Category Archives: Lifestyle

Posts or podcast episodes where we discuss lifestyle issues such as foods, drinks, juicing, fitness, wheat belly diets, or commentary.

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SLT 003: Why We Can’t Let Go of Our Clutter, Backing Up Your Digital Information, and A Little About Dropbox

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Why We Can’t Let Go of Our Clutter, Backing Up Your Digital Information, & A Little About Dropbox

Be sure to subscribe in iTunes and leave a review in the iTunes store! It helps others find the show! Thank you!

In Episode 3 we discuss reasons why some people can’t seem to let go of clutter and some tips that may help you decide what to keep and what to let go.  We also talk about some lessons learned from a catastrophic hard drive crash which sparked the “Your Backup Strategy’ strategy segment, and we wanted to sing a few praises for Dropbox. Dropbox is one way to save documents to the cloud and sync them across all your devices simply.

Main Topics:  

Vanessa’s Topic: Why We Can’t Let Go of Our Clutter

  • We feel the need for abundance. We are a consumer-driven society and conditioned to think more is better…it’s all about quantity over quality.
  • We’ve lived a life “without” and find security with having more. Living through the Depression, growing up in a modest or poor  household, or surviving a rough financial patch can play a huge role in why folk don’t ever want to “live without” again.
  • Forget Justin Bieber…we’re more influenced by Justin Case.  You know, “I might need this someday…just in case.” Some folks want to be ultra-prepared for any scenario. It’s ok to be prepared, but try to be realistic…especially if all that stuff is getting in the way.
  • We feel a sense of obligation. Many feel a sense of obligation to keep every gift. It’s ok to hold on to things but you do have the ability to say no.
  • We fear losing the memory if we get rid of something. Many of us have had wonderful and meaningful experiences throughout our lifetime but we fear that if we get rid of a gift, we’ll forget that person, experience or important time in our life.
  • We want to pay tribute to our past experiences.  Like from our childhood, past careers or travels.  It’s easy to go overboard on collections but try to be mindful of collecting too much.
  • We’ve spent too much money and feel like it’s a waste if we give it away. Let’s face it. We’ve all probably spend a good fortune on things that we never used or never really liked. Boy does that sting! Chalk it up as a lesson learn, be more frugal and research before purchasing another product and find comfort in donating your goods to folks who are less fortunate.
  • We’re holding on to the past. We tend to keep things that remind us of times when we were happy, the most confident, or the most successful.
  • And sometimes we hold on for a deeper reason...like allowing our things to define our self-worth…or define our happiness.  Many folks believe that shopping and having more makes them happier but often times it’s just a temporary fix to “fill the void” of something else that’s missing in their lives.

 Simple Steps to Help You Let Go:

  •  Start with the space that’s causing you the most grief or anxiety. This could be the home office, the kitchen, the laundry room, the bedroom etc.
  • Then start small. Pick a small area to work on like a drawer, a shelf, a cabinet, one spot on the kitchen counter, one filing drawer.  You wouldn’t eat an elephant in one sitting right?  You’d take small bites and eat a little at a time.  (Not sure I like that analogy…the thought of eating an elephant is stomach wrenching but you get the point right!)
  • Then ask yourself these questions when deciding what to keep or not to keep:
    • Do I love it?
    • Do I need it?
    • Do I use it?
    • When was the last time I used it?
    • When do I plan on using it?
    • Can I borrow it?
    • Can I rent it?
    • What’s the worst that will happen if I got rid of it?
  • If you answered “yes” to the first three questions then you should probably keep the item. If you answered “no” then considered letting it go.  If you’re still struggling then ask the other questions and you’ll more than likely find your answer.

Dan’s Topic:  Backing Up Your Digital Information and an Intro to Dropbox

Backing Up Your Digital Information: 

  • As anyone who has experienced an unrecoverable hard drive crash knows, your first thoughts are “oh my gosh…what files did I just lose forever?”
  • The reason I lost some files is boils down to one thing…I failed to make the process simple.

Negative Lessons Learned

  • I took too long to make my decision on which backup system to use for my huge video files
    • Foolish rookie decision making mistake.
    • George S. Patton: “A good plan violently executed now is better than a perfect plan executed next week.” (when it’s too late)

Positive Lessons Learned:

  •  My routine of using Dropbox (and Google Drive) for all my important work docs proved a complete success.
  • While all docs, pics, vids, etc, that were hosted in my iMac are gone, every single one I had on the Cloud (whether Dropbox or Drive) are intact and those workflows are seamless.
  • I use Dropbox and Drive as much for convenience as I do as a part of my backup plan. I love to have my docs accessible wherever I am and it’s so convenient to be able to share docs with clients.
  • By having everything in Dropbox intact reinforces a solid backup strategy: again, ensure you have your info backed up to an external drive, and be sure you also have an off site/cloud storage backup, as well.
  • Ensure you test your strategy from time to time.

