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Season 12: Finding Rest as a Homeschool Mom This season of the Simplified Organization Audio Blog is excerpts from an hour-long live chat all about resting as a homeschool mom. Find the link below to access the replay in its entirety! Decision fatigue is super real, and it’s not just our kids pestering that puts us over the edge, it’s ourselves also. Our own minds are always going, going, going. And that’s one reason why we’re brain dumping, we’re getting it out of our heads so that our own head is not pestering us. So, we have to find ways because, I think, we also might find a way to arrange for the kids to give us 30 minutes of not talking to us and then we find that didn’t help as much as I thought it would because the distraction mode is still here. Even if we turn the phone off, even if we send the kids away, then we find the problem’s still here. Brain dump, brain dump, brain dump, organization can bring more peace. A lot of the ways you see organization on Pinterest or that kind of thing where it means label makers and matching containers and a perfect cleaning schedule where you take all the buckets out and wipe down the inside of the cabinet every month that increases our feelings of obligation and increases our feelings of inadequacy – like, that’s just not going to work in my life, what do I do now because I’m incompetent on so many levels? When this is the problem, when it’s in our heads, it’s one of three things (and these are the last three things on my list I was telling you about). We need peace from three things. So this is our own internal problems that are giving us unrest. One is anxiety, and I feel completely unable to really deeply address that one because I know so many people struggle with anxiety as a real, deep-seated, maybe even chemical issue, but anxiety is going to steal your peace and steal your rest. It makes rest impossible so we have to address it, we can’t just live with it, we have to address it. Isaiah 40 for anxiety, Philippians 4. Anxiety is actually a sin and we need to repent and then we need to rejoice and then we need to do it over and over again. So, sometimes we think that because if we keep doing it then I’m either off the hook or I’m a lost case but it’s just something that we have to keep doing. And then the peace of God is given to us when we pray with thanksgiving. Like, actually repenting instead of just feeling bad. Sometimes just feeling bad is us laying ourselves off the hook, but actually calling it a sin, asking God to help us, and Philippians 4 says “with gratitude,” and that doesn’t mean so I’m thankful for fluffy kittens and blue skies, it’s be grateful in the situation that you’re in because you can always be thankful for Jesus, right? So, be thankful even within the situation where you are, not for things outside your situation, but for inside your situation, prayer, with thanksgiving, making your requests know then the peace of God that surpasses all understanding. It’s a pretty clear verse, and we can keep coming back to it. That’s why it’s repent, rejoice, repeat. It’s not a once and done thing and now we’re never going to have this problem again. It’s going to keep being an ongoing problem but every time it is it’s like, ‘oh, I know what to do’ and it’s that knowing what to do that brings us rest. So, it’s not even about an escape from it or solving it, it’s knowing what to do that brings the peace. Well, God brings the peace but that’s a big part of it. OK, but the two big ones … that one’s like it’s own big huge category … and the two every day peace stealers and unrest creators are decision fatigue and the feeling of vague obligation. There are so many things I should be doing I don’t even know what they all are. How many people have ever felt like that? I have so many things I don’t even know what they all are, vague obligation. So this is where actual, real life organization comes in where the organization is about our attitude and about an approach to life and not necessarily about having the most orderly closets, or the corners that are free from gunk – I had to tell myself that this week I will not be taking vlogs of my home – let’s just say that. Real organization starts in our heads and it starts by knowing what those obligations are and making some of those decisions upfront so that we can just do what we need to do. Access the whole replay: Real organization starts in our heads and it starts by knowing what those obligations are and making some of those decisions upfront so that we can just do what we need to do. The post SO073: Living From a State of Rest appeared first on Simply Convivial.

