid hours, plenty of lap lanes, and two managers that are very active in teaching -- all of which we liked. We got a good discount on membership, and set about doing our cardio -- nearly all machine-assisted. Then we decided to pay for permanent lockers, which included laundry service. Then we bought a package of 10 personal training sessions (oof: expensive).

Then the machines began to get boring. The forty-to-sixty minutes it took to get to and from the club began to eat at our daylight. The laundry service lost our workout clothes several times each. Soon, our training sessions were the only reason we still went to the club.

So, we talked about it and decided to quit. We'd already begun to develop alternative exercise habits (more about that next Wednesday), and I had finally let go of my attachment to the club's pool, which I hadn't used in a while but liked having access to. I gave notice and scheduled my remaining training sessions. I'm really happy about this decision. I also feel healthier now than I ever did when we were members. Monthly savings: $185

2. I canceled the cable.

Last fall, we realized we only watched 2 or 3 primetime shows regularly (Lost, The Office, and 30 Rock). Then we realized we could watch all of them online the next day. We bought the appropriate RCA cable, hooked up my laptop, and tried it out. And discovered the wonder of 20-second commercial breaks.

Sweet as!

After about a week, we called our cable company to cancel. Later, we began to realize just how much time we had spent on the couch every evening, and how we used to rush through dinner to get to the couch -- crazy.

Now, NFL football season is fun for us, so we're waiting to see how this choice will feel when September rolls around. But for now, the TV is just a DVD viewer, and we like it that way. Monthly savings: $70

3. I got a phone I can read on.

I'm a huge fan of ebooks, to the extent I rarely buy paper books. Before January, I used a Palm to read books and an LG clamshell to make calls. But I hated having both in my bag, and two chargers, and two different USB cables, and, and, and. So I started looking into cell phones that support eReader, and found Verizon has several choices. I chose a Motorola, and after one (frustrating) evening getting all the software to work together, have been enjoying books on my cell ever since. There's a good chance I'll eventually get an iPhone, which also supports eReader. It'll happen more quickly when iPhones are available through Verizon (JUST SAYING, Apple.) Monthly savings: no dollar savings here, but good time and space savings

4. I started using a clothesline.

Got shamed into this one. A couple years ago, good friends Bjoern (German) and Jenny (Kiwi) visited our house for the first time. They're both from countries where energy conservation has become everyday habit, so Bjoern was amazed we didn't use a clothesline to dry our clothes. "You live in Texas!" he said. And he was spot on.

It's taken us a while to get on the ball, but this spring, Dave strung a clothesline for me, and you know what?

I LOVE IT.

It only takes a few minutes to hang clothes and take them down, but during those minutes I get to think about whatever I want. It's sort of like meditation, really. Plus, I love seeing the clothes blow in a breeze. Strangely enough, I find I keep on top of the laundry better now than when I used the dryer. (We still have the dryer for wet days.) Monthly savings: approximately $20

5. I walk and talk at the same time.

I love personal development projects, especially when they involve learning a new skill, and especially when that new skill is a language. LOVE. But there are only so many hours in the day. So recently, when I decided to start walking to work (again, more on that Wednesday), I loaded up my mp3 player with a good language podcast (more on that tomorrow). Now I babble my French as I boogie down the Riverwalk to work, and neither activity hinders the other. In fact, some landmarks on the river now remind me of French phrases (the brain is weird and awesome). Monthly savings: 10 hours

Again, I'll talk about the bigger decisions in a later post. For now, I'd love to hear what you've done to simplify your life -- big things or small!

[image via eHow]

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