 Your big takeaways!

  • Follow the 3 S’s…Make your backup Simple, Seamless and Solid.  
    • Simple…so you don’t have to think about it, it just happens in the background. If you do have to think about it, set reminders in your calendar. If you use Google calendars, send text message reminders to yourself.
    • Seamless…if you have regular backups to an external drive, make sure that drive is also backed up off site.  Initial backup to the Cloud can take up to a couple weeks, depending on your connection speed and how much data you have, of course.
    • Solid…evaluate that your system works. Try to download files from your backup system and see if there are bottlenecks or barriers to your system. How easy would it be to do a complete system restore if you lost your hard drive?
      • As I reevaluated my backup strategy, I added immediate (and blazing fast Thunderbolt external backup) that can handle my huge video files, followed by nightly off site backup with DollyDrive.
      • As I mentioned in Episode 002, I chose Dolly Drive because they’re Mac specific and I really couldn’t find any complaints about them anywhere!
      • I can’t endorse DollyDrive yet because I just started using it, but I’ll be sure to give updates.
    • Make sure your backup plan is simple but complete…
      • On site backup to an external drive
      • Cloud backup off site.

A Little Bit About Dropbox

  • Dropbox is probably not your total backup solution. Use Dropbox to supplement a good backup plan by storing docs there.
  • You can earn up to 18 Gb of additional storage through referrals, too.
  • They have paid plans if you use LOTS of storage space (that’s what we use)

How It Works:

  • What dropbox does is simply add another folder on your computer that acts as a virtual drive.
  • You can load Dropbox on your PC, Mac, smartphones, tablets, etc, and have everything synchronized on every device.
    • If you change or edit a document in Dropbox while working on your laptop, it will automatically update everywhere else.
    • Even if you’re on someone else’s device, you can log in to your Dropbox account on the web and access your information there.
  • You can even share documents or folders with others so they can have access, too.  And it’s all done seamlessly…on the Cloud.
  • You can use it for photos and videos, too.
While Dropbox isn’t our backup plan, it supplements our plan since I host most of my everyday documents on it, making them always available on every device and always synced.

The “Thing” Segment:

Vanessa: ANALYSIS PARALYSIS: Too many choices can be overwhelming and frustrating…life is much easier and simpler when choices are few.  This strategy works great with kids too!

Dan:  EVERNOTE!  We both use and LOVE Evernote!  It is what they say, an external brain.  If you’re into David Allen’s Getting Things Done system, or any other productivity system for that matter, then you know how every system touts “ubiquitous capture,” aka “getting everything out of your head or your environment and getting it recorded somewhere (notebook, 3″ x 5” cards…or Evernote). We plan on doing a future podcast(s) dedicated to how we use Evernote, but in the meantime, check out Evernote.com and see if it might just rock your world like it has ours.

Closing Thoughts:

If you like the show, please subscribe and consider giving us a good review in iTunes

If you know someone else who might enjoy the journey too, send them a link to SimpleLifeTogether.com

There are links to our Twitter and Google Plus profiles and other contact info on the left side of the website. We’d love to hear from you !

Be sure to leave comments below, send us a voicemail from the little microphone icon on the right side of the page, or you can go “old school” and email us!  Comments, questions, thoughts, ideas, suggestions…they’re all welcome and we’d love to hear from you!

Links We Mentioned in the Show:

Get Simplifized.com: Vanessa’s article on Letting Go of Your Clutter

Dropbox: You can learn more and download Dropbox at SimpleLifeTogether.com/Dropbox

Evernote: Your “external brain”

Be sure to subscribe in iTunes and leave a review in the iTunes store! It helps others find the show! Thank you!

 

 

 

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Why Organize At All? Benefits To Organizing And Having Less

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I first posted this over on my organizing website at Get Simplifized! but I wanted to add it here because it is so relevant to the podcast and I knew you’d want me to share it with you here. So, here goes:

Did you know, the average home in the United States has doubled since the 1950’s? Did you also know the number of household members has decreased? Yet, 1 in 11 households has to rent a storage unit. So basically…houses have gotten bigger, families have gotten smaller, yet we still don’t have enough space for all of our stuff and have to find additional storage elsewhere…yikes!!! Here’s another staggering statistic…the average 3 bedroom home has 350,000 items in it. What?  Really?!!!! That just seems insane, doesn’t it?  And that’s a heck of a lot of stuff to manage and take care of.

