Lately I’ve been feeling a strong need to simplify things. My belongings, my life, my schedule. I don’t know why exactly but the urge is there, occupying quite a bit of my waking hours.
It was a long winter this year, so long in fact that we didn’t really have a spring. So I suppose there hasn’t been much thought given to spring cleaning really. But now the sun does shine a bit more and the weather is warming up and all I want to do is clean things, and clean things out.
I’ve recently developed a huge blog crush on &Kathleen. She makes me want to get dreads again, she’s truthful, her travel stories are beautiful, she runs a really cool business with her sister and her blog design is yellow. There’s little more to say, is there? So anyway, I’ve been reading her blog quite a bit and just last week she mentioned Liz Fabry’s Never-Ending Edit. So I clicked over to Liz’s blog to find just what I’ve been thinking about. Simplifying down to the beautiful and useful. It’s such a perfect goal, although a never-ending one as she so rightly says.
This simplification is mental as well as physical. I’ve decided that I do things only if I really want to and if I’m happy doing it. For a long time I had a bit of a fear of missing out. But now, I’m over it. If I’ve learned one thing about myself over the last few months it’s that I have quite a good sense of intuition. And I’m going to start listening to it more. Hopefully it will simplify things for me.
Something I’ve also realised is probably quite an ally in this quest is a long-standing foe of mine – routine. Maybe he’s not such a bad guy after all. Getting up at the same time, doing the same thing or having an idea of a schedule as well as a to-do list is really helping me. It takes the decision making out of the daily mundanities. It makes things simpler. And this is a great great thing for me!
Other ways I’ve been simplifying things is by using Wunderlist and Evernote a lot. I’ve had them downloaded for years but I’ve never really used them to their full potential. I’ve disregarded pretty much every other sharing or saving for later app and I just use these now. I’ve even spring cleaned my apps. The joy!
That’s all great about routine and spring cleaning apps, but as of yet, it’s all intangible or in my imagination. I’ve given over whole chunks of my bus journey imagining how I’ll clear out my wardrobe and I’ve even scrubbed out my kitchen in my minds eye but have yet to get that far. The last few weekends have been spent away and I don’t have (or make) much time for this stuff during the week. But soon! The seed is sown, the clearing and cleaning will begin!
Have you done any spring cleaning this year? Does simplifying and the never-ending edit make sense to you?