You’ve cleaned out your closets, given truckloads of stuff to charity, streamlined your schedule and seen firsthand how living with less can free up time, money and energy that you can use to focus on what truly matters. But no matter how great the rewards of simpler living, it isn’t always easy to maintain a clutter-free lifestyle.
Here are 11 simple life quotes to help you stay focused and motivated when the clutter starts creeping back in.
1. “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” —Mary Oliver, The Summer Day
2. “Therefore, I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?… But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” —Matthew 6:25-27,33
3. “The question of what you want to own is actually the question of how you want to live your life.” —Marie Kondo, The Life-changing Magic of Tidying Up
4. “The best way to give yourself a raise is to spend less money.” —Joshua Fields Millburn, Everything that Remains
5. “Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” —Matthew 6:34
PPS: Looking for some a-MAZ-ing tools and resources to help you be more productive, write better and/or generally do life while keeping your sanity? I’ve got the goods — sign up to receive Daydreamer Dispatches, a once- or twice-a-month newsletter from yours truly, and you’ll automatically receive a super-sekrit link to My Absolute Must-Have, Can’t Live Without Tools and Resources list! Click here to get your link!
A Jesus girl through and through, Jean Marie Bauhaus is on a journey of healing and rediscovering who God purposefully created her to be and figuring out how to do life within that context. She’s the wife of Matt and mom to a crew of four-legged dependents, all of whom make their home in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Jean counts coffee, dark chocolate and a yarn addiction among her vices. She’s the author of Restless Spirits, a family-friendly paranormal romance/mystery now available from Vinspire Publishing. You can learn more about her novels and short fiction at jeanmariebauhaus.com.
I thought I was done with my series on faithfulness, but there’s one more thing I think needs to be said, and it’s important:
Being faithful does not mean you have to be perfect.
It doesn’t mean you always do it right, or that you do it 100% of the time, that you never have bad days or need a break.
I’m convinced that God doesn’t look at our actions as much as He looks at our hearts. And having a faithful heart doesn’t mean you’re always consistently successful at being faithful and obedient in some area or task. Having a faithful heart means you desire to live for God more than for yourself, and being a faithful steward means that you keep doing your best to serve Him in all of your brokenness and fallen-ness. And you don’t let the bad days completely derail you from getting back up and trying your best.
Because that’s all He asks. He knows that we’re fallen, and broken, and cursed, and made out of dirt. He knows we’re not capable of being perfect or doing life perfectly. That’s why he sent His son to be perfect for us, so we could live under the protection of His grace.
Perfectionism is bondage. Jesus came to set us free.
You don’t have to be a perfect housekeeper, or employee, or wife, or mother, or anything. You don’t have to perfectly stick to your diet and never skip the gym and you don’t even have to always get dressed or comb your hair or even get out of bed.
You’re allowed to fail and to do it wrong sometimes and to sometimes not even do it at all.
Faithfulness only requires holding it–whatever your “it” is–out to God with open hands and a surrendered heart and saying, “This is the best I can do today, Lord, and I offer it up to you.”
And that’s enough.
You’re enough.
Love,
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PS: Find more encouragement for your soul at these linkups:
PPS: Looking for some a-MAZ-ing tools and resources to help you be more productive, write better and/or generally do life while keeping your sanity? I’ve got the goods — sign up to receive Daydreamer Dispatches, a once- or twice-a-month newsletter from yours truly, and you’ll automatically receive a super-sekrit link to My Absolute Must-Have, Can’t Live Without Tools and Resources list! Click here to get your link!
A Jesus girl through and through, Jean Marie Bauhaus is on a journey of healing and rediscovering who God purposefully created her to be and figuring out how to do life within that context. She’s the wife of Matt and mom to a crew of four-legged dependents, all of whom make their home in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Jean counts coffee, dark chocolate and a yarn addiction among her vices. She’s the author of Restless Spirits, a family-friendly paranormal romance/mystery now available from Vinspire Publishing. You can learn more about her novels and short fiction at jeanmariebauhaus.com.
I already talked about my own struggles with faithfulness, especially in the mundane, day-to-day tasks involved with good stewardship. The big area where this has been particularly challenging for me is housekeeping, and I feel like this is an area where the Lord’s been nudging me to improve. So before I close out this topic, I thought I’d share what that looks like in my own life.
Basically, it comes down to two things: rhythms and habits.
I’ve talked before about establishing rhythms, so I won’t get detailed about that here. But establishing rhythms for my days and weeks is essential to my ability to get anything done, and figuring out how to fit cleaning and house work into those rhythms has gone a long way toward making me feel like an actual grownup person. And the way I’ve done that is to focus on building habits, one new habit at a time.
The key to this is to connect the new habit you want to build to an existing habit. I kind of figured this out on my own after a lot of trial and error, but apparently, it’s actual science. The old habit acts as a trigger to help you remember and launch into the new habit. For me, this looks like wiping down the bathroom sink and mirror every time I brush my teeth. I don’t have to think about brushing my teeth. I just do it. Okay, truth time–sometimes my husband has to remind me to do it. But still, I do it, and when I do, I remember (helped largely by seeing the toothpaste splatters on the mirror) that when I’m done I need to go ahead and wipe the mirror and sink.
The other key to successful habit-building is to set yourself up for success–i.e., make it as easy to do for yourself and eliminate as many barriers to actually doing the new thing as possible. In my sink/mirror cleaning example, this means I keep a spray bottle of cleaner under the sink and a roll of paper towels beside it. So once I’m done brushing, I don’t have to go hunt up the necessary cleaning supplies and risk that I’ll get distracted and forget all about it. I just put my toothbrush up, grab the bottle and a wad of paper towels and get to wipin’. The whole thing takes about two minutes.
