Saturday, January 22, 2011

Simplify.

At my new school, the kindergarten faculty has a curriculum specialist (what a novel and wonderful idea!) who helps to guide us with her 30+ years of waldorf experience. I have a hard time swallowing criticism (even when constructive), but am finding that after I've chewed on it for a few days it is much easier. And, I even end up liking the taste of my new skills/technique after I've implemented the suggestion. The best piece of advice she's given me all year, is this: simplify. Of course, she was referring to my classroom, but it totally inspired me and I have taken it to heart at home as well. It is helping me to find my rhythm at both work and home, and life is slowly but surely feeling a bit easier because of it.

How do you simplify?

This is what she said when referring to our classroom cabinets:
Pull everything out.
Only put back what is useful and beautiful.
Simplify! Simplify! Simplify!

So far at home, I have implemented this strategy to my clothes closet and dresser drawers. This resulted in two large garbage bags of clothes being donated to charity, and I can now see that there is a red wall on the back of my closet. Huh. It's kind of nice. I can actually see all of my clothes. I don't pass by five shirts because I don't ever really want to wear a single one of them. It feels orderly, without clutter and chaos. I love it!

Such a simple way to feel good. And, really, why would you want anything in your closet (or anywhere else in your home, for that matter) that wasn't useful and beautiful?

I immediately moved on to tackle Anastasia's closet and dresser, and it is easier for her to put her own clothes away now. I am itching to purge J's closet, but he's not ready to let me. In time... In time... Or, if the Bear's make it to the Superbowl and he somehow manages to go see the game without us... (Go Bears!) In the meantime, I am going to attempt the living and family rooms... Oh boy!

1/23/11 Edit: The Bears are not going to the Superbowl. But, I want you to know, it was not for lack of encouragement from our house!
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3 comments:

  1. baukjeJanuary 23, 2011 at 12:16 AM

    What a good advice, it also give more structure to your life I think.

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  2. AnonymousJanuary 23, 2011 at 7:57 PM

    We were rooting for the Bears, too. Bummer!

    I'm currently in the midst of a follow up maintenance fling-boogie. I did a total purge on our house several years ago, and I've been noticing just a few too many stuffed drawers, cabinets and closets lately. Today was the teen sons' rooms...Can you believe I carried out eight pairs of perfectly good outgrown shoes? EIGHT!! And since those shoes are ginormous anyway, it seems as if the closet suddenly doubled in size. :)

    Later this week are the kitchen cabinets It's time to recycle the mismatched storage containers and compost the outdated spices and dry goods. I'm ashamed to say that I found a jar of applesauce today on the top shelf behind some vases that expired in June...of 2005. The applesauce had turned dark brown. I tossed it in the compost; I'm sure the racoons will have a feast tonight!

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  3. JoyceJanuary 26, 2011 at 1:58 PM

    Hilarious picture! How did you get them to look like that?

    That(simplifying)is such good advice, but hard to follow when you are a hoarder and collector--only of important stuff, of course. Unfortunatly, for some of us, it is hard to relegate anything to the unimportant file. I need to work on that!

    Angela, I love the applesauce story--sounds quite familiar, unfortunately.

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