SIMPLIFY YOUR LIFE WEEK

Have you heard of this?!?! The first week of August is recognized as Simplify your Life Week. A week designated to reset and refocus your life…yes please!

Everyone knows what happens on January 1st of each year right? Resolutions. Changes. It’s the day we set out to clear the slate and proclaim what will be different in the new year. Some get annoyed at it, but I LOVE IT.

Having said all that, we know what happens January 2nd and on…we lose track of our resolutions and they get lost in the daily shuffle. So sad! Over the last couple years we have changed it up by praying and asking God to give us a word to focus on. It has been such a wonderful tool for me when I’m up against decisions. You can read more about that here and see what my word for 2019 is.

I love spring and fall cleaning because of what it does to the mental state of my mind. When I came across Simplify your Life week, I assumed it meant to just simplify our material things. Some may think it means to simplify for financial reasons. Maybe for you it means simplify your time. I think it can and does mean all of that and more! To me, anything that is keeping you from enjoying your life needs to go sister.

For funsies, let’s take a look at what simplifying means to me and you see what is best for you. Are you ready?

SIMPLIFY YOUR SCHEDULE

I know this seems simple and obvious. I also know many of you will say “but I can’t get rid of anything.” Really? You can’t? I challenge you to sit down with a sheet of paper. At the top of that sheet I want you to write the time of day you wish to start everyday. Not the time you do actually start your day, I want you to write down the time you WANT your day to start.

Then I want you to write below that time the next hour all the way down to the bottom of the sheet and don’t stop writing the hours until you get to the hour you want to be in bed. Not the time you actually go to bed…because we all know that is most likely way later than you want. You need to write the time of day you want to be in bed…lights out.

For example: I want to start out my day at 4:30am and be in bed by 8:30pm so my sheet would look like this:

4:30am
5:30am
6:30am
.
.
.
8:30pm

Now…I want you to think of all you have to (take your kids to school, go to work etc) and want to (watch Netflix, read a book, journaling, take a bubble bath, etc) fit into your day.

Do you cook your breakfast? Fill it into your paper on the timeline. Do you drive to work for 15 mins? Write that in. Do you cook supper for an hour then clean up takes 30 mins? Write that in your schedule.

Why am I asking you to do this? Because it is going to give you a TRUE sense of how much time you truly have on your hands. If you walk into your front door from work at 5:30pm and your goal is to be in bed at 8:30pm you do not have three hours to yourself. You have an hour of cooking supper, 30 mins of clean up, 30 minutes of giving baths to your kids, and 30 minutes of snacks, bedtime stories, and prayers. Girlfriend, you only have an hour left.

If your list of “have to’s” and “want to’s” can’t fit neatly into your schedule, it’s time to re-evaluate everything on the list. If you write out your perfect day and it can’t fit into your timeline, I’m sorry but some things have to go. Write out your list of have to’s and want to’s and make it a priority to make your schedule work for you instead of against you.

Sooo…….what happens if you come across a commitment that you hate and don’t actually have time for…uh oh! I know…it’s hard friend. I have lost friendships over this one. Re-evaluating what we give our time and energy to is hard and even harder if we hate confrontation. Here is a couple great resources for this that I HIGHLY recommend when learning to say no to everyone else so that you can say YES to yourself and family.

“10 Ways to Graciously Say No When You Feel Pressured to Say Yes”
“I Dread Saying Yes But Feel Powerless to Say No”
The Best Yes

Might I add…if you lose friends because you have to give up a commitment for your own life enjoyment and family unit, I question whether those are true friendships. I digress.

ELIMINATE ALL THINGS THAT CAUSE YOU STRESS + ANXIETY

What clutters you up psychologically? What causes your blood pressure to spike because you just don’t like the way it makes you feel? Friends, we need to just take a deep breath and stop.