This was my starting point, and the thing I always make a point to remain consistent in no matter how hectic my life gets and no matter what other habits fall by the wayside. Since we moved, I’m having to re-build some additional cleaning habits that I had developed in our former residence. These include things like doing the dishes once I’m finished eating and remembering to grab a baby wipe and spend five minutes dusting surfaces each day after my lunch. I’m also working on establishing a morning each week to run the vacuum and swiffer the hardwood floors–a task that takes about 20 minutes, which is a fraction of the time it took just to vacuum our old house.
Have I mentioned that I’m kind of loving living in a small apartment?
And here’s the other thing: my biggest hang up BY FAR when it came to this sort of thing was that I always built it up in my head to be a major chore that would consume so much of my time and energy that there was no way I could fit it in. This is because I would put it off for so long that once I finally got around to cleaning it WAS a major chore that ate up all my time and energy. I would go weeks without cleaning more than absolutely necessary, not really noticing that things were getting bad until they were too awful to ignore (side note: I should mention here that my husband does what he can to clean. Because of his physical limitations there are tasks that he can’t do, or that are a lot more difficult for him than they are for me, so that’s pretty much how we divide the household labor–he does what he can and I do the rest. But God bless him, he doesn’t complain when I don’t step up and do my part on a consistent basis. This man, y’all. I am richly blessed). So then I’d have to devote an entire weekend to cleaning, and be so wiped out by the experience that I wouldn’t want to even look at a cleaning product again for weeks, if not months.
If this sounds a little too familiar, I recommend checking out A Slob Comes Clean, where Dana has all kinds of things to say about Cleaning Brain and how some people (like me) just aren’t wired that way (I still really need to check out her book).
But the thing is, you guys, that when I do these things habitually? They usually take a couple of minutes. Two minutes here, five there for the daily chores, and 20 minutes once a week or so for the bigger chores. Cleaning is not actually a big deal. I just blew it up into one in my mind, and I had to break myself of the habit of seeing it as this impossible chore and retrain my mind to see the reality. And the reality is that it just isn’t that hard.
I’ve been talking specifically about cleaning, but I think these principles have broader application to a lot of different areas of our lives. If there’s an area where you’re struggling to be a good steward, I hope this helps.
Another thing that helps is figuring out why you want to be faithful in this area. Of course, as Christians, the big one is obvious–we want to be obedient stewards of the things we’re blessed with and honor God by taking good care of them. Also, we’re promised that if we’re faithful in the little things, we’ll be entrusted with bigger things. That’s pretty motivating all by itself. But it helps to identify more personal motivating factors. For me, I want my home to be a place where my husband feels loved and cared for and anyone who comes to visit can feel welcome and relaxed. Since my home is also my workplace, I also want it to be a place where I can feel relaxed and inspired instead of distracted by messes and guilt.
Do you have anything to add? I’d love to hear from you. Tell us about how you cultivate faithfulness in your own life, or share your own tips on building good habits and staying motivated!
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PS: Find more encouragement for your soul at these linkups:
PPS: Looking for some a-MAZ-ing tools and resources to help you be more productive, write better and/or generally do life while keeping your sanity? I’ve got the goods — sign up to receive Daydreamer Dispatches, a once- or twice-a-month newsletter from yours truly, and you’ll automatically receive a super-sekrit link to My Absolute Must-Have, Can’t Live Without Tools and Resources list! Click here to get your link!
A Jesus girl through and through, Jean Marie Bauhaus is on a journey of healing and rediscovering who God purposefully created her to be and figuring out how to do life within that context. She’s the wife of Matt and mom to a crew of four-legged dependents, all of whom make their home in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Jean counts coffee, dark chocolate and a yarn addiction among her vices. She’s the author of Restless Spirits, a family-friendly paranormal romance/mystery now available from Vinspire Publishing. You can learn more about her novels and short fiction at jeanmariebauhaus.com.
Trust in the LORD and do good; Dwell in the land and cultivate faithfulness. — Ps. 37:3 NASB
Psalm 37 is one of my favorite passages of scripture. To loosely paraphrase and summarize, it basically says that the world is a seemingly unfair and unjust place where bad people seem to prosper at the expense of good people, but it’s not our job to worry about that. God is fully aware, and He’s in control. Nobody’s going to get away with anything, and those who are dealt with unjustly will be vindicated in due time. That’s His job.
Our job is outlined in the verse above: Trust the Lord. Do good within our own communities and spheres of influence. Dwell patiently where we’re planted and…?
The third verse of this psalm is an interesting one. Not just because of its instructiveness but because that last instruction appears to vary depending on which translation you’re reading. Take a minute and just look at all the different ways this last clause is translated. Apparently, the original Hebrew verb literally means either “feed on truth” or “be fed in truth,” and Bible translators aren’t sure exactly what that means. So we get translations like the one at the top of this post that tell us to “cultivate faithfulness,” and others, like the International Standard Version, that say to “feed on faithfulness.” Still others, like the NIV, say to “enjoy safe pasture” or something along those lines.
So which is it?
I’m no Bible scholar, but I think that they’re each right in a way. I think it’s a cycle. God is faithful. We trust in this aspect of His character and this builds our faith and enables us to be faithful and obedient. And when we’re faithful to meet the conditions of His promises, He’s faithful to keep His promises, which further builds our faith and helps us to grow in faithfulness, and so on. And throughout this cyclical process, as our faith is strengthened so is our sense of security and our belief that God is fully in control and we don’t need to worry. We can relax. And the more we’re focused on faithfully serving God and His agenda, the less worried we’ll be about what people in the world are doing or what they’re thinking or saying about us.
It’s like a never-ending loop of faithfulness. God’s faithfulness builds my faith and confidence in Him, which increases my faithfulness, which in turn increases my trust and obedience, which increases God’s faithfulness in my life, and so on. And knowing that faithfulness is part of God’s character, if the loop breaks down I know it’s because of some failure on my part–I’ve failed to be faithful in some area–and not on His. I can pray and ask Him to show me which areas of my life are lacking in faithfulness and focus on improving in those areas.
Next week I’ll share some specific examples of how I’m working to cultivate faithfulness in my own life, but in general, how can I be sure I’m being faithful?