In my last post, Why We Can’t Let Go Of Our Clutter, I discussed some of the sociological and psychological reasons why we have so much stuff. In this post, I’m going to suggest we combat those urges to have more stuff and offer you some benefits to organizing and having less.  Are you interested?  Ok…here we go:

You’ll save money! It’s pretty simple: less stuff = less money you’ll have to spend…especially on off-site storage rentals! Also, knowing what you have and where things are located you’ll save money because you’re not rushing out to the store to buy duplicate items of things you have but weren’t able to find. You’ll also save money on going out to eat if your kitchen is organized and you’ve planned your meals in advance. And how about this? You’ll save money on late fees and intrest rates if you have a good system of tracking and managing your bills.

You’ll have more usable space. By having less stuff you’ll be able to properly utilize desktops, counterspace and your dinner table. You can have adequate space for your children to play and do homework instead of having to search and clear a space for them to use.

You’ll help avoid “analysis paralysis.” When you have too much stuff, sometimes it’s difficult to make decisions. Take clothes for example. When you’ve got too many clothes sometimes you waste time figuring out what to wear. Ladies, you know what I’m talking about don’t you? Yes, I’m stereotyping but I know some of you have spent 1-2 hours planning for a trip because you couldn’t decide what to wear and pack in your suitcase. Am I right?  Hey…I’ve been there too. And what about your kids? Give them a hundred options of what to play with and they’ll be frozen trying to decide. Give them only 3 and the choice is pretty simple.

There’s less to clean! I used to have a lot of knick knacks and a lot of plants. Those extra things used to cost me time and energy having to clean, dust and maintain them. I don’t know about you, but I am not a fan of dusting. Yes…it’s necessary, but I don’t enjoy doing it. So the less I have to dust the quicker I can get on with cleaning and the quicker I can finish!

You can invite guests over without hesitation. Most of us love spending time with friends and family. Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to have them over to your welcoming and comfortable home without feeling embarrassed or in a rush to clean it up? Well, you can have that. By getting your home organized and by setting up simple systems and routines to maintain your organized home, you can easily have guests over without breaking a sweat!

You’ll be more productive. By having systems in place like a weekly schedule of chores, a dinner plan, allotted time to run errands, a combined family calendar, and clutter cleanup routines, you’ll know what times are reserved for specific tasks and what times you’ll have to work on other priorities in your life. Sporadically running errands and doing chores makes it very difficult to manage your time. Instead, if you have a firm grasp on your time, you’ll be a heck of a lot more productive.

You’ll  have better concentration. I would say for most people, clutter can be very frustrating and very distracting. That’s probably because those piles of papers, heaps of laundry and sink full of dishes are haunting you and reminding you of all the stuff you still have to do. Personally, I cannot concentrate on work when my office is a mess.  In college, I vividly remember my sister and I cleaning our apartment before we studied for exams because we couldn’t concentrate. Clutter is a concentration killer!

You’ll save time. They say the average person wastes about 55 minutes per day searching for things…keys, files, tools, clothes, etc. That’s a lot of time over the course of a year! One of the key components to being organized is having “a place for everything and everything in its place.” By knowing exactly where things go you won’t waste time searching for items.

You’ll have a sense of control.  Control = Confidence = Nicer You! Professional organizer, Elizabeth Hagen has a book and gives speeches about how to, “Organize With Confidence.” She tells a story about how disorganized she was at one point in her life and how that disorganization really affected her self-esteem and her relationships. She admits she wasn’t a very pleasant person to be around. But once she started to get organized, she noticed she had more confidence and was a lot more pleasing to be around.

You’ll have a feeling of calm and peace of mind. In one of my graduate courses, the professor asked all of the students to introduce themselves and tell everyone where their favorite place in the world was. Folks rattled off places like the Caribbean, Mediterranean, Swiss Alps, Ireland, Japan and so on. When it was my turn I simply said, “my home.”  No matter where I lived…an apartment, a dorm room or a a house…I’ve always been able to make it a beautiful, comfortable and relaxing place to be. My home has always been my sanctuary…my escape from the hectic jobs and life I lived outside of it. The last thing I wanted after a 10-15 hour day at work was to come home to a place that caused me more stress and anxiety. So I made it a place of peace and calm…that’s what having an organized home is all about.

So there you have it.  At least 10 reasons and benefits to organizing.  And if that isn’t enough, here’s one more reason:

It’s better than sex!!!  According to a New York Times article in 2001, IKEA did a survey of customers in which 31% reported they were more satisfied after clearing out their closets than they were after sex. Hmm….I’m surprised there aren’t more clutter-free closets out there!!!!

