Organizing Life! Part 1: Simplify

It's been a while since a post, I know, but it was all for good reasons.  I have been busy trying to reorganize our family's disorganized, erratic lives.

We have been trying to struggle somewhere between slight chaos to complete disorder. We have had many, many things that have gotten in the way of common sense and civility around the home. So, before another year of home schooling started I realized I had to reign some things in and simplify my life so that the whole house could be healthy and thriving again.
Hopefully our mistakes can be of some help to others and we can all learn from one another. I will probably break this down into a series so that each post won't be impossible to read through. Enjoy and happy organizing.

My Five Step Plan :     Simplify, Strategize, Systematize, Schedule, Smile!

SIM'PLIFY, v. t. [L. simplex, simple, and facio, to make.] To make simple; to reduce what is complex to greater simplicity; to make plain or easy. The collection of duties is drawn to a point, and so far simplified. It is important in scientific pursuits, to be cautious in simplifying our deductions. This is the true way to simplify the study of science.http://www.1828-dictionary.com/d/word/simplify

When everything around you is in disorder it's time to simplify.  Give a good look around at what could be made to be done easier, faster or more efficiently. Sometimes the most glaring things can be overlooked simply because we are so used to our habits, good or bad. It is helpful to have some fresh perspective of ideas from others that we may not have thought of in simplifying our lives. Originally I sought out help from two blogs that I follow. 

The first blog is Charlotte Siems a mother of 12: she has been an inspiration of getting me back into shape physically and has also had an impact on getting me in shape spiritually and mentally as well. A little healthy conviction goes a long way.  I was slightly overwhelmed with life in general. A bit like this:

Isa 1:5

¶

Why should ye be stricken any more? ye will revolt more and more: the whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint.

That's when Charlotte sent me this post; But I Don't Like Housework. I swallowed the conviction that I wasn't enjoying much of anything I had to do in life and instead of throwing my hands up I searched her blog for something to do about it when I found:    How I Got Organized As A Young Mother. 

I bought the book online that she mentioned in the article for $3.50

 and started skimming through it on quick fixes to get life moving again (starting with me first.)

The organization sounded good but I was so overwhelmed I didn't even know where to start and then remembered my Home Management Binder. It was long forgotten, stored away and I looked for it but couldn't even find it! I did internet searches trying to remember key words from it with no luck and I will tell you more about that under Strategize Part 2.  

My search wasn't all  in vain, it did bring me to Simplemom and   she had sine free downloads for a home management binder. She also released an ebook that I bought in order to simplify my life and get reorganized from scratch. It is One Bite At A Tme: 52 Projects For Making Life Simpler.

To get the book

 It was just recently released and only $5.00  the perfect price for our budget minded family. It gave me the jump start I needed. I didn't feel like I needed to accomplish everything in one week and started with "eating my frog" and "decluttering my mind" in order to start purging. It suggests 52 weeks to simplfying life but there is no order to follow, nor is it constrained to getting things done in one year.

I started by decluttering life and throwing things away. Junk that was collected over years of storing it thinking "someday I or _______ could use that". It was liberating to just purge the stuff that was leaving me stagnant and not moving anywhere.  So, now that I was simplifying things such as clutter I moved on to a plan to organize my time and daily activities.

Simplification, the first step in organizing life. I will elaborate more on strategies to get moving next post. I will leave you with this quote on simplicity.

The best things in life are nearest:  Breath in your nostrils, light in your eyes, flowers at your feet, duties at your hand, the path of right just before you.  Then do not grasp at the stars, but do life's plain, common work as it comes, certain that daily duties and daily bread are the sweetest things in life.  ~Robert Louis Stevenson