I can do my best to be obedient to His word. To keep His commandments and live an overall life of faith, trust and obedience, staying surrendered to His will for my life. I can keep showing up to carry out the assignments He’s given me, even when I don’t feel like it, even when they seem pointless, trusting Him not only to give me the ability and strength but also entrusting Him with the outcomes.
And if I’m doing all of that, I can rest in the knowledge that He’ll take care of me, and everything will work out according to His plan.
God is faithful. Just this morning my husband and I received some good news that was an answer to a lot of prayer, reminding me yet again that He’s got this, and He’s got us, and we don’t need to worry or fret.
PPS: Looking for some a-MAZ-ing tools and resources to help you be more productive, write better and/or generally do life while keeping your sanity? I’ve got the goods — sign up to receive Daydreamer Dispatches, a once- or twice-a-month newsletter from yours truly, and you’ll automatically receive a super-sekrit link to My Absolute Must-Have, Can’t Live Without Tools and Resources list! Click here to get your link!
A Jesus girl through and through, Jean Marie Bauhaus is on a journey of healing and rediscovering who God purposefully created her to be and figuring out how to do life within that context. She’s the wife of Matt and mom to a crew of four-legged dependents, all of whom make their home in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Jean counts coffee, dark chocolate and a yarn addiction among her vices. She’s the author of Restless Spirits, a family-friendly paranormal romance/mystery now available from Vinspire Publishing. You can learn more about her novels and short fiction at jeanmariebauhaus.com.
Back when I was choosing my One Word for 2017, I felt certain that faithfulness was going to be a big theme this year. Just as I was about to commit to it, I thought I felt a nudge to change my word to Abandon, but even so, it’s themes of God’s faithfulness and faithful obedience that keep cropping up in my devotions and Bible studies, and in my life in general. Clearly, faithfulness is something I’m supposed to pay attention to and work on this year.
But what, exactly, is faithfulness, and what does it mean to be faithful? The dictionary defines faithfulness as “the quality of being faithful; fidelity.” Okay, but then what does that mean, exactly? There are actually several dictionary definitions of the word “faithful”:
1. obsolete : full of faith
2. steadfast in affection or allegiance : loyal – a faithful friend
3. firm in adherence to promises or in observance of duty : conscientious – a faithfulemployee
4. given with strong assurance : binding – a faithful promise
5. true to the facts, to a standard, or to an original – a faithful copy
Synonyms include the words loyal, true, dependable, trustworthy, steadfast, staunch, constant and resolute.
It says that the first definition is obsolete, but I’m pretty sure there’s nothing obsolete about being full of faith when it comes to the kind of faithfulness God desires from us.
Apart from the dictionary definitions, here is what I know and understand about faithfulness:
It’s an attribute of God’s character. He is faithful, reliable, dependable, steadfast, unchanging, an unfailing keeper of His covenants and promises.
It’s a fruit of the Spirit. If the Holy Spirit dwells in me, then I am capable of exercising faithfulness and being faithful. Not just in my relationship with God and in my marriage and other earthly relationships, but in all areas of my life, every day, in every task I’m given.
Faithfulness is a quality that God desires from us. Biblical faithfulness means being obedient, following through and finishing what we start. It means faithfully and obediently carrying out our assignments, both the big, scary exciting ones and the mundane, boring, day-to-day ones.
Faithfulness is an act of faith. Our faithfulness requires believing and trusting in a faithful God.
I don’t know about you, sister friend, but I’m not always so good at exhibiting this particular spiritual fruit in my life. It seems to me that it’s easier to be faithful in the big things than in the little things. Things like being a faithful steward of my home or my money or my health. Faithful obedience tends to fly out the window when I’m too tired to clean or exercise or I’d rather splurge on some shiny thing I don’t need than save responsibly or I just really want that third (…or fourth or maybe even fifth) slice of pizza.
Thankfully, just like any fruit, this one can be cultivated, and how to do that is what I’m going to be looking at here in the coming weeks, with a more in-depth look at what the Bible says about faithfulness and some practical steps we can all take to grow this fruit.
What about you? Is this an area you need to work on, or have you got this whole faithfulness thing down (and if you do can you share some tips with the rest of us)? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments!
Love,
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PS: Find more encouragement for your soul at these linkups:
PPS: Looking for some a-MAZ-ing tools and resources to help you be more productive, write better and/or generally do life while keeping your sanity? I’ve got the goods — sign up to receive Daydreamer Dispatches, a once- or twice-a-month newsletter from yours truly, and you’ll automatically receive a super-sekrit link to My Absolute Must-Have, Can’t Live Without Tools and Resources list! Click here to get your link!
A Jesus girl through and through, Jean Marie Bauhaus is on a journey of healing and rediscovering who God purposefully created her to be and figuring out how to do life within that context. She’s the wife of Matt and mom to a crew of four-legged dependents, all of whom make their home in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Jean counts coffee, dark chocolate and a yarn addiction among her vices. She’s the author of Restless Spirits, a family-friendly paranormal romance/mystery now available from Vinspire Publishing. You can learn more about her novels and short fiction at jeanmariebauhaus.com.
Thank goodness Emily P. Freeman is ready to do another link roundup for stuff we learned this spring. This is actually a life saver because I need something easy to ease me back into blogging here regularly and list posts are easy and now I have an excuse to do one. This list is mainly going to be about things I learned pertaining to moving because moving pretty much consumed our entire spring. So with that in mind…
Moving is hard. I mean, duh, right? We knew this, but it had been nearly nine years since the last time we actually had to do it, and it’s easy to forget just how hard something is when you haven’t had to do it in a while. But it is HAAAAARD.
Good friends are a blessing. Good friends with a large truck and a flexible schedule and a heart for helping and serving others are an extra-special blessing.
Downsizing your stuff is not something that should be put off until AFTER the move, especially if you’re considerably downsizing your space. We’d planned to do away with a lot more of our stuff before the move happened, but a window of opportunity opened up for us to move sooner than we’d planned, and so we ended up packing and bringing with us more stuff than we have space for. This is making unpacking extra super fun.
