17 Practical Tips to Simplify Self-Care, Chores and Life Admin

Life is a juggling act. But balancing taking care of yourself and your loved ones, doing household chores, and tackling work or study-related tasks becomes even more tricky when you’re dealing with chronic pain, fatigue, doctor’s visits and therapy sessions on top of that.

How do you keep all your balls in the air when you have serious health problems? Well, sometimes you can’t, and that’s ok. And sometimes, setting up supportive systems and streamlining your day-to-day activities can help you to still get meaningful things done despite your chronic conditions.

In the previous article, we discussed 7 general strategies to simplify your life with chronic illness to make your days a little easier. Today, let’s dive deeper into actionable advice on how you can simplify self-care, household chores, and life admin.

From caring for your body and mind to cleaning and cooking, take a look at 17 practical tips to simplify your life with chronic illness. 

This article contains some affiliate links to products you may find useful, at no extra costs to you. All opinions are my own. 

Simplify Your Self-Care with Chronic Illness

Looking after your body, mind and spirit take up some time in your day, especially when you’re living with a chronic illness. First of all, you have extra self-care tasks to do, like taking your meds, doing physical therapy exercises or managing your pain levels. But secondly, normal daily routines require a lot more effort. If you have POTS, you may need to rest after having a shower, while someone with severe arthritis might struggle to get dressed.

What can you do to simplify your daily self-care? None of these tips will work for everybody, but here are some strategies to make taking care of your body and mind a little more effortless.

1. Simplify your basic self-care.

When it comes to your daily hygiene, getting dressed and feeding yourself, what’s the biggest problem you’re struggling with right now? What drains your energy, hurts or makes you feel not good about yourself?

Once you name that one activity of daily living, explore what you can do to make it easier for yourself:

• Too tired to take a bath every day? Get clean with (disposable) wash cloths and dry shampoo, or put a stool in the shower so you can sit down safely.
• Look into adaptive clothing to simplify getting dressed with chronic illness or disability. Having shirts that use magnetic closures instead of buttons, clothes with access points for medical devices or hands-free slip-on shoes can save you energy and frustration.
• Never forget to take your medication again by using a pill organizer and/or setting reminders in your phone. Also sign up for automatic refills at your pharmacy if possible.

2. Adopt keystone habits.

Keystone habits are routines with multiple benefits, and ideally ones that you can easily fit into your days. Simplify your healthy habits by killing two birds (or more!) with one stone.

For example, spending time in natural surroundings exposes you to fresh air and vitamin-D producing sunshine that also fine-tunes your body clock, while lowering your stress levels, reducing mental fatigue and boosting your mood. That’s pretty helpful for a walk in the park or resting in your garden, right?

For more inspiration, check out 8 keystone habits that will improve your life in different areas.

3. Work on your recovery in the midst of everyday life.

We’d all love to go on a wellness retreat to focus solely on improving our health and happiness, but that’s not a realistic option for most of us. Instead, see how you can incorporate your recovery plans in your everyday life, with household chores that have to be done, bills that have to be paid and loved ones who’d like your attention too.

You could gradually build up your walking stamina by going to a nearby store on foot – and grab some healthy ingredients for dinner. Arrange with a neighbor or friend in your community to both batch cook a nourishing meal and swap those extra portions once a week, so you can both enjoy one night without cooking – and with a new recipe to taste. You could also make your rest time more restorative by alternating watching Netflix with simple activities that trigger your body’s relaxation response, like breathing exercises and slow movement.

Finding ways to move towards your recovery goals in the midst of your daily life could really simplify your self-care load.

4. Curate your mental consumption.

You may not even realize it, but all the information we consume all day long has a big impact on our thoughts, beliefs, emotions and actions. The shows you watch, the music you listen to, the news you read and the social media channels you scroll through, they all shape how you see the world and yourself in it.

So start choosing more mindfully when, how and which kind of information you want to mentally digest. Minding your mental diet isn’t just an act of self-care in itself, but it can also simplify your life in several ways. For example, reducing distractions like notifications will boost your attention span, while spending less time mindlessly watching YouTube leaves you more time for activities and people you actually care about.