This could be friendships, your job, or relationships with family. Maybe it’s expectations laid on you by someone else or you yourself. Whatever it is that causes you to feel that feeling of stress and anxiety, let it go. This could also be the commitments in your schedule I mentioned earlier.

What about social media? Not only can social media take a lot of our time, but it can also make us feel pretty crappy about ourselves. I will always end up unfollowing anyone that makes me feel bad about myself. And speaking of social media, if you have children that you’ve handed a cellphone to, this is for you and I promise you…you will save this article to come back to! If social media makes us adults feel crappy, our children feel the same.

SIMPLIFY + BALANCE AT WORK

Make a to-do list each day and aim to hit hard the things you like least first. This makes me feel way more accomplished each day. Conserve energy by simplifying and balancing projects to keep you from getting exhausted and worn out. Not just physically…but brain fog happens to. Divide tasks and projects into chunks and see if you can delegate anything instead of doing it all yourself. My favorite planner for finishing projects is the Best Self journal. It has helped me break down goals and projects in a way that helps me actually make them happen friends. Not even kidding!

I have tried pretty much every planner out there because I am obsessed with them. Not even ashamed! I just recently stalked the mailbox until my new planner arrived and if you get one you will see what I mean. May Designs notebooks and foilios are so dang good at helping me organize my family planner, blog work, oil biz work and social media. I needed a place for personal stuff and work stuff because I had about 8 notebooks floating around which was no bueno. You pick what you want inside each notebook and there is a ton of designs to choose from. Totally customizable!

SIMPLIFY + BALANCE YOUR HOME

Simplifying and balancing my home is absolutely my main priority. Our ability to keep chaos at a minimum is crucial to the environment we provide our family. Everything I’ve already shared literally fits in this category, but there are a few specific things I want to add.

MONDAY MORNING
How you handle your Monday’s sets the tone for the entire week. I send out an email each Monday morning to my website subscribers to help them rock each week. If you haven’t subscribed to them, you should! Find the subscriber box when you visit hattiewiginton.com!

BECOMING MINIMALIST
Our belongings do not add value to our lives, instead they subtract from it. While there are plenty of people out there that talk about the minimalist lifestyle, this is who I follow personally. Read more about their story here!

WEEKLY PLANNER
There is a ton of planners out there and trust me I’ve seen them all. I designed one for myself that included all the things that I personally feel that are important. I use this weekly planner along with my May Designs notebooks. No matter what planner you choose, make sure you choose one you will actually use!

FAMILY SCHEDULE
Seasons come and seasons go. What is best for you this season may not be best for you the next season. To sum up, just because you’ve volunteered for that one position or project for five years doesn’t mean you have to or can, continue. To simplify your life in this season, you may need to let it go and let someone else step into it. Here’s a great article for families that have a lot of extracurricular sports overwhelming their schedules. You get the power to choose what is on your family schedule.

DO A RESET
I wrote 10 Steps to Reset in the New Year to help others at the beginning of the year, but I like to reset each month as well. Life gets away from us and we wonder why we never hit goals and get overwhelmed. It might be time to refocus and reset.

SIMPLIFY YOUR FINANCES
Dave Ramsey’s 7 Baby Steps will show you how to save for emergencies, pay off all your debt for good, and build wealth. It’s not a fairy tale or a nice story for someone else. This is a proven, practical way for you to change your life step by step. We are at the end of Step 2 and literally touching Step 3. We’ve been following his steps since 2014 and have not regretted it once!

TO SUM UP

I pray that you sit down after reading this and take a hard honest look at your life and see where you can simplify and ease some stress and anxiety. Your life is precious and worthy to be schedule and simplified into what God wants for you. He doesn’t want chaos for you. He wants fulfillment for you! Fulfillment for me means something completely different than someone else. And that’s ok. Because we are all made different. Perfectly different! Simplification needs to fit our needs, not what someone else says our needs are.

Use #SimplifyYourLife in social media postings!

XOXO,
Hattie