As we bring Simple Life Together to a close, we wanted to offer a little update on where our simplicity journey has taken us over the last three years. This is Part 2 of that update. Do yourself a favor and listen to Episode 78 first

This is what will most likely be our final update episode, so if this is your first time listening in, I’d suggest you go back to around Episode 65: Strategic Simple Living to make sure this episode and Episode 78: Still Simplifying After All These Years Part 1 make sense. Of course if you want in on ALL the goodness, just start at Episode 1! It’ll be worth it, guaranteed!

Thank you all so much for listening in! It has been a great ride and I’m sure we’ve learned much more from you than you learned from us. Please…go out there enjoy your… Simple Life Together!

• Comprehensive list of past SLT Episodes

The post SLT079: Part 2 of Still Simplifying After All These Years appeared first on Simple Life Together.

In this episode of Simple Life Together, we offer a little update on where our simplicity journey has taken us over the last three years. And…it has been amazing!

This is an update episode, so if this is your first time listening in, I’d suggest you go back to around Episode 65: Strategic Simple Living to make sure this episode and Episode 79: Still Simplifying After All These Years Part 2 make sense. Of course if you want in on ALL the goodness, just start at Episode 1! It’ll be worth it, guaranteed!

• Comprehensive list of past SLT Episodes

The post SLT078: Still Simplifying After All These Years Part 1 appeared first on Simple Life Together.

Topic: Simple Answers to Listener Questions

Update on Vanessa’s S.I.M.P.L.E. Organizing System Course

Vanessa launched her S.I.M.P.L.E. Organizing System course to a small list of people and it went really well! That said, we’re not really happy with how the course is currently hosted on an external site.

The content is proven and system works, but we’re just not happy with any platforms we’ve tried. They’re too expensive and seem clunky. So we’re considering just making the course an “in your Inbox” course, so people don’t have to log into an outside website, remember another log in, hope the site isn’t slow, etc. People are comfortable in their Inbox. They go there every day. And it would lower the cost of the course dramatically. So I’m working hard on that, to bring Vanessa’s amazing system to more people in a simpler way.

If you want to be in the loop with Vanessa’s course, the S.I.M.P.L.E. Organizing System, you can sign up for updates at GetOrganizedSOS.com and you’ll be the first to know when things are ready to go!

Listener Questions

Simplifying The Holidays

– Tips on storing your Christmas decorations and paraphernalia…for next year

– Giving experiences instead of things

– How to keep the holidays simple

– How to be present…NOT perfect…for the holidays

– Tips on simplifying cleanup after the meal

– Creative non-material gift giving ideas

– Favorite holiday traditions

– What to tell people when they ask what gifts you’d like

– Favorite podcasts, audio books, blogs, simple living role models you find inspiring, iPhone apps as gifts

New Year’s Goals, Resolutions

– Setting  goals and resolutions for the New Year or any time

– How to stop procrastinating

– Simplicity when no one is watching or listening

What We’ve Been Up To

– Expectations vs. Reality as we transition

– Updates on our move, status of the house build, etc

– How Sunshine, our son, and his mom are dealing with our move

– Our teardrop camper, favorite trips this year, planned trips for next year

– New business ventures/challenges for moving Vanessa’s organizing business

– When we’re getting our nationally syndicated talk show on HGTV and/or Oprah (we loved this question!)

– Changes/updates to our exercising routines or smoothie making/juicing

Question:

So, we answered your questions…how about you answer one for us? What are your plans for the New Year? How do you plan on incorporating more simplicity into your life? We’d love to know!

Announcements:

Feedback:

We’ve had lots of great comments on iTunes…thank you so much! The show went a little longer than we expected, so we’ll be sure to read the comments on the next episode.

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!
• The Pursuit of Perfect by Tal Ben-Shahar
• Comprehensive list of past SLT Episodes

Photo Credit 

The post SLT077: Simple Answers to Listener Questions appeared first on Simple Life Together.

There are so many reasons to simplify. But one very lucrative reason to simplify is to increase the sale price of your home and set the stage for a quick sale. So, let’s talk a little about simplifying to sell your home.