There’s always more to do than you think. The actual moving part didn’t take too long, but then we still had a lot of stuff left to deal with at the old place–furniture and stuff we’d decided to donate instead of bringing with us, etc. Not to mention an entire garage filled with my deceased in-laws’ belongings. Getting all of that sorted and dealt with was a much, much bigger job that we’d anticipated. SO much bigger.
Transitions are hard, even when they’re desirable and good. We really, really wanted this move to happen, and when the door opened for it we dove in faster than Michael Phelps at the sound of the starting pistol. Other than the actual time and work involved in moving, I didn’t think it would be that big a disruption to our day-to-day lives. After all, we don’t have kids and we both work from home and simply changing our location shouldn’t have much of an impact on how we do things, right? I could not have been more wrong. One of our biggest struggles has been re-establishing rhythms and routines and adjusting to the fact that we no longer live a convenient distance from anything.
Transitions are hard, even when they’re desirable and good. No, I didn’t accidentally copy and paste that from above. I deliberately added it again to make the point that it’s okay not to be joyful and bursting with gratitude every second of every hour whenever you finally get something you’ve been praying a long time for. It’s okay if sometimes you’re too worn out and exhausted and a little depressed because everything is so much harder than you expected and you’re beyond frustrated at how difficult it is to get back into a flow. Give yourself grace, acknowledge that it’s hard, and then step back and try to remember why you wanted this thing in the first place and why you actually are, in fact, so grateful that it finally came to pass.
Don’t unpack in a hurry. Apart from unboxing the things we absolutely needed in order to set up house and be comfortable, we’ve been taking our time about unpacking, finding a home for things and decorating. We want to see how we actually live and utilize this space in order to determine what makes the most sense in terms of where to put stuff. While it feels a little chaotic still being surrounded by boxes, when we finally do pull something out and put it away we can be reasonably certain it will stay in that spot and we won’t have to endlessly rearrange things.
My soul is so much happier surrounded by nature. We moved back to the place where I grew up, a little housing edition out in the country overlooking a lake. There are woods within walking distance and we only need to cross the street for views like this one:
The people are much friendlier here, too. Every time I go for a walk in this neighborhood my heart soars with joy to be here.
God is so, so faithful.Last week I reblogged this post that I wrote a little over a year ago. In that post I talked about how trapped and hemmed in I felt where we were living, and how our prospects of getting to move anytime in the foreseeable future were slim to none. But I kept praying even though hope seemed small. And at last, after a long season of waiting and having our patience tested and stretched, He’s answered our prayers and delivered us into a safe place and a season of rest.
Resting is the hardest part of all. For all of the difficulties involved in moving and transitioning, I think what I struggle with the most is simply receiving this blessing and enjoying it instead of immediately looking to the next thing. I’m not going to lie — the last eight and a half years or so in Tulsa were some of the most challenging years of my life. God used those challenges to grow us in ways we’d never imagined. And now I believe He’s brought us here–beside the still waters, overlooking green pastures–to rest and heal before we move on to whatever He has planned next for us. But I’m so future-oriented and I’m having a really hard time relaxing into this new phase of our lives and enjoying this step along the journey instead of worrying about where we go from here. I’m having to be really intentional about letting go of that worry and trusting that God’s got this and everything’s going to continue to work out as it should, in His time.
What have you learned this spring, dear reader? Do you also have a hard time enjoying the present instead of constantly thinking about the future, or does God’s rest come more naturally to you? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments.
I’ll resume my regular blogging schedule next week (Lord willing) with the series on faithfulness that I’d originally planned for March. See you then!
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PS: Find more encouragement for your soul at these linkups:
PPS: Looking for some a-MAZ-ing tools and resources to help you be more productive, write better and/or generally do life while keeping your sanity? I’ve got the goods — sign up to receive Daydreamer Dispatches, a once- or twice-a-month newsletter from yours truly, and you’ll automatically receive a super-sekrit link to My Absolute Must-Have, Can’t Live Without Tools and Resources list! Click here to get your link!
A Jesus girl through and through, Jean Marie Bauhaus is on a journey of healing and rediscovering who God purposefully created her to be and figuring out how to do life within that context. She’s the wife of Matt and mom to a crew of four-legged dependents, all of whom make their home in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Jean counts coffee, dark chocolate and a yarn addiction among her vices. She’s the author of Restless Spirits, a family-friendly paranormal romance/mystery now available from Vinspire Publishing. You can learn more about her novels and short fiction at jeanmariebauhaus.com.
“…make it your ambition to lead a quiet life: You should mind your own business and work with your hands, just as we told you,12 so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders and so that you will not be dependent on anybody.” – 1 Thessalonians 4:11-12
I was really hoping to resume my regular blogging schedule this month, but realistically it will probably be next month before that happens. But I wanted to check in and let y’all know that I haven’t fallen off of the planet.
Transitions are hard, y’all, and while this one is the answer to a lot of prayer and a whole lot of waiting in faith, I’m going to be real and remind myself (and anyone else reading this who’s dealing with hard times as the result of blessing and answered prayer) that it’s okay to acknowledge the hard, that doing so doesn’t make you ungrateful. I am SO thankful that all of this is happening right now and yet that doesn’t change the fact that my husband and I are exhausted and overwhelmed and there is still so much more to be done and I cried this morning and told God I can’t do it anymore before He helped me buck up and put on my big girl pants and come up with an action plan that I can live with.
At any rate, in the midst of a flurry of busy with the end looking a long way off, I’m longing to get back to a simple, slow, quiet life, and these links are all about doing just that.
A simple living mindset can mean different things to different people. According to Becker, simple living is “about deciding what in life is most important and then redirecting our resources towards that.” Getting rid of clutter and reducing material possessions is a big part of it, but it doesn’t stop there.