Season 12: Finding Rest as a Homeschool Mom This season of the Simplified Organization Audio Blog is excerpts from an hour-long live chat all about resting as a homeschool mom. Find the link below to access the replay in its entirety! Transcript Finally, we have mental rest. And I think this is the category that we are least aware of, but that is actually tripping us up the most. I’m currently reading the book Deep Work by Cal Newport and I wasn’t even expecting it to tie into these ideas that I was having about rest and what we need to do and all that, but it does. So, when we are tempted to zone out it’s because we are overwhelmed, right? We are overwhelmed by all the details, all the distractions, all the things going on in our life, all the people asking us questions all the time, and even sometimes we’re asking ourselves questions all the time. We don’t know what we’re supposed to be doing, we don’t know where the thing is; everything feels like a scramble. Am I right? And, sometimes it’s not because you need physical rest, and it’s not because you need spiritual rest. Sometimes it’s just because life is full of all these inputs and it’s chaotic and overwhelming, and we don’t have what it takes to order it all, to put it into order. It’s all coming out of us and it’s all chaotic and messy, and we don’t know what to do. And then we feel worse because we don’t know what to do with it all. It’s just all coming at us. And, all I can think to do is to just turn it all off. So, I think if you’re feeling of ‘I need rest’ comes out as ‘turn it all off’ then this is where you need to really start brain dumping and applying and thinking. You don’t necessarily have to assume you have a spiritual problem. We have to make sure that that’s in order first, but it doesn’t necessarily … feeling like you just need to turn it all off, you just can’t handle it anymore, it’s not necessarily a spiritual problem. It’s partly the way our current world is running with the priority on distraction mode, and when we’re in a distracted state that is the opposite of peace. We don’t know how to get to peace. If we are functioning completely in distracted mode all the time we actually lose the ability to basically think in a straight line. And, unless we can think in a straight line we aren’t going to be able to problem solve, we aren’t going to be able to provide the counseling and parenting that our children really need, because it’s so hard to pay attention. So, distraction is the opposite of attention, and attentiveness is the ability to pay attention is sometimes what we actually are needing when we feel like we need rest. It’s a feeling of ‘I need to turn off this distraction mode and have a time where I can actually have a complete thought and move forward with that complete thought.’ So, that’s one reason why taking a walk helps (yes, walking in a straight line physically helps the brain feel more linear – that’s perfect). So, in the book Deep Work, Cal Newport is talking about how we need to set aside undistracted time, and you know, pretty much his only solution is just turn the internet off, like how hard, just do it. And have one project that you just work on. And it’s like, well, yeah, that’d be nice if I had an office door I could close and just turn off the internet connection – that would turn off all the distractions, not. The internet might provide another layer of distractions but we’ve got so many things coming at us all the time that you could take a step and do the easy things like turning the notifications on your phone off (that’s a good one) but we can find times like this even in a house full of children who need us all day. One of the things that we need to do is to realize that we have to. So when we feel … we feel guilty if we feel like we just have to shut this all off. So we have all these distractions, then we feel overwhelmed and we don’t know what to do, and the only solution we can think of is to turn it all off, and we feel guilty for that because we know that’s not what we should be doing. We shouldn’t just be like, ‘go away.’ So when we get in this cycle, just keeping going and it just gets worse until we crack. And the fact that we crack should show that something’s out of whack here, something’s off kilter, and we do need to do something different. We need to find some times in our day where we are not being interrupted. It’s healthy, it’s healthy for everyone. It’s healthy for our kids to not be constantly talking or interrupting or needing things. You see all kinds of articles lately today about how kids are never bored anymore and it’s actually bad for them. We live in a time where we have to be very intentional to guard our mental health, honestly. And we can do that by saying, no… just like everyone has to eat their vegetables, we have to have some time where we are not talking, asking questions, needing things – like, we have to build this intentional time into our day for everyone, not just for mom, not just so that I can handle you, but because this is good for all of us. Like, you can demand a quiet time in a selfish way and probably, we all have. And so then we feel guilty or bad because we did that with a wrong attitude and wrong motivation. We did it in a grabby, self-seeking way, and so then we overreact the other way, and say because the way I was needing a quiet time was wrong, therefore I must not need an afternoon without anyone talking to me, I’ve just got to go and get over it. You can actually figure out ways to have some quiet spaces intentionally, kindly, gracefully, non-selfish ways. Access the whole replay: We live in a time where we have to be very intentional to guard our mental health, honestly. And we can do that by saying, no… just like everyone has to eat their vegetables, we have to have some time where we are not talking, asking questions, needing things – like, we have to build this intentional time into our day for everyone, not just for mom, not just so that I can handle you, but because this is good for all of us. The post SO072: The 3 Kinds of Rest We Need appeared first on Simply Convivial.

Season 12: Finding Rest as a Homeschool Mom This season of the Simplified Organization Audio Blog is excerpts from an hour-long live chat all about resting as a homeschool mom. Find the link below to access the replay in its entirety! Transcript So, an example is our family’s EHAP. So, EHAP is one of those things, it’s part of Sweep and Smile, it’s a part of the Simplified Organization Course that means Everything Has A Place. Sometimes everything doesn’t have a place, that’s why there’s more decision fatigue because you’re like, where do I put this thing? Giving things a home is one way we eliminate decision fatigue. So, it’s a project. It’s something that we do that’s going to have the payoff of rest after it’s done. EHAP is the time to put things back where they belong and it has a time and it has a place every day. At our house it’s about five o’clock most evenings. Not every single evening but most evenings at five o’clock is EHAP. That means at three o’clock when the house is a wreck and I feel like “AHHH, I’ve got to do something about this now,” take a deep breath, and we don’t have to do something about this now, we’re going to do something about it at five, so right now I can let the kids be doing their thing and not interrupt them because I feel crazy. I’m the one that has to take a deep breath and say, “We’ve got this handled, it’s OK.” There’s a time for everything and everything in its time. So, everything in its home and everything in its time that’s when we can take that breath and know that the decision then has been made, it’s not an immediate problem, it’s not a vague problem. So, we have to systematically work through our responsibilities and our obligations and our time and our home, and in various ways put things in their home. That is how we then build the mental rest in our own heads. And yes, we can then, also, build time where we aren’t being interrupted and asked a million questions. But, here’s another thing to add to your brain dump. Throughout the week, write down the various kinds or maybe even specific questions your kids are asking. And maybe there are decisions that can be made upfront. Like, are they asking questions because they really want to know what’s happening because it’s always up in the air? Like, the more things that are always up in the air the more chatter there’s going to be from the kids and from your own head. But, if breakfast is always oatmeal because no one asks, “What’s for breakfast?” One of my favorites is if the kids ask what’s for dinner? I say, “Food.” I don’t have to think about it. I might have my menu planned but sometimes, ask me at a certain time and I don’t know, we’re going to have something or sometimes I’m just making something and it doesn’t have a name, so then you’re thinking ‘food, we’re going to have food.’ Finding those little things that just turn off the stress response is the distraction looking for an answer that is where we’re going to start finding mental peace and clarity. So, maybe pay attention to the questions that you’re asked this week and see if there’s a common thread or note which ones are most draining to you, and is there a way that you can arrange the day or just have a pat answer that eliminates the stress that comes when the question comes. Sometimes these are really easy, really simple if we look intentionally at it, but when we get into distracted mode it takes work and intention to get out of it, and that’s where I am right now in the Deep Work book, I’m in the rules section. But he’s really developing how hard it is to move from distracted to thinking in a straight line again. And how intentional we have to be and that it’s really like a muscle that we have to grow. So, if we’ve been in distracted mode for a really long time it’s not going to be about just arranging a quiet time and suddenly we’ll be able to think deeply. It’s going to take practice to exercise that kind of attention again. And it will be uncomfortable at first as well, and difficult at first, but that ability to think through something without being distracted is where we’ll start finding calm and clarity and resilience which I think we don’t just need physical rest, selfishly for ourselves to feel better. What we need is resilience. We need internal, calm, and clarity so that when craziness happens outside of us with other people; people are bumping into each other, bumping into us, we need to have resilience – the ability to bounce back and to not just crumble or explode or whatever, immediate reaction happens. Sometimes this is expressed as being proactive. You can’t be proactive or resilient in a state of constant distraction. The two states are mutually exclusive. So, it’s a really important issue to address. Access the whole replay: What we need is resilience. We need internal, calm, and clarity so that when craziness happens outside of us with other people; people are bumping into each other, bumping into us, we need to have resilience – the ability to bounce back and to not just crumble or explode or whatever, immediate reaction happens. Sometimes this is expressed as being proactive. The post SO071: Rest Isn’t Easy appeared first on Simply Convivial.

