Maintaining simplicity is an important step in making sure your simplicity efforts don’t go by the wayside. We’ve said all along that simplifying your life isn’t a one time deal…it’s a lifestyle. And as with any lifestyle or major focus area in your life, you have to nurture it and care for it, otherwise your efforts will be in vain.

So why is maintaining simplicity so important?  Well, just like a car or the air conditioning unit in your home, if you do regular maintenance and tune ups on them, the less likely you are to be in a situation where you’re facing catastrophic failure…or a colossal bill to repair it!  Read more…

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Topic: The Maintenance Side of Simplicity

The same goes for simplifying your life. Paying attention to and doing regular simplicity checkups will go a long way in ensuring your efforts to simplify your life will last a lifetime.

Background: Interestingly enough, the background for this episode was Vanessa’s early dandelion pulling session at 7:30 AM on a cold (41 degree) morning last week. You’ll just have to listen to get the full story!

Maintaining Simplicity 

So, we all know what maintenance is…actions, routines or systems you put in place in order to keep things functioning smoothly in your life. Maintenance is like getting a tune up. You might even consider maintenance like getting and an extended warranty, only instead paying a fee up front to cover when systems fall apart, you are paying in terms of your time and effort to hopefully keep the systems running smoothly. And the reality is, if you’re consistent with your maintenance efforts, it really won’t cost you that much time or effort. So let’s cover a few major life areas where maintaining simplicity are important.

• Maintaining Simplicity in Organization. As a Certified Professional Organizer®, Vanessa deals with maintenance all the time. It’s the final step in the organizing cycle. Well, it’s not really a final step because the organizing process is cyclical. After editing and organizing a space, she uses several tools and systems to help keep the space organized. Now, for some of her clients, maintenance means having an organizer (her) come back and reorganize a space…and that can work too. Outsourcing your maintenance can be a great tool too!

• Maintaining Simplicity with Systems: Maintenance can be tools or habits. For example:
  • Setting up a desktop action file to manage your daily mail is a tool to help maintain the influx of papers. Checking the Action File on a daily basis and clearing it out on a weekly basis is a habit and routine.
  • Practicing the one-in-one out rule for your clothes, toys or any other item you bring into your life is another tool or habit to help maintain the balance in your home.
  • There’s a great ( and free) book and audiobook you should check out that fits right in here. It’s called “Work the System” by Sam Carpenter and you can find it at WorkTheSystem.com. Sam’s systems mindset fits right in with what we’re saying here and every time we talk about systematizing things when you simplify your life. 

• Maintaining Simplicity with Routines: Your routines are a key part in maintaining your simple lifestyle…they kind of go hand in hand. These immediately come to mind:
  • Your morning routine…this helps you maintain a smooth start to every day
  • School routines…they ensure your family stays in a rhythm and consistent with completing and turning in homework assignments, projects,etc…with little stress.
  • Workout and fitness routines are another example…obviously maintaining a routine will help keep your fitness and health in check.
  • And on the job, office routines are important…setting up routines to make sure you stay on task can help counter procrastination and stress as well as help you maintain your productivity.
    • SOPs and job books.

• Our Routines Require Maintenance Too! The natural times to evaluate your routines are:
  • When there is a major life event or change to your normal rhythm…like the start of a new school year, a new job, a move, or the desire to start a lifestyle routine (diet, fitness, minimalism)
  • And you may need to do a little maintenance on your routines when they don’t seem to be working:
    • Like when your fitness and meal planning fall off track
    • Or when your routines may seem like they should work but just don’t. (Our morning routine)

• Preventing Digital Clutter. This is one where if you don’t do regular maintenance, it can catch up to you quick! In past shows, we talked about the importance of setting up systems for maintaining simplicity. Here are a few:
  • Photos (SLT 040 and Vanessa’s video)
  • Your email inbox. (SLT 012, Sun Tzu & the Art of Inbox Warfare)
  • Mobile device apps, etc. (SLT 026: Spring Cleaning Your Home, Life & Tech)

• The same thing goes with Paper Clutter. Maintenance of your paper files can be in the form of:
  • Making a routine of checking and sorting your mail and papers on a daily basis.
  • Using a desktop Action File (Vanessa’s video) as a tool to help you sort and get your to-dos done.
  • Editing and organizing your permanent files on an annual basis
  • Editing kids’ homework, art and keepsakes on a daily basis.
  • Or simply resisting the temptation to print out papers that can remain as a digital file, or collecting papers, flyers and other swag at stores and conferences, etc. That mindset will help maintain the influx of stuff you’ll have to deal with later.

