I have been thinking a lot about simplicity in my life. I have really embraced running my home and family. In order to be an effective leader (yes, even at home I am a leader - once a leader always a leader regardless of the task!) I have been simplifying various areas of our home and lives.
Recently a new blog friend - Lori - blogged about progress she was making with this idea in her life. I was inspired by some of her ideas and it has been making me think!
Here are some areas where I've simplified our lives:
Housecleaning - I have established routines for cleaning and home care now. Here's is my simple weekly schedule:
Monday
– Laundry
Day
Wednesday
– General
Cleaning
Saturday
– Daily Care
Sunday – Day Off
**yes, I take this day off completely.
I adapted this from the amazing and truly inspirational book Home Comforts. I really needed some sort of organization to not feel completely overwhelmed by the home, especially since we are currently selling our home. What has been an amazing transformation is that after a month, you can see the difference!
In the laundry area, we just had tons of it all the time. It seemed like the piles were never decreased and eagerly more clothes added to the piles. I took a Monday and got it all done. Then a few days later, evaluated how large of loads I had - a complete load of darks and not really that many whites - so I did a load of darks and left the whites until the big laundry day - Monday.
While this sounds so simple, the emotional results are very freeing! I feel a great sense of accomplishment and satisfied that the laundry is done. I don't leave the house with a weighed down feeling of what I am walking back into - this needs done and that needs done - will it ever end? Hmmm do you know that feeling? I do and I was tired of it.
The other thing that makes this work so well is that it creates boundaries. I have boundaries with my different areas of the home. I needed this because I am a kitchen cleaning nut - food safety nazi - I couldn't do anything in the house until the kitchen was perfectly spotless. So you guessed it I had a beautifully clean kitchen but the rest of the home was CRAP! Now I can walk by the kitchen on say - Wednesday and go 'Nope I have general cleaning today, it's not kitchen time, toilets are waiting!' Then I walk away from my sparkling bowls and say 'ahhhhh' that boundary felt good!
My other boundary is truly simple. I caught myself in the cycle of 'I never have a day off' syndrome. I have worked outside the home since I was a child. I did not learn home care naturally. So when I had a day off from work outside the home. I had a place to go that wasn't work. Well, being home FT, I have no where to go for my day off or feel like I have a day off - I was still at HOME!
My solution was simple for me. At the end of each work day say 4:00 pm, I stop the cleaning & care for the day. My job is over for that day. I cannot keep working. I step back and think 'did I get the job done?' Sometimes yes and sometimes no, but the point is that I worked on the daily task and I am calling it quits for the day. And what I accomplish is good. Then I mentally clock myself out of that day, refresh my mental health and focus on the evening ahead with my family. Yes, I still have to cook dinner, but my focus isn't on cooking, it's on the idea that soon my family will gather around and look at each other maybe for the first time that day. It's time to connect.
Also, I have found I am able to fully concentrate on the relationship with my husband Larry when he comes home. I can communicate and LISTEN WELL to his day. Frequently, he shares about a leadership struggle at work. We work through the issue and I am able to counsel him well. If you know me, I thrive on counseling through an issue. Currently, we have been working on recognizing our stressors and really trying to understand if it is something to truly be stressed about - is this someone else's stress being put on us unknowingly or is this really our problem to solve. It's been amazing in evaluating this area how much of our stress really doesn't belong to either one of us.
Sorry about moving off topic a little with that - but I wanted you to see the results this simple little boundary with home care has moved into freeing relationships! Now I am inspired to write some more about the boundaries with home care and marriage - yep that could be another long one, but it's really good!
So, what have you done to simplify lately? Feel free to grab the image up above to decorate your post and link up below..we can visit each other's blogs to see the great ideas of simplicity!
I've started something like this myself. I wrote up a loose schedule & assigned 'chores' to different days to spread it out through the week. Now that I'm implementing it more I notice I'm not so overwhelmed with housework and have more time to play with the kids and even some time for myself to read a little each day. Good luck with your new routine! I hope it works well for you.
Posted by: Rebecca | August 14, 2007 at 08:16 AM
the book sounds interesting ... is it more 'hints' on how to clean - or real organisation and simplying of what we need to do
i have just taken three days off work this week to try and get my house in order (and i've only done two rooms !!!) because i am falling further and further behind since i've come back from holidays
Posted by: ~Kathryn~ | August 14, 2007 at 09:44 PM