Season 12: Finding Rest as a Homeschool Mom This season of the Simplified Organization Audio Blog is excerpts from an hour-long live chat all about resting as a homeschool mom. Find the link below to access the replay in its entirety! Transcript So, start off by listing the things that you currently do for rest. What do you currently do when you feel like you need a break? Of those things that you do for rest which ones do you feel rested after doing? Because not everything that we do to take a break helps us feel better afterwards. So, if we don’t feel better afterwards, if we don’t feel rested and restored after doing it, it’s not a break. Maybe it’s stopping doing our work but it’s not rest. We have to be examining what we’re doing and whether or not it’s what we should be doing and perhaps there’s guilt involved because what we’re doing for rest isn’t restful so it doesn’t help so our anxiety and our stress is actually building instead of releasing. It just kind of builds and is a mess. We’re going to be taking a step back. Let’s talk about the goal for rest. So, Erika says, “Everything I do to rest I do restful during I but I feel guilty afterwards.’ So, maybe after reading a book you do feel rested and maybe after reading a book you don’t. It can depend on the situation and what else is going on or the kind of book. There are multiple things going on pretty much all the time so that’s why we have to brain dump and really start following those connections and like, ‘what’s the difference between this time where I felt rested after reading a book or maybe even after watching a TV show and this time where it wasn’t?’ Sometimes you’re even too tired to read so we need to figure out the kind of rest that we need, the kind of tired that we are so that we know what to build more of into our life. So, what’s the goal for resting? If we step back and look at the end – keep the end in mind – that will help us not feel guilty when we are legitimately resting, and it will help us recognize true rest from fake rest. So, the goal for resting is to be rested. This isn’t super deep. The goal of resting is peace and restoration/refreshment. If we go into rest as leisure and scholé (Peiper’s book, “The Basis of Culture” takes us on a journey on exploring leisure and its purpose) and it goes toward worship. And I think that is a good insight for us as we think about rest. Of course, the Bible talks about rest as connected to the Sabbath a lot. And, the point of the Sabbath is worship. When we have a mind and a soul at peace we can be grateful, we can be attentive even to God, and attentive to what He is doing in our life right now instead of, maybe, what we’re trying to do in our life. We can be more open and receptive when our minds and our souls and our bodies are at peace. But when our bodies are tired and fatigued, when our mind is distracted, and when we haven’t been spending any time in God’s Word, with God’s people, worshiping then these are all blocks, blockage, obstacles to finding rest which is from God – real rest is from God – even if it comes after a novel, it’s a blessing that we can have and that is good for us because God rested on the seventh day not because He needed a break but because that is the end of work, that’s enjoying the work, that’s what He did. He didn’t go find entertainment he was taking enjoyment from His work and that was how He rested. He wasn’t doing work but He was enjoying the fruits of His work and that was rest, and so that’s why then there’s the Sabbath (it follows this model). God was modeling a pattern that He wanted us to follow: work, and then enjoy the work, enjoy the fruits of the work. It’s OK and good and right to not be go, go, go, work, work, work, productive mode all the time. That is not God’s will for us. It is God’s will for us to do our duty and part of our duty is to take a step back and be grateful and worshipful and enjoy the fruits of our work. That’s legitimate. Access the whole replay: God was modeling a pattern that He wanted us to follow: work, and then enjoy the work, enjoy the fruits of the work. The post SO070: The Rest that God Gives appeared first on Simply Convivial.

