If I had to pick one word to sum up the change I’ve seen in my lifetime, it would be convenience. On the surface, it sounds so appealing. But have the things that promised to simplify life delivered on their pledges? Or has convenience culture just complicated our lives and put our happiness, our relationships, and ultimately our lives, at risk?
Today’s post explores the paradox of many of the changes we’ve seen in the name of convenience. Finally, I’ve got some ideas on how you can take back control and really simplify your life.
A lot has changed in 100 years
In just a couple of generations, our obsession with convenience has transformed our lives to the point where they would be unrecognizable to people who lived just a little over a hundred years ago.
My paternal grandmother was born in 1896. Nanna passed away in 1994 at the age of 97. In her lifetime, she lived through two world wars, and travelled from one end of the globe to the other. It’s safe to say that she saw a lot of change in her almost 100 years on our planet. But, if she were to come back to Earth just 28 years after her death, she probably wouldn’t recognize the place.
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The paradox of convenience
Let’s look at some of the things we do that wouldn’t make sense to my nanna.
- Our fancy coffeemakers gather dust at home while we sit in our cars at the drive-thru to buy takeout coffee in throwaway cups.
- Most of us have access to healthy tap water, yet we pay money for water in plastic bottles.
- Our houses have dishwashers, and washing machines, yet we spend money on disposable plates, glasses, plastic cutlery, and paper towels.
- Despite the money we spend on gym memberships and fitness classes, our lives are more sedentary than ever.
- Quality time with our family and friends is rare, even with all the conveniences that are supposed to give us more leisure time.
- Our houses are bigger but they still aren’t big enough to store everything we buy. Our garages are so full of stuff we don’t use that we have to park our cars in the driveway. And we spend money on storage units to store even more stuff we don’t use.
- We don’t question the preservatives in many of the foods we eat, despite the ingredients being clearly listed on labels.
- With a world of information literally at our fingertips, we’re less informed about what’s really going on in the world.
- We’re more educated than ever, but many people lack basic life skills like budgeting, cooking, and sewing.
- Loneliness is epidemic, yet we fail to put any effort into our relationships. Did someone do something you don’t like? Just cancel them! Is your spouse, partner, or friend starting to annoy you? Get rid of them and find a new one.
Clearly all this convenience hasn’t improved our lives. In fact, in many ways our lives are worse than they were for my grandmother’s generation.
So, what can we do about it?
10 ways to reject convenience culture and simplify life
Let me be clear that I’m not a Luddite. I own a smartphone and a tablet and you’ll even find a couple of smart TVs in our house. There’s nothing wrong with things that save time and make life easier, but where does our obsession with convenience culture end?
How long do we continue to chase convenience while our physical and mental health suffer, our planet is in crisis, our oceans fill up with plastic waste, and our relationships deteriorate as we prioritize things over people?
At some point, we have to step back and prioritize the possessions and activities that add value to our lives. While we’re at it, we need to reject the things that just waste time, money and precious mental space, and distract us from what really matters.
Here are ten ways you can reject convenience culture and start simplifying your life today.
Adopt mindful shopping habits
The easiest way to simplify your life is to be more mindful about what you buy. Mindful shopping starts with one word—why! Before buying anything, ask yourself why you want it or, more importantly, why you need it. If you can’t answer that question, you’re probably buying it for the wrong reasons.
Check out this post for more mindful shopping tips.
Opt for reusable over disposable
You wouldn’t take $50 out of your wallet and throw it in the garbage, would you? Yet that’s exactly what you do when you pay money for disposable items.
Make a pact to say no to single-use items. Fill a refillable water bottle with water before leaving home. Get a reusable travel mug for your coffee (or make your coffee at home). Use reusable shopping bags every time you go to the supermarket. For more ideas on how to cut waste, check out A year of monthly waste reduction goals.
Not only will these small changes reduce waste, they will also save you money.
Learn to say no
Simplifying extends to how we use our time—the one precious resource none of us can get more of. Many people get caught up in the competition of whose life is busier.
Practise saying no to activities and invitations that don’t enrich your life. Then, use that time for activities that will recharge and energize you.