It can be helpful to set some ‘rules’ for yourself, like:

• No stimulating content – horror movies, heated discussions on X, upsetting news reports – one hour before bedtime.
• No screens at the dinner table or in the bedroom.
• Making a seasonal list of the new books, songs or movies you’d love to check out (instead of refreshing your Instagram feed again).

For more inspiration on curating your mental consumption, check out 28 Tips to Nourish Your Mind in Healthy Ways and 13 Thoughts on Healthy Social Media Use with Chronic Illness, as well as The Bored and Sick Guide with 130 analogue, low-energy activities you can do at home.

Simplify Your Home

Ironically, simplifying your daily life with chronic illness comes with some planning and preparation – especially prepping for unexpected circumstances. Why? Because with your fluctuating health and energy levels, you know you won’t always be able to do what needs to be done under time pressure or in a (health) crisis situation.

It feels counterintuitive to spend your precious energy on decluttering and meal planning, but in the long run having simple but supportive systems in place will help you prevent overwhelm, stress, flare-ups and (more) exhaustion.

Obviously, everyone’s health condition and living situation are different, but let’s take a look at some practical tips to simplify your home.

* Meal prepping and food shopping *

No matter how good or bad you feel, we all have to eat multiple times a day. That’s why preparing meals with chronic illness can take up more of your energy-filled time than you’d like, especially if you have allergies or follow a medical diet.

5. Get clear on your dietary needs. 

Whether you prefer a vegetarian, keto or gluten-free food pattern, start with making a list of your household’s pantry staples needed for a varied and balanced diet. Which basics do you need for breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks to get an adequate amount of protein, healthy fats, slow carbohydrates and vitamins in?

It doesn’t have to be a study in nutrition, but getting a clear picture of your dietary needs can make your grocery shopping and meal planning process easier. More so, you may identify certain obstacles to sticking to your diet, like not having an AIP-proof snack to take when you’re on the go or struggling with eating enough iron-rich foods as a vegan.

In this spirit, make sure you have 5 to 10 suitable and easy recipes in your cooking repertoire that you can always turn to.

6. Use stress-free meal templates.

It can be a pain to come up with what’s for dinner every night. Assigning a culinary theme to (some) days will help you to come up with a varied week menu while also keeping it simple. For example, we eat pasta every Monday, but depending on the season, grocery deals and our appetite, we alternate between spaghetti with meatballs, gnocchi with roasted vegetables, and other pastas.

You could have a Taco Tuesday or Soup and Salad Saturday, but if you prefer to simplify your meal planning by alternating meat, poultry, fish and vegetarian dinners continuously, that also works. Use any meal planning strategy that reduces your mental load and helps you to get nourishing meals in more effortlessly.

7. Order groceries online.

If this option is affordable and available in your area, consider ordering your groceries online to avoid heavy lifting, standing in queues or sensory overload. You may also find it easier to stay within your food budget if you can compare prices at one glance or swap items in your virtual cart.

No matter how you do your grocery shopping, create a standard shopping list of all the pantry staples you need regularly that you can print out every week or curate in a grocery list app. That won’t just save you time planning, but also reduces the number of times you have to run back to the supermarket because you forgot an essential ingredient thanks to your brain fog.

8. Try low-effort cooking methods.

Zoom in: which aspect of making meals do you struggle with the most? Does it hurt your hands to chop vegetables or draining out the water after cooking? Do you get tired or dizzy from standing behind the stove? Not strong enough to place heavy dishes in the oven?

Depending on your answers, there are different things you can do to make cooking more effortless:

• Invest in helpful tools, like a good food processor or arthritis-friendly knives and jar openers.
• Use a slow cooker or Instant Pot to put warming bowls of food on the table. Even better, make extra portions for the next day or freeze them for future dinners. You can check out these healthy slow cooker recipes to get started.
• Foil packets reduce the amount of clean up needed, while still providing you with a wholesome meal.
• No more hands-on cooking with sheet pan dinners – you can rest or set the table while the oven does the work for you. Because you can keep the food components separate on the oven tray, sheet pan meals also lend themselves well for households with different dietary needs.
• Master a few quick recipes that you can whip up after a tiring day.
• Make a batch of overnight oats, hearty egg muffins or salads in jars to set yourself up for some easy yet tasty breakfasts and lunches.