For Becker, it also meant cleaning up how he spends his time. He not only got rid of most of his television sets, but also vastly reduced the time he spent watching TV. His family also downsized their home to one that cost less in both time and money to maintain.
While some of these changes may seem drastic, it still came as a surprise to Becker how this mindset changed his life for the better.
What if All I Want is a Mediocre Life? – This post at A Life in Progress speaks so directly to the heart of everything God’s been dealing with in my heart for the last year and a half or so that if you take out all the parts about motherhood I could have written it myself. Seriously, y’all, I think it’s time to stop telling our kids (and ourselves, for that matter) that they have to aspire to lives of greatness and instead that they should aspire to lives of satisfaction and contentment–and that if that means lives of quiet domesticity and small, behind-the-scenes contributions, that’s completely okay.
And a book rec: Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown – Like the post above, this book is about everything I’ve been trying to do by editing my life over the last couple of years. For me, while this book had some things that I can apply to help me tweak my efforts to streamline my life, it was less of a revelation and more validation of my determination to turn my back on a life of hustle. But if you’re stuck in hustle mode and feeling overextended and overwhelmed I highly recommend giving this book a look-see (and if, like me, you’ve made it your aim to stop hustling and slow down but are wondering if that makes you selfish, definitely read this book).
I’m hoping to get an April issue of Daydreamer Dispatch out later this week (…maybe), so if you’d like to know more about both what and how we’re doing, scroll to the bottom of this post or click the link in the sidebar to make sure you’re signed up.
That’s all for now. Hopefully I’ll be able to get back to regular posting in another couple of weeks, but don’t be shocked if that doesn’t happen. In the meantime, thanks for hanging in there.
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PS: Find more encouragement for your soul at these linkups:
PPS: Looking for some a-MAZ-ing tools and resources to help you be more productive, write better and/or generally do life while keeping your sanity? I’ve got the goods — sign up to receive Daydreamer Dispatches, a once- or twice-a-month newsletter from yours truly, and you’ll automatically receive a super-sekrit link to My Absolute Must-Have, Can’t Live Without Tools and Resources list! Click here to get your link!
A Jesus girl through and through, Jean Marie Bauhaus is on a journey of healing and rediscovering who God purposefully created her to be and figuring out how to do life within that context. She’s the wife of Matt and mom to a crew of four-legged dependents, all of whom make their home in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Jean counts coffee, dark chocolate and a yarn addiction among her vices. She’s the author of Restless Spirits, a family-friendly paranormal romance/mystery now available from Vinspire Publishing. You can learn more about her novels and short fiction at jeanmariebauhaus.com.
I was originally planning to do another blog series this month, this time about faithfulness, but this month is really chaotic. I need to simplify and scale down the things that are in my power to do so or I will lose my mind, and one of those things is this blog.
So this month (and probably next month too) will feature easy posts that include links and fun stuff, as well as some repeats from the archives.
Speaking of keeping things simple, this week I’m sharing links to my favorite links about minimalism, simple living and keeping house, since that’s mostly what’s occupying my head space right now as I scrutinize every object in my house (or at least the ones my husband hasn’t declared hands-off) to determine whether it belongs or needs to go.
For starters, if you’re interested in simplifying your life, I highly recommend watching the Minimalism documentary for inspiration and motivation. It’s on Netflix, but if you don’t have a Netflix membership, you can watch it here on YouTube for $3.99.
This lecture from Joshua Becker of Becoming Minimalist is long but worth it (I had the privilege of chatting with Mr. Becker a few weeks ago for an upcoming article and he is a nice guy who is full of Godly wisdom about this subject).
The Simple Show Ep. 60: A Slob Comes Clean – You guys, I think Dana White is my brain twin. I wish I had read her book because all of her mental road blocks to cleaning and housekeeping are identical to mine and I just figured out how to get around them in pretty much the same ways she describes in this podcast. Her book might have saved me a lot of trial and error. I put it on my wish list so I can see if she has any insights that I haven’t yet stumbled into on my own.
I also want to give a shout-out to Trello because it’s really coming in handy for organizing and tracking what we’re doing this month. I can see this being a really useful tool when it comes to tracking a big decluttering project, too.
Finally, for those who are into this sort of thing, I’ve started a Lifestyle Goals Pinterest board where you’ll find all kinds of inspiration for slowing down and simplifying.
Got any links of your own to share? Do any of these look helpful? Share your thoughts in the comments!
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PS: Find more encouragement for your soul at these linkups:
PPS: Looking for some a-MAZ-ing tools and resources to help you be more productive, write better and/or generally do life while keeping your sanity? I’ve got the goods — sign up to receive Daydreamer Dispatches, a once- or twice-a-month newsletter from yours truly, and you’ll automatically receive a super-sekrit link to My Absolute Must-Have, Can’t Live Without Tools and Resources list! Click here to get your link!
A Jesus girl through and through, Jean Marie Bauhaus is on a journey of healing and rediscovering who God purposefully created her to be and figuring out how to do life within that context. She’s the wife of Matt and mom to a crew of four-legged dependents, all of whom make their home in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Jean counts coffee, dark chocolate and a yarn addiction among her vices. She’s the author of Restless Spirits, a family-friendly paranormal romance/mystery now available from Vinspire Publishing. You can learn more about her novels and short fiction at jeanmariebauhaus.com.
Day-in-the-life posts are a little weird to write. As a reader, I usually enjoy them and often find them helpful. But when it comes to sitting down to write one, it feels a little conceited and self-indulgent. Like, who really wants to know the details of how I spend a typical day?
Um, maybe people like me who find it helpful to know how other people manage their days (and find it encouraging to know that other people don’t have it together every hour of every day)?
So here goes. This is how I spend a typical day as a work-from-home freelance writer, homemaker and wife, and how I apply everything I’ve talked about in the last two posts.
Early Morning
My husband usually wakes up between 6 and 6:30. I wake up when he does, and get up long enough to let the dog out of his pen and do his morning business. Then I get back in bed with the dog until my husband’s done in the kitchen, usually sometime around 7:00.