Season 12: Finding Rest as a Homeschool Mom This season of the Simplified Organization Audio Blog is excerpts from an hour-long live chat all about resting as a homeschool mom. Find the link below to access the replay in its entirety! Transcript And, thank you all for the participation even before we began on what is rest. I think that we’re all, kind of, on the same page – is what it sounds like because this is what I was thinking, so I’m glad to see that we are not alone, right? It’s easy to think that when we’re at home just doing our thing, that it’s like, ‘I must be the only one that struggles with this,’ but, you’re not. This is life and it’s part of our sanctification and you’re not alone. We all have these struggles. This is just the struggle of being human and of trying to live out God’s will for us, cheerfully, and gracefully, and repent-fully. What’s the adverb form of repentance? So, you’re going to get a lot more out of this if you follow along with pen and paper. So, even if you are folding laundry – doing something – grab a notebook, grab a pen, and work through this exercise with me. This is going to be brain dumping. As we put things onto paper it helps us collect ourselves, collect our thoughts, and achieve more calm, rather than letting all the thoughts jumble up in our heads that’s distracting and we’re trying to hold all the things in our heads we can’t use our heads to think things through, to think things out, and to come up with creative solutions to have just the mental space to problem solve. When we put the details and our thoughts and our connections and our troubles – all those things that pop into our head – instead of letting them just keep popping into our head, if we put them down onto paper it helps us think about them, instead of just the thoughts popping up we can think about them and start to figure things out. Distraction really drains us and that’s one of the things we’ll be talking about. When we can just collect those random thoughts that pop in it helps us remain calm and clear and not worry about forgetting the needful things, even if it’s ‘I need to buy milk at the grocery store’ – it’s amazing how much those little thoughts can collect and build and really clutter up our heads. I really hope that you get a lot of actionable ideas out of this, not necessarily because it’s advice from me but because through the process of thinking about the different categories and really doing some self-examination and some life-examination you can figure out a change that works for you and your life and your needs right now because it’s going to be different for each person – what you need to focus on and what you need to do. There’s not one right way. There’s not a one-size fits all solution at all. So, we have to be able to take responsibility for our own selves and our own lives and prayerfully and repentantly (I think that’s right) move forward from where we are to the next step that is part of our sanctification. OK, I have three different kinds of rest that we need and then three things that we need rest from. So, we’re going to start with the different kinds of rests that we need because I think that sometimes we’re so jumbled and we’re so distracted and we’re so tired and fatigued that it feels like any rest is the right rest or a good rest. And we do need rest and some of it is good but we need to figure out the kind of rest that we are lacking and maybe it will be all three kinds but they are different types of rest. So, we have to build in these three different types of rest to our lives. And, one kind – they’ll build on each other and they’ll help each other but they’re different aspects of our lives that we do need to take and we can take them intentionally without guilt because these are clearly good things. Rest is a good thing. And these kinds of rest that we need to build into our lives are clearly in and of themselves good things. So, if you feel currently guilty for resting because you have so much to do the thinking along the way about how these are good, perhaps even equally good as your to-do list, and some of them might be more important than some of the things on your to-do list because maybe your to-do list is full of guilt-motivation or things that don’t really need to be on there. A lot of our to-do list is just service to others and we do need to step up to our duty and rest is not opposed to doing our duty. Access the whole replay: A lot of our to-do list is just service to others and we do need to step up to our duty and rest is not opposed to doing our duty. The post SO069: Busy Moms: There is No Guilt in Resting appeared first on Simply Convivial.

Season 12: Finding Rest as a Homeschool Mom This season of the Simplified Organization Audio Blog is excerpts from an hour-long live chat all about resting as a homeschool mom. Find the link below to access the replay in its entirety!     Mystie: Alright, I’m so excited to kick off this season of the Simplified Organization podcast with Virginia Lee, who helps me with customer service emails. Hi, Virginia Lee. Virginia Lee: Hi, everyone. Mystie: So this season is about rest. All the rest of the episodes are going to be clips from a workshop that I did on getting rest as a mom because sometimes that just seems impossible. So, I thought today we would kick off that season by having a quick conversation about specific ways that we rest and recuperate from an intense day with the kids. And, I think that thinking about it in terms of recuperation really helps. It’s not usually a word that’s used in this conversation. We talk about rest or renewal or refreshment or filling our buckets, but I don’t know, I like the word recuperation. Virginia Lee: I do, too, it seems more like not a lifetime goal, a long term goal, but we can recuperate and get back into action. Mystie: Right, the focus is on rebuilding, almost. You know, getting back to wholeness because sometimes it feels like we’ve been a little bit deconstructed after an intense day. Virginia Lee: Yes, most definitely. Mystie: So, I am an introvert and Virginia Lee is an extrovert, so we can bring a little bit of a difference there. And, Virginia Lee, what are some of the things that you do after a hard day? Virginia Lee: You know, I almost always do the same things because they work for me: I pour myself a glass of sweet tea, I go outside under Silver Girl, which is our maple tree in our front yard, and then depending on exactly the extreme amount that I have to recuperate from, I either pray, or I would do a brain dump, or I get on a voxer and have a conversation with a friend. Mystie: OK, nice. Virginia Lee: And that seems to work every time. I choose one of those three depending of the severity or the seriousness of the recuperation that I need. Mystie: Beverage, outside, and conversation. Because, prayer is conversation with God. And, of course, it makes me happy that brain dumping is also one of the options. Virginia Lee: Yes, sometimes my recuperation needs to be a brain dump because the part that’s really torn me down is the fact that there’s just too much in my head from what I’ve seen in my day that I either need to tweak or add to, and it really helps me to refresh to just not have it all in my head any more. Mystie: My current refreshing beverage of choice in the afternoon is sparkling water. So, I will grab sparkling water, close myself off in the bedroom or somewhere, sometimes I go take a quick walk or just even pace in front of my house (and make a spectacle for my neighbors), but actually, I think the walking itself helps – it is the outside but it’s also just some movement, it just helps the blood flow to the right places again. It helps my brain think more clearly, kind of like the brain dump. I will do a brain dump. One thing that I started doing last year was a power nap, which I’ve tried off and on before, and I read about power naps, but I’m not really a napper, and I usually feel worse after a try to take a nap, but I just felt like I needed the end of, especially like teaching a class or something, I just needed to turn off. I almost actually never fall asleep but it’s kind of my version of an isolation chamber. So, I take one of my black pajama shirts and drape it over my eyes, sometimes I will even put in ear plugs and close the door and everyone knows it’s just 10 minutes, no one’s allowed to knock on the door or anything, but I also have no nappers. No one naps at all in my house. Quiet Time is a thing of the past, so this is mom’s quiet time. It’s amazingly helpful to just have 10 minutes with zero input. It’s not really the sleep so much as the being able to turn off for a little bit. It’s like a reboot. And, then I have so much more mental clarity when I get up. Virginia Lee: And, I think that’s the introvert part of you refreshing, because to me, it’s not that I need no input, I need no input of the kind that I had been having, which sounds mean to say because it’s my children but I need a change of input, whether the input is the breeze outside, the way the light looks coming through the trees, or a conversation with an adult—that’s what I need to refresh and to recuperate is a change of input but I do still like input. Mystie: Yeah, and I think that’s what we need to do is to be paying attention to what is actually refreshing. So when I’m done with the activity do I feel better or is it just coming back to the crazy again? We’re looking for the things (they’re not actually a break) we’re giving us rest or recuperating unless they allow us to come back to our full lives ready to handle it again. So, we don’t need to turn away from it all for a little while, we need to turn away to something that brings us back better. Access the whole replay: We need to do is to be paying attention to what is actually refreshing. When I’m done with the activity do I feel better or is it just coming back to the crazy again? The post SO068: Realistic Ways to Rest for Moms with Virginia Lee appeared first on Simply Convivial.

