Take Back Your Time, Space, and Peace
I’m on a simplicity campaign.
My practice of living with less started in earnest when I downsized and went on my sabbatical in 2013 – and lately it’s been re-energized by the phenomenal book Simplicity Parenting by educational consultant and family counselor Kim John Payne.
If you don’t have kids, I doubt that I can convince you to read a parenting book – and yet, I think anyone could use this book to decrease their anxiety, slow down, and simplify.
Payne’s essential message is this:
We are building our daily lives, and our families, on the four pillars of too much: too much stuff, too many choices, too much information, and too much speed.
His book helps parents, as “the architects” of their family’s life, to slow down, eliminate clutter and distractions, and create more space for their children to enjoy their childhood.
Perhaps you can see why I think this is relevant to us adults too.
We all can be the architects of our own lives – to me, this is precisely what coaching is – and I also see the need for us to focus on slowing down, eliminate clutter and stressors, and create more space for us to enjoy the most important parts of our adulthood: our well-being, our relationships, and our creativity.
The most helpful concept that I’ve gotten from Payne’s book is to question my own assumptions around “more is better.”
Perhaps that seems surprising. Of course more is not better, right?
Yet Payne points out that there are a lot of things in our lives that we give a special pass to.
Toys are “educational” so we allow them to enter our homes unchecked.
Books overflow our shelves for the same reason.
We're supposed to be up-to-date and well informed so information is also given free entry into our lives. And wow, does it come in, through our phones, tablets, televisions, computers, newspapers, magazines, billboards and advertisements, radios… What a deluge.
Payne has noticed in his work counseling families that when children have simpler and fewer toys, their imaginations have more room to expand. That when children have less books, they go deeper in the stories and that the stories themselves become part of the child. That when parents limit how much information clutters up a child’s environment, they become less anxious, sleep and eat better, and have a greater opportunity to inhabit the world that they really should be in, a child’s world.
Over the last few weeks, I’ve started culling toys, books and clothes from our house.
I’ve stopped listening to news radio programs in the morning when the children eat breakfast. The car radio is usually off, until my daughter requests we play a song from a sing-along CD. I listen to audiobooks when I’m alone, and read the news via a brief delivered to my inbox. I’ve put a timer on my Instagram and Facebook apps. I’ve started leaving my phone home when we go for walks.
It’s been interesting. Our house feels calmer and more spacious. Our routines move along more easily, with less friction.
Less choices means that my daughter decides more easily what clothes to wear, what toy to play with, what book to read. It feels like we spend less time negotiating and more time actually doing fun stuff together (a very big deal when you live with a toddler!)
Less information has perhaps made the most noticeable difference for me. Without so much background noise of radio, news and social media, I feel calmer and more focused on what – and who – are in front of me.
Now I’m looking forward to culling even more stuff from our closets and cabinets, and my wardrobe. And there’s definitely a lot more I can do on the “educational must be good” assumption.
My inbox is regularly deluged with hundreds of offers for tools, courses, opportunities, and experiences. I get scattered within my own work day when I’m pulled in all directions by incoming information that all seems "helpful" or "enriching." (Perhaps it's time to try out Tim Ferriss' tactic of only checking email once a day, or less.)
As the weeks count down to the holiday gift giving season, and the start of a new year, it feels the absolute right time to get clearer on all this for me, and my family.
Much of our modern world is designed to get us to want more.
Choosing not to engage in “more, more, more” is counterculture. So is choosing to design your own environment, and your life.
As you’ve been reading this, what’s resonated with you?
Where in your life would you like to declutter or slow down this week? If you’re inspired, leave a comment.
