Day #19 - 30 Days to a Simpler Life

It's day #19 of 30 Days to a Simpler Life. Challenge 19 - Run Fewer Errands Today, create a box for errands. You can use a great-looking basket, plastic tub, or shopping bag. Whatever works. Keep it by the door and fill it with film to be developed, shoes to be repaired, purchases to be returned, and papers to be taken to the copy center. On errand day, take the box in the car. When you come home, it will be empty. What a feeling! (30 Days to a Simpler Life, p. 123) OR for serious simplifiers only... Run errands just one day a week. Designate a particular day and write it on your calendar. Obviously, some errands are urgent and cannot wait for Errand Day. Learn to discern the difference between urgent and non-urgent errands. To run fewer errands, look for the underlying reasons behind your errands. Then eliminate the reasons! (30 Days to a Simpler Life, p. 130) While I find the errand box idea intriguing, I have decided that I don't need it. I generally do one of 2 things with items that need to go out on errand with me. Letters, bills, etc. for the post office go into the outside pocket of the diaper bag. Anything else that I want to take with me, I take on outside and put on the front seat of the van. I've tried setting items on the lamp table beside the front door; but honestly with four kids in the house, there is no guarantee that any item laid down and left unattended will still be found in that location upon return. It's just easier to take it on out. As for running errands once a week, we try to run the bulk of our errands on Saturday. If we run out of time, then we can make one or two stops on the way home from church on Sunday. The two main reasons that I run into town during the week are to pick up library books (which I can solve by placing books on hold earlier in the week than I currently do) and to pick up items that I forgot to write on my list (which I can solve by not waiting until Saturday morning to make my list). There now, that was easy. Now to see about those library holds...