12 Ways to Keep It Simple

The notion of keeping things simple when you're juggling kids, extracurricular activities, meals, working and more is far from simple. That can change with these 12 sanity savers to make your life easier.

If the nutritional well-being of your family often depends on a last-minute trip to the grocery store at dinner time, or scraping freezer burn off an old bag of chicken fingers, it's time to bake up a better plan. Start a weekly meal plan with the help of The Six O'Clock Scramble weekly meal-planning service—and stick to it. You'll never again find the need to have the deep-dish pizzeria on speed dial. You'll be amazed at the financial benefits, too.

Reduce the stress when getting dressed, while making room for better buys going forward. Pare your wardrobe down to the things you really wear, that fit well, and are in good shape. That means those yoga pants you stretched out during pregnancy probably need to be passed on. Need help? Try sites or services like Shop Your Closet or Real Life Runway to help you hang up a winner.

Here's a little tip to help balance the final bill at dinner. Apps like CheckPlease allow you to quickly key in the total, then select the percentage amount you wish to tip (20% is apparently the new 15%). The accompanying calculator will eliminate the need for the excruciating and embarrassing post-dinner huddle over who owes what. In seconds, you're serenely whipping out your cash or card. Smart.

After a year of being schooled in the art of ‘no' by our two year-olds, that word should roll just as easily off our own tongue. “No, I can't volunteer this week. No, I can't attend your jewellery party. No, I can't take your kids for lunch—again.” And no, we're not going to make any excuses for advocating its use. We're more frequently trying to come from a place of no, and yes, it feels good.

The long and short of it is, a little thing like a shoelace may not seem significant, but when it impacts your heart rate on a run, causes you to drop four bags of groceries, or takes up two minutes in the morning you don't have, you'll see how a loose lace can make a big impact. Teach them their knots, but in the meantime, tighten it up and forget about it with Yankz.

Whether your glass is half-empty or half-full isn't the question. At the end of the night, it's who is hand-washing all the wine glasses. Save your rock/paper/scissors bet for something spicier, and get to bed earlier thanks to StemGrip's smart solution. Push the centre down onto one of the plastic tines in your washer and it traps the glasses so they won't crash…which is exactly what you want to do at the end of the evening.

You're always thoughtful; you're just a little bit late in showing it. Birthday reminder email programs or apps do all the work for you—albeit not the buying, wrapping and dropping off of the gift. But at least you'll never have to buy the belated-cards-of-shame again.

If you regularly ferry kids around in a vehicle, your car is probably a piece of garbage. Or at least it has tons of garbage lying around on the inside. The easy fix? Keep a recycled garbage bag available in your ride and each time the kids get out, get them to throw their wrappers, bottles, artwork (ok, not really) out. You may not be able to go Mach 5 in your minivan, but it can still look fabulous on the inside.

Those curious stacks of letters/receipts/bills you have piled up all over the house? Cut them down to size (zero). Institute the all-important ‘one-touch' approach. If you touch it, you tackle it. It'll take discipline and a dogged determination not to get distracted along the way, but enact it daily and we'll bet you'll actually be able to file your taxes on time this year.

Chop to it. There's bad food (like deep fried chocolate bars) and there's food gone bad—the kind that rots away spoiled in your fridge. Waste not, want not in the fruit and veg category by slicing it all up as soon as you bring it home, and storing it in a reusable glass container. Now you'll always have easy grabs for snacks and lunches and you'll be saving space in your compost bin.

A good knit sweater can be hard to come by, so just because things may have been ‘pilling' up, doesn't mean that you have to hit the stores. A few strokes from the Sweater Stone and the pilling and balling is removed, making your sweater look just like new. It isn't just for your clothes, either—it can also rejuvenate furniture upholstery and polar fleece. Giving the ‘old' a quick face-lift—that's why this stone rocks.

Keeping up with the Jonses' (we'll leave the Kardashians out of this) can make it tough to keep it all in perspective. Taking stock of the bounty we already have in hand is a good reality check. Trouble doing it on your own? An inspired book by cognitive therapist Timothy Miller may help you achieve an appreciation for what you already possess and the simple things life brings.