family

Putting Life On Autopilot

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One thing I always try to do is to focus on making life easier in the little ways so that I have more time and energy for the big things. Spending time as a family is the most important thing to me, so I try to make sure that I always have as much time as possible for that.

We absolutely LOVE eBay and have been buying and selling there for almost 20 years! It is our go-to place to shop for everyday necessities and for hard to find items. I can’t even begin to tell you how often we have had eBay save the day when we needed something special. Today I am sharing the third post in our series of posts featuring eBay and how it has made our lives better and easier! Thank you to our amazing friends at eBay for sponsoring this post. 

Wouldn’t it be great to actually put life on autopilot?

Like, you start to feel overworked and need to “mentally checkout” but your family still needs to eat while you take a break and the groceries still keep coming? That sounds great to me! But not completely practical where we live. That service just hasn’t reached us… But, that doesn’t mean we aren’t putting other parts of our life on autopilot, and we are doing it in creative ways.

The biggest step for us is to create our custom “go-to’s”.

We have amazing doctors who we can call anytime, day or night for medical help. That seems like a small thing, but it is HUGE when you are all over the continent monthly. We also have a bank we love that knows us, our needs, and is there to make our life easier. When we go grocery shopping, we have a set list of things we always buy. I keep that list on my phone to easily access whenever we go shopping so that I never forget it. 

The girl’s school is also on autopilot.

As long as they have a cell phone or laptop with them, they can reach their teachers and get their work done. They do their school work on their schedule. If they are on a plane, they do it when they land. If they get sick, they can double up when they feel better. We are teaching them to set up systems early and create their own autopilot for their life. It doesn’t mean that things get done without effort. Autopilot for us means that systems are in place for life to keep going no matter what with less effort. 

A big autopilot portion of our life is eBay, and it has for years.

We know that we can go to eBay and find all those hard to find items easily and quickly. That is a big autopilot for us because we have that in our “back pocket” all the time, but we also use eBay for the everyday items that we can’t be without.

Running a business out of our home, and having three kids that do their school work at home, means a lot of printing. We go through ink and often printers like water and it can be detrimental to both business and school to run out of ink. So what we started doing was “hearting” sellers we have used and like on eBay that sell what we always are buying, like ink. Then we add it to our calendar once a month to buy more. It takes less than three minutes a month to make sure we always have ink. This works the best for us because automatic delivery services could deliver when we aren’t home and are traveling. 

Ever since we created this system, it has taken our stress levels way down and this is just the beginning of eBay autopiloting our life.  I’ve also been using it for specialty beauty items and other things we use in our home often.

When you think of ways to autopilot your own life, think big picture and then break it down from there. Think about ways to make your life easier, not necessarily ways that your life can run without you doing any effort, as those are harder to come by and can seem overwhelming to set up. 

Are you putting your life on autopilot too?

Heather Reese
the authorHeather Reese
Heather Delaney Reese is the storyteller and photographer behind the lifestyle and family travel blog, It's a Lovely Life®! For the past decade, she has vacationed over 150 days a year with her family. She is a vegan, and loves being by the water, spending time with her children, husband, 2 Shih Tzus and Cat.

20 Comments

  • We are usually on autopilot – unless something unexpected happens like today when school was canceled. It threw a monkey wrench into my whole day.

  • I have been using eBay since 2003 except very limited. I really need to look into the things available they we use on a constant basis. The last thing I purchased was a book, although that book from eBay was $20. cheaper than any place else.

  • It’s nice to put parts of your life on Autopilot. I make sure that I’m getting ink delivered when I need it too.

  • Ink is always a problem for me, I go through it way too fast. And yes, autopilot would be nice at times.

  • I love how much eBay has grown and developed over the years. They are such an excellent resource for staying stocked up on necessities.

  • I love shopping on eBay. And so I need to check this out, I bet my daughter would love a printer like this !

  • I haven’t been on eBay much and I can’t understand why! There are so many deals or offers that can only be found on eBay. I guess I have to get back on track and start using it again.

  • eBay is so awesome for basically everything, could not agree more! I think having your daily routine on autopilot can be so helpful a lot of days. During the week especially – so important!

  • I love the idea of having everything in place so you can just simply pick up where you left of from the last day. I think it’s a convenient way of keeping things the way they are as you go through daily challenges.

  • This is really sounds amazing! I don’t know much about eBay but I think, I would love it!

  • I will be honest I havent shopped on Ebay for years. I used to love shopping there especially items from Asia!

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