Once I’m up for real, I take my thyroid pill and drink a big glass of water before I feed the dog, let the cat out and make sure she’s got food and water, and check on the turtle. Then I go into the kitchen and put on water to boil for coffee (I make it in a French press). While I wait for the water to boil and then for the coffee to steep, I try to get some kind of movement in. Sometimes I do stretches, sometimes I just pace back and forth in the kitchen, sometimes I get on the stationary bike. Lately, though, I’ve been grabbing a wet wipe and using the time to wipe down surface in the kitchen, and also round up any recyclables that got left out the night before.
When my coffee’s ready, I pour myself a cup and then snuggle on the couch with my dog and my Bible. I usually spend about 15 minutes in prayer, then I open up my Bible to whatever chapter we’re reading that day in the First 5 app before reading that app’s lesson for the day. If I have any of my own insights, I’ll jot them down in my prayer journal.
After I’m done with my Bible study I usually have some time left before I can eat, so I use it to scroll through Bing and earn my daily mobile Bing points (we do this to earn Amazon gift cards). This usually entails looking at headlines, which usually leads to discussing current events (and to one or both of us ranting about the state of affairs).
By the time we’re done enough time has passed since taking my thyroid pill that I can eat breakfast. Typically on weekdays I eat refrigerator steel cut oats that I set up the night before. I zap them for about a minute to warm them and then zap a couple of chicken sausage links to go with them.
After breakfast I pour (and heat up) my second cup of coffee and sip it while I read my favorite daily devotional blogs, and then I segue into my favorite secular blogs and newsletters before taking a few minutes to check e-mail and notifications on all my social networks (and if I have time I might go ahead and scroll a little).
Mid-Morning
By the time I finish drinking coffee and making my online rounds, I’m usually feeling sufficiently awake to really begin my day. So I put down my phone, get off the couch, and go make myself change out of my pajamas into actual clothes–usually some combo of sweater/sweatshirt and leggings (or shorts and a tee-shirt in the summer). I don’t bother with makeup if I’m not going anywhere, but I do wash my face and put on moisturizer, and run a brush through my hair before either putting it up or hiding it under a wide headband. I also brush my teeth and take an extra minute or two to wipe down the bathroom sink and mirror.
Feeling sufficiently put together, I put on a cup of tea and then do some light housekeeping while it steeps. This usually involves picking up a trail of dog toys and corralling any living room clutter that might distract me while I work. If it’s cold or gloomy outside, I’ll usually light a candle or two, then sit down with my tea ready to work.
(At this point either my husband or I usually retreat to the bedroom with our work so we can both do our thing without distracting each other. Lately it’s mostly been my husband hanging out back there and leaving me with the living room all to myself.)
Late Morning/Early Afternoon
Before I start work I usually go over my bullet journal and see what’s needed that day. This typically involves praying and asking God to show me what He wants me to work on that day and asking Him to set my pace and give me the capacity to do what’s needed.
Then with my agenda in place, I get to work on whatever novel project I’ve got going on. Right now that means researching, plotting and outlining my next book, but when I get to the drafting stage this will be the time of day that most of the writing gets done.
I usually work on my book for about an hour to an hour and a half before I run out of steam. Then after a short break to check my e-mail and peek at Facebook and Instagram, I’ve usually got enough time before lunch to spend about 20 minutes working on my blog.
At about 1:00 I stop for lunch. First I feed my dog–he eats three tiny meals a day, and pretty much eats when I eat–and then I eat something quick and easy. On weekdays I’m a big fan of what I call healthy adult lunchables–cut up nitrate-free lunch meat, avocado slices and gluten-free crackers with some kind of fruit on the side.
After lunch, if the weather’s even halfway decent, my husband, the dog and I usually head outside for about twenty minutes to get some sunshine and/or fresh air (as fresh as it gets living off a major city street, at any rate) and some more movement. When we’ve had enough, we head back in and I make myself another cup of tea and do some more light housework while it steeps–usually involving dusting and wiping down surfaces.
Mid-to-Late-Afternoon
Once I get my tea and sit back down I’m usually feeling refreshed and focused enough to do some more writing. This is usually when I work on freelance projects. If I’m between freelance assignments, I use this time to work on my blogs or my newsletters, and also do various book and blog marketing tasks. If I’m getting close to a book deadline I’ll use this time to write on my book.
I usually run out of steam by about 4:30, so I get up to eat a healthy snack and make my third and final cup of tea–something light and non-caffeinated. Then I usually come back to the couch and just sit and sip my tea and look out the window. Sometimes I pray, sometimes I meditate on the Word, sometimes I just practice being still. Sometimes I just let my mind wander. The important thing is that I allow myself a few minutes every day to stop doing and just be.
All of this usually gives me enough of a charge that I can get in another hour or so of work. But I try to stop working and shut down my computer by about 5:45. This gives me 30 to 45 minutes in the evening to do something just for me. Sometimes I’ll put on a podcast and work on a craft project, or on KonMari-ing my stuff, or coloring in my adult coloring books or doodling in my journaling Bible. Sometimes I’ll just read a book or watch some videos. If it’s laundry week, this is usually when stuff gets folded and put away.
Evening
Around 6:30 I stop whatever I’m doing and eat dinner (after feeding the dog his last bitty meal, which is more like a snack so he doesn’t feel deprived and spend the evening pouting). My husband and I are on different eating schedules and also different diets, so we usually each cook for ourselves, but I try to do enough meal prep on the weekends that on week nights I can just heat something up.
After dinner I clean up my mess and wash my dishes, then set out everything I need to make my coffee in the morning and prep my refrigerator oats to soak overnight. Then I brush my teeth and make another pass at wiping down the sink and mirror before my husband and I snuggle up together on the couch and watch a show.