• Maintaining Simplicity of Your Physical Space is Key:
  • Adopt Spring Cleaning as a mindset…a home detox.
  • Cleaning up and cleaning out your physical spaces and things will not only extend the lifespan of products, but will help maintain a peaceful environment.
  • Our Edit and Forget It Challenge,  has been an all year spring cleaning project!
    • We did a major edit of our garage last year but we’ll keep revisiting it.
      • Because lifestyles change, things come and go…and it just makes sense to revisit your things and spaces in order to maintain them.

• And Lastly, Do a  Life Plan or Lifestyle Review. Matter of fact, we’re doing our annual life plan review to make sure we’re still on track with our simplicity goals. Heck, we know our lives have changed quite a bit. Even our ideas of simplicity changed over the year, but it’s that annual review that keeps us on our general path. And it can for you too. Dan also does occasional personal reviews, too.

Final Thoughts

So the bottom line is that maybe the way to think about maintenance is not as a chore but more of an investment in your life of simplicity. Consider it your extended warranty to guarantee a simpler life. Setting up routines and systems to edit and control the things in your life will go a long way to ensure your efforts to simplify your life will last a lifetime.

Question:

So, have you considered the maintenance side of your simple life? What systems, routines and tools do you use to keep your life simple? And if you haven’t thought about maintenance before, what areas of your life do you think could benefit from establishing a maintenance system? We’d love to know.

 Be sure to leave a comment below.

Qs & Comments Segment:

Pam commented that she’s “…quite sure I am not in your normal demographics. I am a retired schoolteacher, however, I wanted to let you know how much I’ve benefited by your knowledge and expertise.”

Kate left us a beautiful comment and closed with saying, “Some people might cut back on buying things for environmental reasons, for religious reasons, or for financial reasons. We can still all support each other while we ride the train together, even though we are going to different cities. Thanks so much.”

Lara Blair of TheExtraOrdinarySimpleLife.com authored our first-ever guest post, and followed up with a comment to Vanessa, “Thank you so much for the opportunity, Vanessa. I’m a big fan of all that you two do. Your podcasts are such a treat on my runs (as a runner, I know you know the value of something that can take your mind off aching muscles!).  Looking forward to the exciting things coming up on your blog and podcast. BTW, don’t stop saying “anyhows”…it’s sweet and part of your charm 🙂

Thing Segment:

Dan:  I found some amazing merino wool socks, made here in the US that are guaranteed for life. They’re actually cheaper than the SmartWool socks I used to buy, which I loved when new, but they wore out too quickly. These new ones are awesome…I swear they’re bulletproof, they feel great, fit right into our shift to mostly travel-style outfits for our Project 333 capsule outfits, and again, have a no questions asked guarantee. 

 Announcements:

• I’m working with our friend Joel Zaslofsky of Value of Simple on a “simplicity summit” of sorts, called SimpleRev, short for simple revolution. SimpleRev will be 200+ passionate simple-living advocates. Joshua Becker of Becoming Minimalist will be there, too! To learn more, just go to SimpleRev.com or SimpleLifeTogether.com/rev.
  • Date/Location: October 3-4, 2014
  • Location: Minneapolis, Minnesota
  • Venue: University of St. Thomas Downtown Campus
• We could also use your help by taking part in a very quick survey at SimpleLifeTogether.com/SimpleRevSurvey 

• Special thanks to all of you who’ve left reviews for us on iTunes. It really does help people find the show.

So here’s a shout out to:

• Lara Blair at TheExtraOrdinarySimpleLife.com
• NerdsNextDoor

• Don’t forget if you have questions or just want to learn more about Project 333 or Courtney Carver’s Dress With Less microcourse. You can learn more about that at SimpleLifeTogether.com/dress.

Finally, sign up for the Edit & Forget It Challenge! If you’re already on our Edit & Forget It Challenge email list, that’s great. If not, you can sign up here.

 Shownotes:

You can download a PDF of our show prep, too.

Resources and Links:

• You can help support SimpleLifeTogether.com by using our Amazon Affiliate Link for any purchases you must make. Thanks!
• Dress With Less

 Photo Credit Boston Public Library, Leslie Jones Collection