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SLT002: How Routines Can Simplify Your Life, Simple Ways to Get the Most out of Search and Research

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Well, we got past our first episode and in Episode 2 we discuss how using routines can help simplify your life, and some simple ways to get the most out of search and research.

Routines and Search

Routines help make things predictable, let you better plan you time, and make things more efficient. So, we’ll be sharing some tips on how to tap into that power so routines can simplify your life, too! When something is new to you or you need more information, most people turn to Google to find answers. But are you using Google as effectively as you could? We’ll share some of our tricks to help you become a wizard at search and research! Read more…

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SLT 001: An Introduction to the Simple Life Together Podcast

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An Introduction to the Simple Life Together Podcast

Be sure to subscribe in iTunes and leave a review in the iTunes store! It helps others find the show! Thank you!

Welcome!  We’ve waited a long time to get started on this and we’re so excited to finally “get it out there.”  So, in the show we give you an introduction to us, a little bit about our background, what “simple” means to us, and then we talk about our format for the show.

We shared the major “pillars” of our life plan, highlighting that our focus is on the following:

– Faith

– Family

– Friends

– Finances

– Future

Ok, so here’s how we envision the Format of the show:

Every episode, we’ll each pick topics for discussion. Vanessa’s will likely focus on organizing, the household or her business and Dan’s will likely be centered around technology, business or DIY projects. Together, we’ll also focus on family issues/kids, our relationships, future plans, designing our lifestyle, etc.  These are just some areas, but we haven’t set any boundaries because life has endless topics.

We’ll also have a segment where we each pick one thing per episode that we want to highlight…something that’s had a positive impact on us since the last show.  It could be an app, an experience we had, a conversation, a product, whatever. We tried to come up with a name for this thing, whatever it is, and in the end we just decided to call it ”The Thing.”

Our commitment for the show:

– Nearly complete candor…but some things you know you can’t just put “out there”

– Little sugar coating because life isn’t always sweet and besides, we’re low carb eaters

– Imperfection…because nobody’s perfect. Perfect is the enemy of really good.  Our goal is to produce a really good (but simple) show.

– Open to feedback and new topics!  We want you to be part of the show because that’s how we all learn

– Not too much structure…because we’ve both had jobs that pegged-out the “structure meter” and now we like our lives to be a little more “freeform.”

A little bit about us…

– We both have our own businesses, which really helps with designing our simply life together

– Dan is retired from his first career and now does  Business Development Consulting helping niche business with their branding, media presence, and strategic planning.

– Vanessa is a Professional Organizer and helps clients simplify and organize their lives, at home and at work so they have more time to focus on what’s truly important to them, too.

So that’s what we do for a living and I’m sure we’ll share more about ourselves as we go along.

What Simple Means to Us

– Actually having time to enjoy life with those we love

– Living within our means

– Not being slaves to our possessions

– Embracing the concept of “less is more”

– Living more deliberately

– Focusing on our endstate and how we want our lives to be in the long run

– Less  distress (negative stress), more eustress (positive stress)

The Thing Segment:

Vanessa:  Not compare herself to others

Dan:  Quote from Antoine de Saint Exupéry “Perfection is achieved not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.”

Closing Thoughts:

We hope you join us on the journey

If you like the show, please subscribe and consider giving us a good review in iTunes

If you know someone else who might enjoy the journey too, send them a link to SimpleLifeTogether.com

There are links to our Twitter and Google Plus profiles and other contact info on the left side of the website. We’d love to hear from you !

Be sure to leave comments below or send us a voicemail.  Comments, questions, thoughts, ideas, suggestions…they’re all welcome!

Links we mentioned in the show:

Tim Ferriss 4HWW Deferred Retirement Plan

Michael Hyatt’s Life Plan

 Be sure to subscribe in iTunes and leave a review in the iTunes store! It helps others find the show! Thank you! 

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Roasted Chicken Dinner

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You know we love simple foods! Sometimes “simple foods” means simple to prepare, other times it means “simple ingredients”…but it always means “simply delicious.”

Spiced rotisserie chicken, roasted half onion with balsamic (Italian seasoning, sea salt, fresh ground black pepper and hint of olive oil). Medley of steamed green, red, habanero, Serrano, and vinegar soaked jalapeño peppers. Vanessa also had a flaxseed wrap made following the Wheat Belly book recipe section. Yum!
BTW…This recipe was especially easy since we bought the chicken pre-cooked at the grocery store!  Honestly…it’s so darn good and the chicken falls off the bone!  When you are short on time or just too darned tired to spend an hour in the kitchen to cook, you don’t have to run to the freezer to get a hot pocket or frozen pizza.  On your way home from work or from running errands, consider picking up pre-cooked, yet healthy prepared meals that your family will love.