After the show, usually around 8:30, we turn off screens and start getting ready for bed. We have an elaborate routine involving putting all the pets up for the night that I won’t get into, but by the time they’re all tucked in and I change into my PJs and wash my face it’s usually about 9:00. I take my bullet journal to bed with me and write down anything I want to remember from the day, and also answer my daily questions. I’ll also jot down a tentative agenda for the following day, and if there’s a lot on my mind I’ll do a quick mind sweep to clear my head. Then I read a book until lights out at 10:00.
So there you have it. The main things to notice are how I don’t really schedule my time; I simply have times of day that are best suited to certain tasks, and everything else kind of flows around that. I’ve established rhythms for myself that make the best use of my peak capacity and let me do things that rebuild my capacity when it starts to wane.
I also keep a tight reign on things like social media and other distractions, although I don’t eliminate them completely, because they do add a little spice to my day and help me feel more connected to the world at large. It’s taken a lot of trial and error (and a lot of beating myself up for not being able to do it the way I thought I was supposed to), but this is what works, at least for this particular season of my life.
What about you, friend? Do you arrange your day according to rhythms or are schedules more your jam? How do you manage your capacity? Have you learned anything from this series of posts that might help you manage it better? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments!
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PS: Find more encouragement for your soul at these linkups:
PPS: Looking for some a-MAZ-ing tools and resources to help you be more productive, write better and/or generally do life while keeping your sanity? I’ve got the goods — sign up to receive Daydreamer Dispatches, a once- or twice-a-month newsletter from yours truly, and you’ll automatically receive a super-sekrit link to My Absolute Must-Have, Can’t Live Without Tools and Resources list! Click here to get your link!
A Jesus girl through and through, Jean Marie Bauhaus is on a journey of healing and rediscovering who God purposefully created her to be and figuring out how to do life within that context. She’s the wife of Matt and mom to a crew of four-legged dependents, all of whom make their home in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Jean counts coffee, dark chocolate and a yarn addiction among her vices. She’s the author of Restless Spirits, a family-friendly paranormal romance/mystery now available from Vinspire Publishing. You can learn more about her novels and short fiction at jeanmariebauhaus.com.
“Walk in wisdom toward outsiders, making the best use of the time.” — Colossians 4:5
This week my month-long series on managing our capacity continues. Last week we looked at what capacity is, and the importance of knowing (and being realistic about) your own capacity — i.e., the size of your plate.
This week we’re getting into the nitty gritty of actually figuring out how to manage your capacity, or maybe more accurately, how to manage your time within the limits of your capacity.
Our key verse from Colossians suggests that being good stewards of our time is part of walking in wisdom toward outsiders. In other words, managing our days well serves as a good witness to unbelievers. Of course we don’t want to present a fake, smiley brand of Christianity where we force cheerfulness and go around pretending that everything’s always great. That sort of thing doesn’t serve anybody.
Remember that I’m preaching to myself here, y’all.
We don’t have to have it all together or even appear to have it all together all the time. But as believers empowered and equipped by the Holy Spirit, our lives should look like that actually makes a difference, even if it’s just in our attitudes.
And that’s what this concept of managing our capacity for usefulness vs. managing our time is all about: giving ourselves a whole lot of grace as we acknowledge and even embrace our limitations and proceed to do the very best we can with what we’re given, relying on God to strengthen and sustain us and help us do what needs to be done.
Before we get into the steps of how I manage my capacity, I want to make clear that this is just that: how I manage my capacity. There is no one-size-fits-all approach. Some of this might work for you. Some of it might need a little tweaking in order to work. Some of it might not work for you at all. This stuff took me a lot of trial and error to figure out and I’m still working on it, tweaking it as necessary.
I should also point out that my husband and I are both work-at-home freelancers with no kids, and I realize that makes some of this easier for us than it might be for you. Just know that as you’re envying my ability to move slowly through my day and have plenty of margin that there’s not a lot I wouldn’t give to be chasing around after kids all day.
Okay. Now I’ve broken this down into steps, but these aren’t really steps that need to be followed in any particular order, one after another.
Step One: Decide What Matters
I talked about this in a previous post (which links to a Lazy Genius post expanding on the topic that you should definitely read). But before you can begin effectively managing your days, you have to have your priorities nailed down; otherwise you end up wasting your capacity and time on things that don’t matter.
The thing to remember here is that your priorities are YOUR priorities. It’s not about what’s important to your mom or your mother-in-law or people on Pinterest or Instagram or the mean boss in your head. This isn’t about “should” or “ought to.” Just go ahead and eliminate those phrases from your vocabulary.
This isn’t purely about being productive and useful every waking hour of the day. This is about designing your days so that you flourish, and feel good about life, and don’t get burned out or depressed because you’re overwhelmed and stuck in hustle mode.
So if it’s important to you to have time at some point each day to read a book or scroll Pinterest or color in your coloring Bible or work out or go outside or bake cookies or watch a show or whatever helps to recharge you and make you feel like a person and not a machine, that’s fine. It’s important and it matters, and it’s fine to make it a priority.
Step Two: Eliminate What Doesn’t Matter (or Pare it Way Down)
I’ve been reading up a lot lately on minimalism and simple living. There’s another concept along the same lines called essentialism, which is about figuring out what really matters in your life, and eliminating the things that stand in the way of that. Where minimalism seems to be more focused on only having what you need to live and be content, I feel like essentialism offers more margin for you to decide what you need in order for your soul to thrive–things that might have no place in a truly minimalist home or lifestyle.
Either way, the point is that it’s helpful to figure out what’s using up your time and capacity and getting in the way of what matters. If you’re spending an hour dusting and organizing your house every day then you probably need to get rid of some stuff (or maybe even get a smaller house). If it’s important to you to make time to read books but it doesn’t happen because you can’t tear yourself away from scrolling Facebook and getting stressed out over political memes then maybe you should delete your Facebook app. If you’re doing laundry all the time then maybe your family has too many clothes, or needs to learn how to wear stuff more than once before watching as long as it’s not smelly or stained. If you really want to write a book (or blog) but just can’t find the time then maybe stop watching TV during the week and save your can’t-miss shows for weekend binging (this is how I make time to write).
