Do you? Have you tried? Sure we can manage to get the house and planner organized… but organizing is a life of itself. It is hard to live a full life and have any time left to organize.
I am sure there are super people out there who can do it but I learned that I couldn’t. Listen to what you hear friends say or what people post on Facebook and it isn’t much different. Either they have organized a part of their life and they are proud or they are too busy and the house is a disaster. …for the sake of our houses we hope it is kind of a yo-yo effect between the two.
But it doesn’t have to be. What if you really don’t need more organization?
Almost 2 years ago I kind of snapped in a way. Not in a bad sense, but I realized I couldn’t do it all. I wasn’t doing what I wanted, and to fix it something had to change. I felt I had a responsibility to God (and I personally wanted to) be a good wife, be a good mother, make a difference in my community and church, and have time to grow. Since I didn’t see maintaining a big house in the Bible, or personally really want to, we decided to majorly scale back. I wasn’t on the internet much and didn’t know anyone at the time doing anything like this but later we learned that we were becoming minimalist and that there is a movement of people all over the world adopting these ideas.
You see, before we cut back I had a mostly organized house but it took so much of my time to keep it that way. I never felt it was organized enough, couldn’t find things I needed, and often didn’t get it as clean as I wanted. Now we own very little compared to what we did back then. We live (my husband, my daughter age 8, my son age 5, and me) in a small 1-bedroom apartment. With way less stuff there is almost nothing to organize 🙂
I have come to understand through it all the amazing amount of time as well as money and emotional energy that material possessions takes from our lives. We don’t have an unlimited supply of any of these and what material possessions takes from these resources I don’t have to spend on my true priorities. I am not against owning things and I like the things I have but I have found I put a lot more thought in these decisions. As a family we have what we need and what we love… and nothing else.
This is what minimalism is. It really isn’t about stuff. Instead it is about removing all the extra stuff from our lives so we have the time and energy to spend it living for God, our families, and ourselves.
In my book Simple Living – 30 days to less stuff and more life I go through 30 different areas of the home and life. This is a book for people wanting to simplify but unsure on how and where to start. This is not a reading book, this is an action book. After reading through and doing the assignments you will have a simpler life and will know areas you need to keep working on.