Get Your Sh*t Together: 7 Hacks to Getting Your Life Back

All things considered I have a pretty good life: great kids, great job, great friends.

Great, right? Well, mostly. I was exhausted and sleeping many nights in clothes I would only partially remove because I was just that tired at the end of the day. Sometimes I had to check a calendar to see when my hair was last washed, and Cinnamon Toast Crunch had become a lunch box staple. I also wasn't honouring myself or many of my needs, but I couldn't understand why not because the truth was I do actually have the ability to carve out some free time for myself. So, I did a personal audit. I was wasting a lot of time and mental energy to things that were basically bullshit. And if Get Your Shit Together is about anything at all, it is about cutting the bullshit. FREE YOURSELF.

Let's get started on some simple, easy steps that you can enact TODAY, for (basically) FREE and I promise that while they may not be multiple orgasm terrific, they will at very least feel like a nice feel and a peck on the neck.

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Unsubscribe from Unnecessary Emails

Every email that comes in from clothing stores, grocery sales, social media notifications, etc. is a ping and each ping brings you that much closer to driving your minivan into a liquor store front window.

Unsubscribe because they're mostly bullshit anyway and if you MUST know that you can save 10% at JoJo's Pet Food and Beauty Parlour/Lawn Furniture Emporium this weekend only, then by all means set up a separate Hotmail or Yahoo account, drive all your junk mail to it and turn OFF notifications.

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Set limits on Your Online Time

Treat Social Media like a TV show ... as in it only appears for a half hour a day. I added up all the minutes I spent on Facebook and Twitter and Instagram everyday and at the end of it all I was shocked. It added an hour easily to my workday because of all the stops and starts. I need to be on social media (it's sort of my job, and I do enjoy it) but I don't need to live there. Since I'm on it from 6-6 during the day, I turn it off after that.

Feeling ballsy? Go one further and do what I did: delete it from your devices, making it a sit down laptop or desktop pursuit only. Set periods to visit and stick to them. I also go media free on weekends, and guess what happened? I had 57 notifications, the most crucial of which was a birthday reminder for the guy who I was dating in high school until he boinked with my best friend in the junior boys locker room at the Halloween dance that one time. Give it three days — you will not believe how the absence of pings, beeps, boings, and chirps from the notifications were adversely affecting you until you go without. Ahhh, freedom.

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Revamp Cleaning Routines

Take a few minutes a day to clean your home - that's all it takes! - and get your life back. Check here for 5 quick cleans to get your shit together, fast. And remember; the less "stuff" you own/are tied to, the cleaner your home will be and the freer your life. You can read about my own journey to Less, But Better.

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Stop Grocery Shopping

Setting foot into a grocery store is stressful. You're fighting for a quick check-out lane, you are probably starving and buying crap, the parking lot is a nightmare, and how the hell did those 16 boxes of Wagon Wheels end up in your cart? Multiply the torture of in-store shopping by at least 25 if you have a toddler in tow.

I rarely do my weekly shopping in a brick and mortar store anymore and why would I, now that you can have groceries delivered TO YOUR DOOR, or brought out to you in the car for less than a cup of medium-quality coffee.

Here are three places to start, but you can Google Your Town Name + Grocery Delivery for local hits. I plan to talk more about this at length because it has changed my life on par to when I discovered that Walmart, Superstore, and Longos (and others across Canada) have either curbside pick up or delivery options.

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Use Your Phone Camera to Cut Paper Clutter

Start an image file on your phone for business and appointment cards and then THROW THE 1000 STICKY NOTES AWAY. You don't need that mental clutter in your life.

I also take screen shots of email attachments for tennis lesson and soccer schedules so I can find them easily. My teenager takes a picture of her work schedule and then texts it to me every week. So instead of searching through texts and emails for info — delete them! They're using your memory (both device and actual brain-in-yer-noggin-memory) and adding to your mental bullshit load!) I only need to check my picture files now instead of trying to think of a word in each email I'm frantically searching on Thursday night at 7:43 when I can't remember where the hell soccer practice is tonight.

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Get Ye a Crap Basket

Get a basket. Show it to your family. Tell them to not be afraid; the new basket is their friend.

In fact, it's now your home's "list and found" centre. I have one in our front hallway and anything the kids leave lying around goes right in. Phone cords, socks, Nerf bullets, earbuds, bobby pins....kids lose a lot of stuff. No one is even allowed to utter "Have you seen my...." until they check 'Ol Crappy.

Make the basket pretty - no plastic if you can help it. Check Kijiji or Ikea for cheap ones in a size you need commensurate to your family. Friday nights all untamed items are sold for gin money.*

*dumped on owners beds

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Set up online auto pay

We've all been paying our bills online for years, but go one further and set up everything possible to "auto pay." You'll make damn sure the money's there since its automatic. Going paper free is good for the environment, the pile of crap of your dining room table, and your sanity. Most services have several options for deduction dates so you can cater to your monthly budget preferences. I pay hydro, gas, phone, cable, Internet, credit cards and all insurances with auto pay.

No more frantic clamouring in the dim glow of a dying cellphone trying to pay your cable bill so they don't cut off Paw Patrol in the morning. No one needs that trauma.