Season 11: Attitude Organization Tips Keeping house or completing other projects are always means, never ends in themselves. They are ways that we serve others and tools we use to bless others. When we become cranky and angry as we work, it is not a sign that we need to repent of our work, but that we need to repent of our attitude. The home atmosphere is one tool for cultivating relationship, it is not a priority over them and should not be pitted against them. Read the original post: Keep in Fellowship.

Season 11: Attitude Organization Tips Cleaning and organizing the entire house might be your project, but that’s not going to happen in one day. However, if you set aside 15 minutes every day (or most days, anyway), you can slowly but steadily move toward that object. Embrace the process, the incremental change that you move forward, more than the outcome. We can’t put things off until the perfect moment, because that moment will not come. Read the original post: Embrace Fifteen Minutes

Season 11: Attitude Organization Tips Smiling comes naturally to some and less easily to others, but it is a simple gesture that can steer us clear of self-pity and a downward spiral and an act that is contagious to our children. They will catch and mimic what we model, so we should be conscious of our expressions. Consciously choose the emotions you display, and the outward act of the will can work its way inward to change your actual emotion. A smile is a simple way to love someone else, to offer approval, acceptance, and affection. It is a gift to your children that gives back to you, also. Read the original post: Smile.

Season 11: Attitude Organization Tips Reserve time every week and every interval for evaluation, but in the midst of the day, just move forward with what you know. The perfect plan is not going to be as helpful as the plan you have in front of you, put into practice. The day-to-day is for execution mode. Don’t wait until the plan is perfect. Just start with what you have, where you are. Read the original post: Iterate Your Plans

Season 11: Attitude Organization Tips When we recite a handful of mottos over and over again, and conform our choices to them, we more and more naturally live them out even when we don’t use them. They become the way we simply do things. The best way to form new habits is to take on the identity as the kind of person who … leaves places better than they were, smiles and starts, or doesn’t let a mistake or slip-up stop continual practice. These little chants I can tell myself are mini pep talks on the tip of my tongue that can help bring back my attitude when it starts drifting into dismay or laziness. Read the original post: Recite Mottos

Season 11: Attitude Organization Tips Listen: Mystie: Welcome to the first episode of season 11 where I’ll be recording and sharing a few more attitude organization tips from my series “52 Ways to Organize Your Attitude.” So, Virginia Lee who helps me with customer support and email is here to chat with us. Hey, Virginia Lee. Virginia Lee: Hi everyone. Mystie: So, I thought that we would share some of our own tips for organizing our attitude because it often needs it with stuff day to day. Virginia Lee: Yes, yes. Mystie: So, one of the ones I’m going to share is there’s a post for it in the series, but sometimes just sharing those specific instances – these are all things we need to hear over and over again. So, do you have any go-to attitude organization strategies? Virginia Lee: Well, many of mine are similar to what you’re writing about. But, I guess the biggest go-to attitude organization strategy for me is … and it’s not going to be anything new … is just to stop and pray. If things are out of whack, if the bubble has burst, I have to stop everything and pray right then. It doesn’t matter if we get behind, it doesn’t matter if something doesn’t get done, because I am an extrovert and I have multiple extroverted children I have found that it is incredibly helpful to just stop all of them in their tracks, too, and pray together. To just let them know, you know what, my attitude is not the way it needs to be and I need help from the Lord and I would love the help from them as well, so we can just pray for each other. And, it’s great to hear your children praying for you, too. So, that is really my number one biggest thing and there are some days where we stop 10 times. And, there are others where we’re just all not listening to ourselves more than we’re listening to the spirit and we fly through and those are the days that at the end, you’re like, “Yay, Lord – that’ll get me through four more weeks.” But, that is really my biggest one is to just to stop. I’ve learned that if the spirit prompts you that you should be praying about something don’t say I’ll do this later, I’ll do this when [this] calms down. Just do it right then. Mystie: That is so good. Virginia Lee: So, that’s my biggest one. Mystie: That’s a great one. You can’t argue that, because who can change a sinner’s heart but the Holy Spirit alone. That’s where we have to go when we need heart change. Virginia Lee: And, because we’re the ones during the day leading our families and we’re all around each other I just want my kids to see that I need that heart change as much as they do. I need that attitude re-organization as much as they do, and so, I have always tried to communicate with them as well, not just keep it inside that I’m doing that, but just let them know, “This is happening with Mom right now, too.” What about you? Mystie: Mine’s really similar, maybe it’s the introverted version. In the Humble Habits Program that I worked through with a bunch of other ladies, one of the habits that we worked on, the very first one was prayer, and having a Scripture verse that you were going to pray, posted somewhere. So, to just have a go-to prayer to pray, it was good because we were stopping to pray at that time, when we saw that card. It was a prompt to pray, but then also in practicing praying it, it became more normal and natural to just have that go-to. Like, I can stop right here and I have a prayer in my heart, in my head, right now. So, do you have another one? Virginia Lee: So, I have a Notes app in my phone and maybe this isn’t the best place but I should probably switch to your Index Card so that I don’t have to get on my phone, but I keep four or five Bible verses in that Note app, depending on if there’s a struggle, or a season, or something that I know is a continuous thing that I’m working on that will affect my attitude (if that makes sense) and I keep those four or five verses in there so that when I’m feeling stubborn about it and I don’t want to reorganize my attitude I need the actual Word right then because I can have a really stubborn heart, so I pull up that Notes app and I just read through those four or five verses, because sometimes in those situations I feel that stubbornness and I feel that stronghold of not wanting to let go or to put my attitude where it needs to be, I need to go back through and read the Word itself, because even my prayer is going to be a little more like “Ah, I don’t wanna.” It’s really more of a prayer that needs to be like, “OK, Lord, I’m going to read Your Word right now because … “ but I can’t necessarily sit down and open the Bible and get into quiet time right at that moment. When I have my quiet times and I have those verses that pop out to me, those are the ones I keep in my phone and I just go back to during that really “I don’t want to re-organize my attitude right now” and … Mystie: I love that. Virginia Lee: … so, that’s what I do. I just go through and I just re-read those three or four verses. This works really well when you’re pregnant; when you’re tired and you’re weary and you have the stubbornness combined with the “I’m pregnant right now” … Mystie: Distraction. Virginia Lee: Yes, it really does. And, it really just helps you to focus on the joy to come and not the … no matter what it is, I seem to need those four or five, and sometimes one is not enough, I really do need I think the different parts of Scripture how they all relate together but compare and contrast with each other and that whole science of relations, that really helps me to just, “OK, here’s the Word,” and it’s a powerful tool. You know, like they say in 2 Timothy, “it is useful for teaching, correcting and training in righteousness…” I’ve got to have that. Mystie: And that’s removing the barriers. Virginia Lee: There’s often a time where we know we need to switch our attitudes back to where it needs to be, or we have the desire to do that, and we can. But, then there’s times when it’s just not there. We don’t have the desire for it, and that’s when God’s Word changes our hearts. Mystie: That is where to go for sure. Virginia Lee: So, what about you? Do you have another one? Mystie: So, I have a perhaps less spiritual one to end with but my cure-all is to drink water. Virginia Lee: Oh, actually that is so important and seriously, you laugh less spiritual, but I actually know a mom who went for four days without drinking water and had to go be in the hospital to be rehydrated. Mystie: Oh my. And, I find it’s a quick physical re-set button. It’s one of those ways to stop and I think some of it is the actual hydration and some of it is the just the act of stopping and doing something different. Still, it’s a good freeing thing, but I need to re-set now is chocolate or a vacation … we get all these things, you know what would make me feel better right now… no, I’m just going to go get a drink of water. Virginia Lee: You’re right, it just makes us slow down some. Mystie: I’ve been trying to do this more this last week because I realized I was going to … well, what I need is another cup of coffee. Virginia Lee: Hey, I’m not going to say you don’t need that. I’m not willing to put that on air. Mystie: But, if it’s cup number 5 or 6, well, then not only do I need more water then, the water might actually help my body function better than the coffee. Virginia Lee: Well, it really does. And I think we can get so busy in our heads and in our physical daily lives, water is really important. Mystie: It functions on multiple levels so I think just stopping, having a glass of water, it is amazing how much it helps.