Limit your technology use
Technology has the power to make our lives easier, but we spend hours mindlessly scrolling through social media or playing games.
Check your device settings to find out your screen time. Take it one step further and learn which are your most frequently-used apps. You might be surprised.
Eat more whole foods
The packaged and processed foods many of us live on are high in sugar, salt and other ingredients that are harmful to our health. Try to eat more whole and unpackaged foods. When you do buy prepared foods, get into the habit of checking labels. If you can’t pronounce an ingredient, or don’t know what it is, don’t eat it!
Choose quality over quantity
The world constantly tells us we need more! More clothes…more shoes…more kitchen gadgets.
Instead of just accumulating more, adopt a quality-first mindset. You’ll get more wear out of a single timeless piece of clothing than 10 fast-fashion pieces. And, if that single-purpose kitchen gadget you use once a year is taking up space, figure out if there’s another way to get the job done.
Prioritize people over things
One of the things I admire about many young people is their desire to spend money on experiences rather than things. I’m a big believer in experience gifts—I’d rather spend time doing something fun with the people I love than receive another trinket or gadget.
The gift of your time is the best gift you can give anyone. Make time for the people who matter to you before it’s too late.
Clear the clutter
If your garage or basement are full to bursting, or you’ve had to rent a storage unit to hold all your belongings, you have too much stuff. Stop making excuses and start decluttering…today!
Check out Looking back on a year of decluttering for tips on how you can start your own decluttering challenge.
Spend less than you earn
One of the basic rules of personal finance is to spend less than you earn. It’s a simple concept that has been forgotten in our desire to accumulate things we really don’t need. Household debt levels are out of control and many people are one paycheque away from disaster.
The cool thing about a budget is it forces you to take a hard look at your wants and needs. If you often have too much month left at the end of your money, it’s time to create a budget and learn to stick to it.
Learn basic life skills
One of the coolest things about technology is all the learning we have at our fingertips. Between YouTube and learning platforms like Coursera, you can learn how to do pretty much anything.
Despite all the information we have available, many of us discard clothing because of a missing button, or a hem that needs stitching. We order takeout because we don’t have basic cooking skills. And we make ill-informed investment decisions that cost us money.
Make a list of basic skills that could save you time and money. Then, set a goal to learn more and commit to it.
When the things that are supposed to simplify our lives make them more complicated, it’s time to take back control and say no to convenience culture! Will you join me?
Do you have other tips to simplify life? I’d love to hear them. Join the conversation below.
Asking why you would buy something is key to reduce our consumption and the convenience culture. Interesting post Michelle!
Right. That’s the first thing I ask before I buy anything: “Do I really need this?”
I started to do like that after Covid, because during the pandemic I realized that I needed less. It worked and has been still working. That’s definitely a good approach Michelle!
Thanks Cristiana. Covid definitely made many of us pause and rethink our lifestyles. I said early on in the pandemic that if we didn’t take the opportunity to do that, we’d miss the lesson!
This whole post is so good – but I love choosing quality over quantity. Yes!
Thanks for sharing, Michelle. Living slower is a goal and being a good steward of all the things I use, consume makes so much sense for myself and the world around me. xo!
You’re right Vicki. It does make so much sense, even if the world constantly tells us otherwise. I wish I had learned this lesson sooner.
Ditto! 😉
A good tip is to shop your fridge before you go shopping its amazing what you can make from a little bit of this and that…soup, a stew/casserole, frittata, fruit salad, smoothies …sometimes I can make 2/3 days meals before I need to shop and there is far less waste and you save money 🙂
That is an excellent tip. My mum is amazing at getting the most out of every scrap of food. She grew up in a household with 15 kids. Nothing ever went to waste! Thanks for dropping by.
You are welcome we have 6 children so 8 to feed with us.. I had to use everything my mother taught me well..
YES!!!! This post was perfect.
Thanks Suzanne. I am so glad you enjoyed it!
