Less is More II

I have had some fantastic feedback from some of you who are joining me in the de-cluttering process! Thanks for your emails and letters, it is really encouraging to hear how your de-cluttering is going. It would be great if you could post your feedback on the Blog comments box too as I am sure others would be encouraged too.

Continuing with my "Less is More" process I am discovering what is clutter that needs to go and what is not. Here are a few thoughts:

1) Hanging out with my children doing nothing ISN'T doing nothing! This is an important part of their childhood and spending time with them is very important. Games, painting, baking, watching a butterfly pass by, catching frogs, singing songs and cuddling take up a huge part of my day. This is not part of the clutter that needs to go, this is a precious season I need to embrace.

If you are a teenager I would say that hanging out with your parents is valuable! The older you get the more you realise how important your parents are and that they are just people too that need your love and acceptance. No matter how "good" or "bad" your parents seem to be, they are still your parents and always will be - why not make something special out of it?


2) Computer, TV and cleaning can be clutter! Thankfully we don't watch TV in our home so I don't have to deal with this one, but the computer can be something that all of us spend too many hours on. Often I feel that I am "working" as I am doing all the things I need to do on the computer, but really if I were more disciplined I could definitely spend a lot less time on the computer. In the same way cleaning can be a waste of time too.... this may sound silly but if I have set aside time to clean at an appropriate time of the day then I wouldn't spend the whole day trying to keep things clean. For example picking up the toys during that day is a waste of time, it's best to wait until the end of the day and do it just once! We are a family of 6, if I tried to keep our home perfect I would be cleaning 24 hours a day! I love a clean home but I can't be obsessive about it either.

Again, if you are a teenager then this probably doesn't apply to you. But I have watched one of my daughters (you will never guess which one lol) spend a whole day trying to clean her room and still not have it clean at the end! If she just focused and set her mind on the task she could have it done in an hour! However, she spends all day trying to clean up and never gets the job done and wastes so much time that she could be using for more fun things!

3) Trying to be like everybody else is clutter, really hard work. Knowing who you are can save a lot of time and energy. This applies to all of us no matter what age we are! If we are not content in our own skin we will waste an awful amount of time trying to be who we think we should be. Knowing who you REALLY are, knowing what you want and knowing where you are going saves so much time and energy. Being comfortable with who we are also makes us more beautiful. I went into this in detail in a previous post so won't go into it too much now.

4)  Fun is not clutter! As a family we have always said that we will work hard together and we will play hard together. Sadly we forgot the play hard part and just worked really hard which has damaged us all. Since getting back from holiday and remembering how fun life can be we have committed to finding ways to play together. I am de-cluttering my life from all the unnecessary thing to make time to enjoy my life too. If we are not enjoying our life we will be unattractive to the world around us! As Christians we need to be salt and light so we can win our world to Jesus. So if you need an excuse to have more fun you can see it as your way of being salt and light - salt is tasty and light is attractive - fun people have both, dull people are neither. 

So let's have some fun girls. Last night we were thinking of what we could do for fun, we needed to get out the house and do something but after much deliberation and searching the Internet for something to do in Cheltenham we ended up staying home! How sad is that, so PLEASE post your suggestions for some fun out and about things to do. We will experiment too and get back to you.

Love