Season 10: Planner Pep Talks The episodes in season 10 are excerpted from a live workshop I gave in February 2018 about how to make sure your planner and planning is not a waste of time. Hint: it’s more about us than about the planner. Get access to the whole workshop, the chat replay, and more here: Planners That Work Workshop And then, the bottom section is for your vocations. And again, I’m not going to get into vocations but basically, those are your areas of responsibility. And the vocations, as we work through them, in Simplified Organization, the e-Course, and in Work the Plan, the vocations are names that help us to think about what our responsibilities are. What are we here to do? Who are we here to be? And, it’s not up to us to establish our own vocations or identities. Vocation means calling, so if we’re married then one of our vocations is a wife. If we have children then one of our vocations is a mother. And, we don’t pick that, necessarily. We can’t pick to not be. So, it’s noticing what our vocations that we’re given are, and then organizing our life around that instead of trying to envision who we want to be or supposed to be in 10 or 5 years, our life goals, or whatever, it’s more looking around and observing where has God placed me, what am I called to do here and now (not necessarily super far into the future, but what about just right here and now), and identifying what am I doing in those areas, and what should I be doing in those areas. And, that helps us keep our eyes focused on the present, and who we’re called to serve right now, and what responsibilities we’ve been given right now, and that helps us filter the opportunities that come our way or the ideas that flit through our heads, so it helps us figure out what we should be spending our time on and what we should not be spending our time on. Do current chosen vocations fall in that definition? It depends—there is a free guide, if you go to SimplyConvivial.com you can search for vocations, and I think the post is called “Know Your Vocations” and there’s a free guide that you can download on helping you figure out what your vocations are. If you’ve chosen to homeschool then that’s a responsibility—you can’t keep your kids home from school and then not school them. So, whatever you are responsible to do today, this week, this year, that somehow fits into your vocations. So, it’s a little mental exercise, figuring out what the right names are the categories, then all of that, but I think it’s a very profitable exercise and thing to think through, because it helps us be intentional with our time and intentional with our decisions, and really know what we’re about, and that helps us to say no when we need to say no, and it helps to say yes when we need to say yes, also. So, the bottom section is where I have things broken down by vocation, so that I can make sure I am keeping a balance on things – that I’m not over doing it on one end but I’m paying attention to all the different people, basically is what it comes down to, that each person in my life is each getting the part of me that they should be getting. The post SO061: The Role of Vocations in Planning appeared first on Simply Convivial.