I tried to avoid the convenience of the tumble dryer by drying the washing outside – not least to save on electricity as energy prices soar. However, the dry washing got full of bugs and then the house was full of bugs and I got bitten by bugs and there was enormous trouble and work chasing and killing them and tidying up the mess. Convenient it was not. All the angst would easily have been avoided if I’d just shaken the dry clothes before bringing them in.
Sometimes a simple adjustment needs a bit more work, but overall its worth it.
Oh no. I dry my laundry outdoors all summer long. I get the odd stowaway bug who finds his way indoors but it hasn’t been too much of a problem. It definitely saves on the electric bills.
We had about 50 wood gnats in our bedroom off two loads of washing.
Oh wow!
I so enjoyed reading this interesting, thought-provoking post! I love that you highlight the ways the problem is apparent and then offer several ways we can slowly ease into working, in our own ways, for solutions. 🙂
Thanks Jaya. I’m glad you found the post thought-provoking. That’s always the goal for my blog.
Excellent post, Michelle. I agree, the convenience culture seems to have been hijacked by capitalism. We should probably start defining what convenience actually means for us. Also, a friend said this before – why does progress mean having more when it could just as easily mean having less?
I love the idea of defining what convenience means for us. You make a great point about convenience meaning having less. Over the last few years, I have drastically reduced the number of personal care products I buy and it has greatly simplified my life. I wish more people would see that.
Oh man, this post hit home for me! I agree whole-heartedly!
It seems we’ve traded in/sacrificed something profound for this life of convenience… there are so many things on your list of things nanna wouldn’t recognize now that hit me in the gut, such as we have so much information at our fingertips yet majority of the population doesn’t seem to know what’s going on with the world, choosing to keep their heads in the sand… and as educated as most are, a lot of people seem to lack basic skills like budgeting, cooking, sewing… It’s shocking in so many ways to see our culture move in this direction… it makes me worried for my daughter and how I am going to be able to guide in her the right direction when there are so many influences out there that could sway her …
I also love that not only do you hi-lite these issues, but you give tips! I am not a social media person… I don’t have any socials other than my blog and I watch YouTube, and I feel like that has made such a huge difference in my life. I feel more centred compared to my friends and peers!
Great post!!
Thanks Jen! It is sad how much has changed in just a few short years—all in the name of “progress”. It’s hard to turn back the clock, but when you stop to think about it so much of this progress is negatively impacting our physical and mental wellbeing. I think that’s why the minimalist movement is gaining traction. Many people don’t understand it but, if they did, I think they’d embrace many of its principles, even if they reject the label!
Michelle,
You always give me lots to think about after reading your posts. This disposable, convenient, lifestyle we have created really gives one pause.
There are so many things each of us can do whether big or small to help our planet.
Thanks for making me think twice about things I can change to make the world a better place!
Thanks so much for your kind words Kat. For years I took these conveniences for granted and never really stopped to think about them. Now, I try to focus on one change at a time. It all adds up.
I read your blog posts and feel like I am re-entering the world of sanity, Michelle. You articulate so many hugely important things in this blog post. Buying water in plastic bottles (which often end up polluting entire ecosystems) compared to the perfectly satisfactory tap water provided to us in most of our homes (in developed nations) is insane… and the result of ongoing lifestyle marketing by huge corporations like Coke and Nestle. Another personal choice that also amazes me is folks who DRIVE THEIR CARS to go to a gym to work out. They could walk or bike to their gym — and get lots of exercise in the process! Instead they contribute to the imbalance of the entire planet’s weather patterns by burning more fossil fuels while pursuing their own personal health goals (unless, I suppose, they drive an electric car being re-charged via solar panels on their roof…) THANK YOU for continuing to care about — and write about — all of these topics, habits, patterns, and choices! PS: My song inspired by climate catastrophe came out today on most digital music platforms. Here’s a link to a few of them if you are curious: https://songwhip.com/willmcmillan/were-running-a-big-experiment.
Thanks Will. It is insane. In a neighbouring community, Nestle ran into a lot of community resistance against the millions of litres of water they were pumping out of wells into plastic bottles every single day. You can read more about it here https://www.wellingtonwaterwatchers.ca
Thanks for sharing your song. I love it! With your permission, I would love to feature it in an upcoming blog post.