Ways I Am Simplifying My Life in 2025
Dear Inklings,
I cannot believe we are now at the end of 2024. Last year, I shared the ways I was simplifying my life. I’ve kept up with all of those, and my days are full and content.
This next year, I’m going further. Life has only gotten busier somehow. I find myself yearning for more simplicity and quiet in the midst of chaos.
So, without further ado, these are some ways I’m simplifying my life for 2025:
I am switching out my smartphone for a Light Phone.
I’ve been wanting to switch back to a dumb phone for years, but I’m also attached to listening to music and podcasts during my walks and drives, so I need bluetooth, you know. The Light Phone doesn’t have the ability to download apps or even take photos. It’s a phone that only has basic functions: call, text, navigation, calculator, music, podcasts.. That’s about as much as it does. Will it become my permanent phone? We’ll see.
I’m so ready to be unreachable (mostly).
This might also help me get back into photography, which I have neglected since my daughter was born.
I am spending less time on Substack.
Substack is a magical place. I do love it. However, it can still be a time-suck—especially the Notes. I gave in a little while ago and downloaded the app, but found that it didn’t add much to my life. It was too much like social media in its addictiveness and tone, so I’ve since deleted it again (which is going to be moot once my Light Phone arrives, anyway).
Being active on Notes did wonders for my growth, but I’ve noticed that once I hit a thousand subscribers, I didn’t really care to keep growing. I’m content. My focus now is on the people who are already here—you—my actual subscribers, and especially my patrons for literally keeping this publication going. I post notes when I want to, but don’t feel obligated to spend a lot of time there.
To further limit my time on Substack, I’ve started saving articles to Pocket. This syncs with my Kobo e-reader. If you have a Kindle, you can also share Substack articles to your Kindle. The biggest downside with this is I can’t react or comment as immediately, but maybe that’s a good thing? It helps me be more intentional when I do sign on to Substack.
I am quitting Amazon for good.
Last year, we had cancelled our Prime membership, but I lamented that it was hard to leave Amazon completely as an indie author. Well, I have since discovered Draft2Digital, which distributes wide, including to Amazon! I can do away with KDP! They still use humans for customer service! I could have cried.
Take a look at my author page to see all my available e-books. This universal link is included with my Draft2Digital account—so convenient.
I’ve also started trying out Kobo Writing Life for ebook publishing, to take advantage of their free promotional tools. It’s been a joy so far.
For print books, I’ve used IngramSpark in the past and have been satisfied with their print quality. In the future, I’m planning to print through BookVault and distribute through IngramSpark. BookVault print quality is supposedly better. We shall see.
Will report back on these as I experiment.
I am doing all my writing on paper before transferring it to a laptop.
This might be the most difficult to maintain, simply because time is so limited, and like many others, I type much faster than I write by hand. I do have a typewriter, though. Before homeschooling, I often typed up essays before copying them over to my laptop. That might be a good compromise.
Ultimately, I want to spend far less of my time looking at a screen. I want to be more focused and intentional with my time.
We cancelled our subscriptions to streaming services.
Ah, the sadness. Whatever shall I do without my horror shows/movies? Just kidding. In reality, we were watching so little TV already that this just made sense. This was for our children’s benefit, as we want them as little exposed to screen as possible. We haven’t had Netflix for over a year. We only share a Disney+ account with my family of origin, but don’t use it often. We’re still old-school in that we have DVDs of our favourites. Remember DVDs?? Did you know that public libraries (in the U.S.) let you borrow DVDs? It’s great.
Thank you so much for a wonderful year. Through your support, I’ve gained the courage to write and share words that have long lain dormant. This publication would not be able to continue without you, so thank you for giving me this incredible privilege of sharing my words with you and the world. 2025 will see me diving into even more scary topics. I know I can; my Inklings have made me braver.
With love,