Season 10: Planner Pep Talks The episodes in season 10 are excerpted from a live workshop I gave in February 2018 about how to make sure your planner and planning is not a waste of time. Hint: it’s more about us than about the planner. Get access to the whole workshop, the chat replay, and more here: Planners That Work Workshop So, one of the biggest reasons why planners don’t work and are a waste of time when the problem is us, is simply not looking at the planner. So, we need to make looking at the planner a habit, and something that we do at least once a day, but really more than once a day—at least three times a day, or else the planner is just not going to work for you. It’s not going to be the useful, helpful tool if you aren’t looking at it. So, you’ve got to look at it in the morning, during your morning review, then you’ve got to look at it at least one other time in the middle of the day, in the midst of the crazy goings on, and then an evening review. So, those are the habits that make a planner work that we go over within Work the Plan and I also have several blog posts at SimplyConvivial.com about the morning review and an evening review, a weekly review, review, review, review – that basically means you have to look at it to for it to work for you. And a lot of times, almost anything would work if we used it. And the using it gives us that experience that helps us see which parts of it do and don’t fit our lives. So, we won’t know what kind of planner works for us unless we actually get some experience using one. So, it’s totally OK to just start with something, even if your something is a blank sheet of paper that you just has notes all over. Or, it’s a page that has a sticky note per day and you jot notes. It does not have to be fancy. It does not have to be organized in an Instagram-photo shoot kind of way. It doesn’t have to be just so, or just the perfect planner, the kind you want to use for forever. It has to be something so you get experience and figure out what’s going to work for you right now. So, it’s not so much about the planner page itself, the format, the template, what’s on it, what’s not on it – what really matters is that we have a place where we put things down that we can refer to so that we can keep things on paper and not in our own heads. If it’s not as pretty as the ones you see on Instagram it doesn’t mean that you’re doing it wrong. The post SO060: Build the Habit of Looking at Your Plan appeared first on Simply Convivial.

Season 10: Planner Pep Talks The episodes in season 10 are excerpted from a live workshop I gave in February 2018 about how to make sure your planner and planning is not a waste of time. Hint: it’s more about us than about the planner. Get access to the whole workshop, the chat replay, and more here: Planners That Work Workshop So, we go through these different seasons where we’re using time differently, we need to think about time differently, and put together the plan in a way that matches how our life is flowing. So, if you have a baby, or if you have primarily toddlers, then the way that your time flows, the way your day flows, is unique and it’s a thing. So, don’t try to fit your life into a planner, fit the planner to your life. So, maybe your time chunks are morning and afternoon, and that’s it. Still, you get three things per time block, and if you hit those things you’re good. And the things can’t be “clean the whole house” – that’s not one thing! We have to evaluate our expectations and what’s realistic. “Clean a drawer” is one thing. So, the important thing is looking at how your day flows and putting together a planner that reflects that is tricky, but thinking about it in that way, I think, helps us see other possibilities rather than just trying to print off (even mine, including mine) someone else’s planner template and then just trying to paste that into our life. But, to look at all the different templates that are out there and then say, “I like this about that one, I like this about this one” and try a few and maybe, for your interval, where you have six weeks of focus on certain projects – maybe a project for an interval is to figure out a planner that works for me. And, so each week you can try out a new thing. But, you’ve got to give it at least a week before you know whether or not it’s working for you. And, you also, as you evaluate have to honestly evaluate is the planner not working for me because it doesn’t match the way my life flows or the categories that my brain thinks in, is it not working for that reason, or is it not working because I wasn’t looking at it, because I wasn’t working the plan myself. Was the problem the planner or was the problem me? And, going through and just honestly doing that evaluation, it’s not the sort of condemnation, sort of thing, like if the problem is you (because sometimes it is, sometimes it’s me – a lot of the times it’s me) and when you realize that, it’s not a guilt-fest, it’s a well-what’s-getting-in-the-way? Is it my attitude? Is it my habits? And, how can I change my attitude? And, how can I change my habits, because those are things that we do have control over and we can change. And, just being aware and trying things out and being intentional is the first step, because that’s when we notice what’s going on in our heads, it’s when we notice what our habits are, and that’s really the first step – is paying attention and noticing. The post SO059: Planning Seasonally appeared first on Simply Convivial.

Season 10: Planner Pep Talks The episodes in season 10 are excerpted from a live workshop I gave in February 2018 about how to make sure your planner and planning is not a waste of time. Hint: it’s more about us than about the planner. Get access to the whole workshop, the chat replay, and more here: Planners That Work Workshop It’s a way to realistically evaluate what’s going on in your life and what you need to be doing and what you are doing and what you should be doing, because the potential of what we could do is great. And, maybe if you have your mind wrapped around what you are doing, you find that there is room for me, there is room for that creative project, there’s room for this or that, or sometimes you evaluate where you are and you think, ‘Oh, that’s why I feel crazy because I feel like I’ve got all these things going on and now I need to look through and maybe cut some things,’ so the planner is really a tool of evaluation and a tool of focus, but we are still the ones doing the work. The planner’s not going to do any of the work for us, and the planner’s not going to make it easier to do the work either, it’s just going to make what the work is clearer, but writing things down is huge, and I think that’s the real power for having a planner sheet is just that it is written down and out of your head, because when we try to keep all the details in our head that’s where we’re bound to go crazy and feel like we can’t key above, we can’t juggle it all, and a lot of times the problem is just that all the details are in our heads and so we can’t use our heads for thinking or creative problem solutions or even doing the work because our heads are so full of just trying to keep track of the details, so we need to use the paper for what it’s good for, which is keeping track of the details and then our heads for what they are good for, which is thinking things through, coming up with solutions and maybe moving us forward. Keeping things on paper or outside of your head at least so you don’t have to keep track of everything. The post SO058: Your Planner is a Focus Tool appeared first on Simply Convivial.

