How Minimalism Changed My Schedule

You may be surprised to think that minimalism can help you free up your time, but when you start uncluttering your house and your things, you realize how cluttered your time can be too. Today I want to share with you how minimalism changed my schedule.

I’ve always like to put things in order. If you were to talk to my mother, she would tell you about how I used to stack the groceries in the cart in categories, rearrange her kitchen drawers, and get paid for cleaning and organizing things around our house. I also liked to go through things and get rid of ALL. THE. JUNK.

So, this minimalism and organization thing isn’t really something that is new in my life, but I realized as I was evaluating my priorities it is something that is NEEDED in this season of life.

I need to have less clutter around so I can function better.

I need things to be organized so that I can think.

Having less clutter and more organization is something that I’ve been applying to our schedule as well over the past few months. And it has made life calmer and more peaceful.

Applying minimalism to your schedule isn’t hard, but you will need to sit down and make a list of your priorities for each day, week, and month.

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What is a minimalist schedule or routine?

Just like minimalism itself, each person’s minimalist schedule or routine will look different.  But it means cutting your schedule down to things that are your priorities. Take a look at those items that you wrote down. I’ll show you mine for an example:

My top daily priorities are:

*Devotions

*Nap/Quiet time of some sort for the littles

*Fifteen minutes of self-care {this is usually reading a book while drinking a hot drink, or writing}

*Housekeeping {using the top three things that my husband told me he would like done first and then working from there.}

Weekly Priorities:

*Maintaining a healthy body physically and mentally- this includes exercising three times per week, time away from the littles, and other self-care activities. I do put some of my blogging and doula work in here, because I love it and they are part of self-care for me.

*Three days of homeschool bookwork per week. While we don’t follow a specific method of schooling I do keep bookwork to a minimum right now. Doing bookwork three days most weeks year-round keeps us in a good routine and I don’t feel like we have a lot of summer knowledge loss.

 

*A couple hours dedicated to business growth/development for both this site and my doula business. As the littles get older I will be able to spend more time in this category, but for now it is about two to four hours per week.

*At least one stay-at-home day. I like having two better, one is the minimum. This day is usually spent catching up on things around the house, doing history and science with the boys, and resting.

Monthly Priorities:

*Date night

*A good decluttering day to stay on top of things

*A big grocery trip

REMEMBER: your priorities will look different than mine, especially if you work outside the home, or if your littles go to school. If you can have a packed schedule and don’t feel overwhelmed or exhausted by it, then go ahead and keep doing you, but if you are feeling overwhelmed and frustrated with your lack of slow time, then consider using these tips to cut things out.

The first thing that I do is plan the whole month out at a time.

The daily priorities are part of our routine now, so they don’t need to go on the calendar or in my planner. But the weekly and monthly things all should go on there. These are the things that I want to take care of the most, so they must be kept the priority

Take a step back and look at your schedule after all the things above are entered and then add in any health or business appointments that you have.

It looks a bit busier now doesn’t it? What do we add in IF we feel like we have extra time or we are in a season where we can?

*Playdates

*Bible Studies

*Sports events

*Cycling {both my husband and I LOVE cycling and while we haven’t done much of it over the last couple of years because family time has been a bigger priority, it is something we like to add in a night or two a month if we can.}

For me, planning out our entire month at a time is critical to keeping our time and schedule uncluttered. It creates calm as I know what is coming up, when I need to be places, and when I need to prepare for things. It has opened up white space where we can be more spontaneous if we want. It has helped me to feel less overwhelmed in this season and more in control of what is going on during the day.

It’s okay to say “No”!

I recently read The Busy Homeschool Mom’s Guide to…Daylight by Heidi St. John. I love this quote that I found in it and think that it could really help you as you think about cutting things out of your schedule and decide which things are actually important and needed for your family.

The problem is not a lack of opportunity. The problem is discerning which opportunities to take advantage of and which to pass up. ~Heidi St. John

It is okay to say no to things. You don’t need to do the Bible Study if it is stressing you out because it takes up a whole day. You don’t need to participate in that play group or mom’s meet up, if it takes time away from your homeschooling or family in general. Just because something is good, doesn’t mean that you need to participate.

You have power over your time. Take control of your schedule and make it work for you!

Becoming more minimal around our house made me rethink my schedule. And it was another great benefit of getting rid of STUFF.

 

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