Step Three: Decide What’s Needed Today
Step One is about deciding what your priorities are in general. This is about deciding what actually needs to get done today. I do this by praying before I open up my bullet journal and asking God to show me what’s on His agenda for me for today. I ask Him to show me where I’m being too Martha by piling too much stuff on my plate that’s not actually needed, and instead to help me be more Mary and focus on what really matters.
The thing about Martha, bless her heart, is that she wanted to be impressive. I’m sure a lot of it was about wanting to impress the Lord while she was hosting Him in her living room, but she probably tended to try to be impressive in her hostess and homemaking duties in general.
But we don’t need to impress anybody, and most certainly not the Lord, who just wants our faithful obedience. So a good question to ask as you make your To Do list is, “Does this really need to get done, or am I just doing it to be impressive?”
Step Four: Establish Rhythms Instead of Schedules
I don’t know about you, friend, but for me figuring this out was a big deal. Things just really clicked into place for me once I stopped assigning set times to my tasks and started figuring out where they fit into the rhythms of my day instead.
For example, I have ADD, but there are certain times of day when I’m naturally more able to focus on tasks that require a lot of concentration. For me it’s the late morning, after I’ve had all my coffee and am fully awake, and about two to four in the afternoon. So this is when I do all my writing. I work on my novels and blog posts in the late morning hours leading up to lunch, and in the afternoon I work on freelance assignments. During the times when I’m less focused I do tasks that require less mental energy, like housework or exercise or marketing my books and blogs on social media.
I also try to punctuate my days with breaks to just sit quietly and stare out the window. Sometimes I pray, sometimes I just practice being still in God’s presence, and sometimes I just let my mind wander and dream. To a lot of people this looks like wasting time, but I’ve learned that this time is necessary to help me recharge and re-focus, and it also helps me be more creative.
Of course, there will still be appointments and things that have set times that you can’t get away from. I just do my best to work my rhythms around them. It’s not always easy. A 2:00 doctor’s appointment, for instance, means that I’m not getting any freelance writing done that day — or if I have to because there’s a deadline, then I skip novel writing and do my freelancing in the late morning instead. The thing about rhythms is that they’re flexible and fluid in a way that schedules are not.
Step Five: Nurture Your Capacity
This post is already really long so I’ll try to keep this part short. The main thing is that, as I said in last week’s post, capacity has a way of expanding and shrinking. You can expand your capacity by doing things like eating healthy, getting regular exercise and getting plenty of sleep. You can also expand it, or help keep it expanded, by leaving enough margin on your plate for self-care. By that I mean doing things that fill you up and give you energy instead of depleting you.
My staring-out-the-window breaks are part of this for me. So is starting my day out with time in prayer and in the Word. So is taking ten minutes to go outside with my husband and dog to just stand in the sunshine soaking up vitamin D while we shoot the breeze, or squeezing in a few minutes of knitting, or taking five to color or doodle in my journaling Bible. So figure out what does that for you and then allow yourself the space to do it throughout the day without any guilt. It might not feel useful or productive but it’s absolutely necessary.
Bonus Step: Start a Bullet Journal
You don’t have to keep a bullet journal, and it might not be a good fit for you. But a bullet journal is flexible and adaptable and works with rhythms in a way that a planner with its neatly laid out time grids just can’t.
My favorite part about the bullet journal is how easy it is to “migrate” a task to the next day if it doesn’t get done. You still get to put a mark by that task–an arrow instead of a check mark–to indicate that it got moved, rather than just having this unmarked task staring at you accusing you of failure. It’s such a simple little mind trick that for me is huge. It’s not, “I’m a failure because I didn’t manage to fit this task in today.” Instead it’s, “I didn’t get to this today but that’s okay because it really can wait till tomorrow and it’s not a big deal.”
So there you have it — everything I’ve figured out so far about managing my capacity to be productive in order to make the most of my time. And good grief, this thing is long. I’m so sorry, but I hope that at least some of you find it helpful.
If you do, or if you have any insights of your own to add, let me know in the comments!
And be sure to come back next week, when I’ll illustrate how all of the above works in my own life with a Day in the Life post. Unless you hate those, in which case now you’ll know to skip it. 😉
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PS: Find more encouragement for your soul at these linkups:
PPS: Looking for some a-MAZ-ing tools and resources to help you be more productive, write better and/or generally do life while keeping your sanity? I’ve got the goods — sign up to receive Daydreamer Dispatches, a once- or twice-a-month newsletter from yours truly, and you’ll automatically receive a super-sekrit link to My Absolute Must-Have, Can’t Live Without Tools and Resources list! Click here to get your link!
A Jesus girl through and through, Jean Marie Bauhaus is on a journey of healing and rediscovering who God purposefully created her to be and figuring out how to do life within that context. She’s the wife of Matt and mom to a crew of four-legged dependents, all of whom make their home in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Jean counts coffee, dark chocolate and a yarn addiction among her vices. She’s the author of Restless Spirits, a family-friendly paranormal romance/mystery now available from Vinspire Publishing. You can learn more about her novels and short fiction at jeanmariebauhaus.com.
PPS: Looking for some a-MAZ-ing tools and resources to help you be more productive, write better and/or generally do life while keeping your sanity? I’ve got the goods — sign up to receive Daydreamer Dispatches, a once- or twice-a-month newsletter from yours truly, and you’ll automatically receive a super-sekrit link to My Absolute Must-Have, Can’t Live Without Tools and Resources list! Click here to get your link!
A Jesus girl through and through, Jean Marie Bauhaus is on a journey of healing and rediscovering who God purposefully created her to be and figuring out how to do life within that context. She’s the wife of Matt and mom to a crew of four-legged dependents, all of whom make their home in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Jean counts coffee, dark chocolate and a yarn addiction among her vices. She’s the author of Restless Spirits, a family-friendly paranormal romance/mystery now available from Vinspire Publishing. You can learn more about her novels and short fiction at jeanmariebauhaus.com.