Alternatively, you could look into a healthy meal service if that’s affordable and available to you.

* Cleaning and tidying up*

9. Set realistic standards of cleanness.

If you’re dealing with painful bowel symptoms, migraine attacks or post-cancer fatigue, your house will probably not look as spotless as you’d wish, and that’s ok! It’s more important to have a basic level of hygiene and safety covered than to have a picture-perfect decor. So don’t be ashamed to (temporarily) lower your household standards.

In this spirit: if you share your home with other people, make sure you have a similar vision (or happy compromise) of what a clean and tidy house means to you and divide the workload in a way that works for you all.

10. A little every day or a lot at once? 

Explore what suits you best: doing some chores every day or having one intensive chore day.

Maybe you like to do one load of laundry every (other) day and tidy one are of your home daily to pace your energy and to prevent stuff from piling up. Or perhaps you’d much rather prefer to have one day a week dedicated to cleaning sessions, so you can put it out of your mind and take it easy the rest of the week.

Both strategies are fine, you just have to see what best fits your health condition and personality. Make sure to also plan breaks in between different tasks.

11. Get (somewhat) organized.

No worries, you don’t have to reorganize your fridge with beautiful storage containers (unless you want to). But keeping the clutter under control will make it easier to find the things you’re looking for and to clean your house without having to move a pile of stuff out of the way first.

I’ve written a whole post dedicated to this topic – ‘Cut the Clutter: A Practical Plan to Get Organized with Chronic Illness’ – so let’s stick to some essentials:

• Ask yourself two questions: Which small changes would make my daily functioning less chaotic and more effortless? For example, a calming bedroom to rest in without clothes lying around. And: what do I need in case of emergencies? Maybe having your medical documents and insurance papers sorted reduces a lot of stress when you’re dealing with hospital stays and doctor’s visits. Start with the living area or household routines that have the biggest impact on your wellbeing.
• Come up with a doable action plan to start decluttering, if needed. It doesn’t matter if you do it room by room or category by category, just choose a strategy that works best for your health and living situation – one that you can actually stick to no matter how good or bad you feel.
• Have a place for everything and everything in its place. Boring advice, but it helps to keep surfaces clear. Also make sure you put the things you use in places where you can easily grab them.
• Limit the amount of items coming into your home. Use the ‘one in, one out’ method when buying new clothes, cancel subscriptions you’re no longer excited about or snap pictures of your kids’ art work instead of saving every drawing.

Embracing the concept of ‘minimalism with a back up plan’ will help you to focus on ‘less but better’ belongings and routines.

12. Experiment with household hacks

Aside from hiring help and dividing the workload fairly amongst your housemates, what can you do to simplify chores? A lot depends on your health, your house and who you share your home with, but here are some household hacks that could help:

• Keep basic cleaning supplies on each floor of your home. You can quickly wipe down the sink, toilet seat or doorknob if you have disposable cleaning cloths or a spray bottle with sponges in your bathroom.
• Invest in some energy-saving tools, like a robot vacuum, a dryer, an automatic litter box for your cat or simply a grabber tool if you struggle with bending down.
• Place a basket at the bottom of the stairs to limit the amount of times you have to carry things up and down.
• Have a ‘shoes off indoors’ policy to reduce dirt and germs entering your home.

You can find more tips in ‘Housekeeping Hacks 101: How to Get Chores Done with Chronic Illness‘.

13. Simplify your wardrobe and laundry.

Most of us have plenty of clothes, yet feel like we have nothing to wear. How can you put on a clean and comfortable outfit that makes you feel like you when you’re exhausted and in pain?

