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The answer is simplicity


Whatever you need to make running your home more simple...do that! "Running your home" is going to look differently for everyone, but we would all benefit from fighting our environment a little less.

Years ago, we were in a huge amount of credit card debt, and I learned about Dave Ramsey's baby steps. They were so simple, so straightforward, and therefore required minimal effort to consistently execute. And we did it - we paid off our debt.

Now, if being debt free was my ultimate value, this would be all I would ever need to manage my finances. But I can think of many things I value more than being debt free. For example, I would pay endless amounts of money I don't have to get my child life-saving medical care. 

And there are other more basic situations, too: when I travel, I want to know that I can pick up the rental car that I reserved. It is less simple and makes my life worse if not having a credit score means I have to work much harder, pay more auto insurance, and randomly get blind sided by someone using my credit score as a proxy for me being reliable. 

Anything that complicates my life that is not for the sake of what I really care about is not worth the energy. In other words:

I am only willing to add complexity to my life for the sake of a value. 

So for everything I "kind of" care about, I will design an environment where what I want is the thing that is most likely to happen routinely.

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