Simplifying Works

I just finished a friend purge on Facebook. What I thought would only be 2 or 3 people ended up being nearly 40 people that I unfriended.

I have learned over the years that it is best to surround yourself with people who have qualities that you want to emulate, have similar standards, and will support you when you need it. Today I realized that there were a few people whose statuses were almost always negative. Why would I want to choose to be surrounded by that? I don't want my time to be wasted by reading yet another status about how their life sucks or they don't want to be awake ever or rants with swear words on other people being idiots. So I got rid of them. I also got rid of some never-on people.

It got me thinking about how just that little act (which actually took a lot longer than it should have because my laptop sometimes likes to go in super slow motion like an action movie with epic fighting except not as cool) is simplifying my life. An even better way to simplify would be to delete Facebook but you know that's not in any way realistic.

Sometimes you evaluate your life and add a few goals that may be kinda big but you feel good about going down that path at the stage in your life. That was me a few months ago. In order to work on those goals, I have to get my life in order and simplify where I can. I am learning that sometimes it takes extra work to get things to be simplified. Seems a little backwards but don't we all know the saying that it always gets worse before it gets better.

The book that I am currently reading (one of the books...) is titled "Organic Housekeeping" and it's by Ellen Sandbeck. In the introduction, Ellen talks about how she really is an organic farmer and it's kind of a fluke that she's writing a book about housekeeping. She introduces the concept of your home being an ecosystem and that you can have a home that is low-maintenance and as self-sufficient as possible.

There are some problems I am having with housework that I was thinking up some solutions to solve these problems. This book helped with that. It also made me think deeper on issues that I had only scratched the surface of. It made me evaluate where I am vs where I want to be.

Now, I don't want you to think that the easy way to simplify housecleaning is to not do it. That would be a big mistake for several reasons. You're more likely to get sick. If you're not organized, you waste time, energy, and money looking for or replacing items you can't find. When you eventually do clean, it is a day or week or month long affair because it's been so long since anything has been done.

Housekeeping isn't the only thing that could be simplified. How many books or toys do your children have? How many clothes are hung in the closet, folded in the drawers, and still there are piles around the room? Do we have a lot of seasonal decorations? Are there things we haven't touched in the last year that is just taking up space?

It's not even all about how much stuff we may have. Do you have a place for wash cloths? How are your cleaning supplies organized? Are they easy to get to and grab what you need for whatever job you're doing? Do you have visitors and you're a shoes-off household and you need some place to keep their shoes and coats and purses?

Simplifying your life is making things work for you. Since we all live in different places with different people, not all solutions are a one-size fits all. If you try something and it doesn't seem to be working out, don't give up! If it is making your life more complicated and harder, I have absolute confidence that there is a solution somewhere that would ease that difficulty and it would be easy to maintain.

And what do we do after we simplify? Enjoy life! Live your dreams. Play with our children. Try new things. Go on a date.

I'm really not sure what I intended on writing when I started this but it sure wasn't what it ended up being. Someone must need it.