• Curate your wardrobe. If you have the energy, take a little time to discover your style, the colors that suit you and the models and fabrics that feel comfortable on your skin. You could even consider adaptive clothing to make getting dressed easier. With a clear picture in mind, you can fill your closet with versatile clothes that you can easily combine into different outfits, and that you’ll enjoy longer. Less fast fashion and less exhausting shopping trips necessary, sounds like a win-win!
• No matter if you prefer to do one load a day or have a day dedicated to doing laundry, there are a few things you can do to simplify the laundry process. Pre-sort dirty clothes in different hampers as soon as you take them off. Hang clothes instead of folding them. When you’re shopping for new clothes, check the label to avoid pieces that need dry cleaning. Bonus points for clothing that doesn’t need ironing! If it doesn’t feel itchy, wool has self-cleaning properties, so you can wash it less often and air it by the window instead. You could also buy a bunch of socks all in the same color from the same brand so you never have to look for that missing sock again.
• Got to rush out the door in the morning? Lay out your outfit – and for your young kids if you have them – the night before to streamline your morning routine the next day.
• Keep extra underwear, pajamas and/or loungewear if necessary. If you’re often too sick to keep up with your laundry or you regularly have overnight hospital stays, then the last thing you want is to run out of clean clothes when you already feel bad.

Simplify Your Life Admin & Schedule 

Living with chronic illness often comes with a lot of (digital) paperwork and appointments. What can you do to better manage life admin like medical records, insurance claims or filing taxes, despite fatigue and brain fog?

14. Schedule life admin tasks.

It can be hard to stay on top of bills, forms, documents and complicated emails if you never purposely free up the time and (mental) energy to do it. So once a week or month, schedule time in your calendar for life admin tasks.

• If possible, use your peak hours for focus to tackle mentally demanding tasks. You can check out more advice on how you can be productive despite brain fog.
• Create supportive routines for maintenance, like checking your bank statements once a month and backing up your computer every Friday.
• Mind your season of life. Look ahead to identify periods with specific life admin tasks, like tax season, back-to-school month or an upcoming surgery. With that knowledge, you can leave room in your schedule and pacing routine to tackle all the forms, documents and calls required.

15. Automate what you can.

Take some mental load off your plate by automating recurring tasks. Have a look at a few ways you could simplify your life admin with one-time actions:

• Set up auto-pay for monthly bills like rent, utilities and streaming services. You could also have a fixed percentage of your income flow automatically to your savings account. Automate your finances further with this guide and video from financial expert Ramit Sethi.
• Streamline your email, by setting up filters for your inbox or creating email templates if you find yourself typing the same kind of emails over and over again.
• Sign up for automatic re-fills of your prescriptions if possible. Ask your local pharmacy for guidance or research services like PillPack.
• Schedule recurring weekly, monthly or quarterly tasks in your to-do app, to recuse your mental load and pace your energy.

Automating tasks is a great example of the strategy ‘decide once’ to simplify your home and work life.

16. Keep your medical records up to date.

Depending on where you live in the world, it can be helpful to have certain medical documents organized. It may take some effort at first, but hopefully having all the important documents ready will simplify future medical appointments or crisis situations.

• Your personal health history in chronological order, with diagnoses of (chronic) conditions and past hospitalizations, surgeries and accidents
• A list of the medications you use, including the drug name and right dosage
• A list of immunizations
• Recent test results, such as blood work, X-rays and preventative screenings
• Medical insurance forms
• Legal documents, like a living will and medical power of attorney.

Prevention.com has some tips for (US-based) patients where to find the medical information you may need.

17.  Leave buffer time in your schedule

When you’re planning your day or week, it’s helpful to not over-schedule yourself when living with a chronic illness. You could use the buffer time to rest up before and after appointments and activities, to not have to hurry when things don’t go as planned, or to deal with incidents like having to take your pet to the vet.

Leaving space in your calendar also allows you to better manage a flare-up of symptoms, post-exertional malaise or simply catching a virus that forces you to take it easy. That way, you can rest knowing that there’s time available later that week to do the chores and tasks you had meant to do when you were feeling unwell.

And if your health is really unpredictable, maybe you could benefit from planning a reset day bi-weekly or monthly. A reset day is time fully dedicated to getting your life back on track; whatever that may mean to you. You could catch up on household chores, spring clean your home, prep a batch of freezer meals, or tackle other tasks on your to-do list. Planning reset days ahead of time can help you to achieve meaningful goals despite a fluctuating health.

Sadly, there’s no magical formula to make daily life with chronic illness easy. But hopefully, these 17 practical tips to simplify self-care, chores and life admin will help you to take good care of yourself and your living space, while still having some precious energy left for the activities and people that make you smile!

Which practical tips help you to simplify daily life with chronic illness?