Lessons in Simplicity: Learning To Scale Back

It’s Sunday night and we just tricked my 4-year old into going to bed a half an hour early. Thank goodness she can’t tell time just yet, because on days like today when I’m just so utterly exhausted that I can’t parent for one more second, it’s so nice to be able to tell her it’s 8 o’clock when it’s actually only 7:30.

Today was a day that felt like it was never going to end. And my kids weren’t even really the problem. Sure, there was enough whining and crying today to drive even the most patient mama insane, but isn’t that just life with kids? No, I’m fully aware that the problem today began with me. And it actually began a couple of weeks ago. Maybe a couple of months ago if I’m being honest.

I am guilty of living a life that is too full. I know that sounds like an oxymoron, but it’s something that I’ve really been struggling with lately. You know it’s a problem when other people start to tell you that your life is full to the brim. At some point, you begin to realize that they are right.

My life is full of wonderful things – but as we all know, it’s possible to have too much of a good thing. During the week, my days are filled with workouts, daycare drop-off, my job as an attorney, my role as a mama, trying to get a healthy dinner on the table most nights, and trying to keep our house in something of an orderly fashion. On the weekends, we jam in all the things we don’t get to do during the week because we are a household with two working parents–museum visits, zoo trips, outdoor activities, traveling, date nights, quality time with friends and family, pursuing our individual interests, like training for distance running races (me) and keeping up with various hobbies (my husband), and so on and so forth.

At some point, there aren’t enough minutes in the day. Sometimes, by Sunday night, I am so ready to crash that I want to cry. So that’s why, on this particular Sunday, I found myself Googling “how to simplify my life” and getting really sucked into the various blog posts that I found. I found a few key points that seemed to be consistently recommended solutions, and I’ve decided to try to implement my top 3 takeaways. I thought I’d share them here with you, too, because I can’t possibly be the only mama struggling with this issue.

Solution #1: Letting go of commitments that aren’t directly in line with my priorities.

I’ve always been the busy girl. The one who had the full social calendar and was a member of 3 or 4 different extracurricular activities at any given time through high school and college. I’ve had a job since the day I turned 16, because I liked earning money, sure, but partially because it was a way to fill my time after school. 

As an adult, I’m starting to recognize that I can’t run at the same million miles a minute pace that I used to. I am working on learning to say no to commitments that aren’t extremely important to me or directly in line with my priorities. Step 1 to implementing this solution? Recognizing what my priorities are in the first place. This takes a lot of self-reflection, and I’m definitely still a work in progress in this arena. A big recent victory for me was deciding not to pursue membership in the Junior League after considering it during their spring recruitment. I’m very interested in the organization and its value and would love to meet new people and make new friends–but the time commitment just doesn’t fit into my world right now, and it’s not important enough to me to make the extra stress worth it.

Solution #2: Reducing My Screen Time

I know I’m not alone in acknowledging that I waste way too much time on my phone. It’s so easy to get sidetracked by “just taking a minute” to check Facebook and suddenly a half an hour has passed. This isn’t a novel idea, but I hadn’t considered how reducing my screen time could help in my efforts to simplify my life. But if I wasn’t feeling compelled to constantly be checking in with my phone, what else could I be doing in that time instead?

It’s not just phones either – how easy is it to get sucked into working on our computers or browsing the Internet, or to stay up far too late binge-watching a show on TV? It was helpful to recognize that if I am more cognizant about reducing my screen time, that would help simplify my life on many levels.

Solution #3: Focus on 1 or 2 important goals.

I like to think of myself as a driven person, so it makes sense that I am big on goal setting. I constantly have big goals on the horizon and it’s not unusual for me to set little goals each week. While I don’t want to stop setting goals for myself, I like the idea of really focusing on 1 or 2 important goals at a time.  It’s so easy to feel overwhelmed when we bite off more than we can chew – and it’s easy to do that when you start dreaming about goals for the future. By narrowing the scope a bit and keeping my focus more narrow, it will help prevent that overwhelmed feeling and allow me to really give my all to those goals that I’m working toward at any given time. Once one is accomplished, then it would be completely appropriate to move onto a new one.

I’m very much a work in progress, and I recognize that it’s going to take time to really implement these solutions to my problem. But recognizing the problem and having a plan in place feels like a huge step in the right direction.