Season 10: Planner Pep Talks The episodes in season 10 are excerpted from a live workshop I gave in February 2018 about how to make sure your planner and planning is not a waste of time. Hint: it’s more about us than about the planner. Get access to the whole workshop, the chat replay, and more here: Planners That Work Workshop Partial Transcript: So, our planning system and our planner in particular is something that we do have to come back and revisit and reiterate, put together again. That’s not a waste of time. If we’re coming back at it regularly but not re-making the entire plan everyday (I’ve done that, it is a waste of time), it’s productive procrastination. Procrastination that feels productive: "my life is entirely falling apart, I don’t even know what to do next, I’m just going to make a new planner page (because that’ll help) and honestly, it often does feel like if I just get this planner thing right, everything will fall into place." That’s not actually the way it works. We’ve got a road — the productivity road, the road of doing what we’re supposed to be doing when we’re supposed to be doing it. There’s a ditch on one side of the road that says “I don’t feel like I’m going as fast as I want to or I don’t know if I’m on the right road and so I’m going to re-do my planner even though I made one yesterday." That sort of re-upping, re-evaluating too soon where you haven’t actually had time to work the plan; there’s not time to have experience in the planner and figure out what’s working, what’s not working, and why. And so, the solution we come up with as our creativity outlet is coming up with a new planner page. There are better creative outlets and more refreshing ones than that. So, we don’t want to re-create our planner pages at the drop of a hat just because one thing didn’t go well today or because we actually don’t want to do the plan, making a new planner page is not going to make us want to do the plan. But, sometimes that’s the reason why we choose a planner, or we try to re-do it, or we buy a new planner. We look to the planner to change, basically to change our hearts, and it’s not going to do it. And, then the ditch on the other side of the road is to just throw off all planning altogether and say, “Well, I have wasted time, the planner didn’t work for me today, or this whole week, or this whole month, and so I must not be a planner. This doesn’t work for me so I’m not going to do any.” That is a ditch on the side of the road; being organized, being productive doesn’t mean that you have to be a driven type, a super fast, high energy kind of person. Planning, keeping a planner, trying to be organized is just about trying to be prepared for the service and responsibilities that God has given you and it’s about thinking through what those responsibilities are because so much of the time our minds are filled with ‘ought to’s’ that aren’t necessarily ‘ought to’s’ – maybe they’re can’s, I might be able to do this, or maybe I should do this, but I think that we, too often, feel obligated to do things that we shouldn’t necessarily feel obligated to do. So, the process of planning is distilling what are my responsibilities and where should my focus be, so that when those different ideas, details, possibilities, come at you, you can legitimately and without too much decision-fatigue, or a gut-wrenching pro’s and con’s list just say, “Not room for that” or “That’s not part of my priorities right now,” and it helps make that decision on yes, I can do that, no I can’t do that. The post SO057: Are You Trapped in Productive Procrastination? appeared first on Simply Convivial.

Season 10: Planner Pep Talks The episodes in season 10 are excerpted from a live workshop I gave in February 2018 about how to make sure your planner and planning is not a waste of time. Hint: it’s more about us than about the planner. Get access to the whole workshop, the chat replay, and more here: Planners That Work Workshop There are all kinds of ways to do planning, to have a planner, to use a planner. Different things will work for different people and different things will work for the same person at different times. So, we’re going to share some ideas and try to help each other to figure out what is working and what isn’t working with our planning system. The key to having a planner that works is being able to customize it to what we need. How many times have you tried to use someone else’s planner and had the boxes or the question not work for you? You thought that this format that worked for other people, that someone really smart put together, should work and if it didn't, the problem was probably you. Other people's planners for sale have questions, boxes to fill in, menu plan sections - you start filling it in and you feel like you spend way too much time planning, or it’s just not the right fit, it just doesn’t click. It feels like a waste of time, and who wants to waste time? Not all planning time is a good use of time. We can waste our time planning. But, if we start going into that pattern of thinking where we say that all planning, or any time spent planning is a waste of time, or any planner is a waste of time, then we can guarantee they won't work for us. We won't use our planner in a good way because we’re coming at it with a bad attitude. So, we’re going to look at planning and the different ways to go about it, to make sure our planning is not a waste of time. The post SO056: When Planning Feels Like a Waste of Time appeared first on Simply Convivial.

Season 9: Quick Ways to Organize Your Attitude If there’s one thing that derails our attitudes, it’s feeling overwhelmed and uncertain about what we should actually be doing. There are so many options, so many opportunities. We simply must say no at times, but how can we know when we should say no and when we need to be stretched by saying yes? The answer lies in our vocations. Our vocations are made up of the big responsibilities we’re given. Read the original post here: Know Your Vocations Find Your Vocations A free guide for finding your calling and responsibilities so you can make decisions with clarity and peace. Get an email whenever there's a new episode! The Simplified Organization Audio Blog! Organize your attitude. Success! Now check your email to confirm your subscription. There was an error submitting your subscription. Please try again. First Name Email Address We use this field to detect spam bots. If you fill this in, you will be marked as a spammer. I'd like to receive the free email course. Subscribe Powered by ConvertKit The post SO055: Clear Vocations appeared first on Simply Convivial.

Season 9: Quick Ways to Organize Your Attitude Anxiety and worry are attitudes we need to rid ourselves of. Peace and joy (among others) are the fruits of the Holy Spirit, the attitudes of Christ we are to put on. God’s peace, by the Holy Spirit, guards our hearts, changes our attitudes, when we pray with thanksgiving. Having peace and joy is not something we must do on our own before we present our requests, but something we ask for with thanksgiving and in the moment – all the moments, the many moments – we need it. But prayer is also something we can weave into everything we do, as 1 Thessalonians tells us, “pray without ceasing.” Read the original post here: Pause to Pray Get an email whenever there's a new episode! The Simplified Organization Audio Blog! Organize your attitude. Success! Now check your email to confirm your subscription. There was an error submitting your subscription. Please try again. First Name Email Address We use this field to detect spam bots. If you fill this in, you will be marked as a spammer. I'd like to receive the free email course. Subscribe Powered by ConvertKit The post SO054: Prayerful Pause appeared first on Simply Convivial.