To do that, we’re going to share some of our experiences with doing exactly that over the last couple of months, so if you’re selling your home…or know someone else who is…or if you’re simply looking for a fresh start in your current home, maybe we can shed some light on things that worked for us. Read More…

Topic:  4 Key Points To Keep In Mind When Simplifying To Sell Your Home

Topic

We recently had a fantastic sales experience when selling our home in preparation to move to East Aurora, NY.

Our home went up for sale the evening of the 15th of May…and before our realtor was even able to put a sign up in the yard, it sold on the morning of 16May! The first 3 couples that looked at the home all put in solid offers. The first 2 for $10k over asking price! We accepted both and had a back-up offer throughout the entire closing period (yeah)! In the end, it sold for about $35K more than we had originally even hoped for!

Background

So as we mentioned in the last episode, we’re moving from the suburbs of San Antonio, Texas to the little village of East Aurora, NY, home of America’s simplicity movement back in the late 1890s and early 1900s.

Well, back in December of 2014, I was doing some backwards planning and realized that in order to build our new home on schedule, the right thing to do was sell our house in San Antonio in the Spring of 2015. So, we planned on listing at the start of the real estate season…1 May.

But in the mean time, all through Jan, Feb, March and April, I had been working out all the curriculum, scripts, testing the right platform, etc, for Vanessa’s soon to be released training product, Get Organized SOS, which is an intensive online course that teaches her proven system to organize any space. All this while prepping our house for sale. Vanessa and I planned to work on things in the background during this busy time, and launch a beta or test program in the late summer.

But while meeting with my marketing coach in April, he challenged me to launch the beta NOW. I insisted that now wasn’t the time…

Vanessa was actually in the middle of attending her week long annual professional organizers conference…

Plus we were prepping a house, listing a house, selling a house, packing to move and moving into a new place over the course of the next 6 weeks.

And, while Vanessa and I had all the material ready, we had exactly NO videos done! Plus, some of the video conferencing platforms were new to us. We needed more prep time!

No…now was not the time to launch!

But as any good coach does, he gently nudged me (actually, it felt more like my old paratrooper days as he kicked my butt out the jump door of the plane)! I called Vanessa and she said “Let’s go for it!!” No guts, no glory, right? So we launched the beta, shot the videos, and…it was awesome!

But, man, it was hectic!!! The beta lasted all of May, and all the while we were prepping our home and the World Shedquarters for sale. Our home went up for sale, sold…done!

Trouble was, now we had to find a place to live.

So Here’s How It All Went Down…

There were 4 key simplicity points that led to that great sale experience, our ability to to juggle a “crazy busy” schedule and still stay sane. And candidly, you could glean something from each one of these points even if you’re not simplifying to sell your home, but just looking for a fresh start or some positive change in your life.

So here goes!

Key Point #1: Make sure your desires are in line with your life plan, your goals are in line with your desires, and your actions are in line with your goals.

Way back in Episode 32, we talked about how the choices we make impact everything in our lives.

If you’ve been listening to the show for a while, you’ve heard about the start of our journey and you were with us through the sale of our land out in the Texas Hill Country, scrapping the idea of the big house in the middle of nowhere, etc. If you’re a new listener you can check out our About Us video and you’ll hear all about our decision to pursue a path toward more simplicity in our lives.

So since then, we’ve taken consistent action. To a large extent, we shaped our own little world and how we live our lives in it. The world loves a self-made man or woman, but I love the saying from Earl Nightingale that “We are all self-made, but only the successful will admit it.”

You know we’ve been on this journey for a couple years now, and we’ve been taking all the steps necessary to shape our world. And you can shape yours, too! You may have a lifestyle you want to live someday and by staying true to that you can achieve it. Make sure you’re living your Now in a way that supports your tomorrow.

So again, key point #1…make sure your actions are in line with your goals. Stay focused. You can do this…but you have to be consistent. It’s the little things we do every day that keep us consistent and on path toward our goals.

Alright…if you’re simplifying to sell your home, take heed. Key Point #2 is: Planning is a must!

We followed our own advice from Episode 42, The Upside of Downsizing. We also took steps to make the 1800sf  home we had, live like it was much larger.

Long before we planned to move, we made improvements to the house using what we call organization-based design. It’s our perspective of how we design simplicity and organization into our spaces. Our remodeling projects in the kitchen and bathrooms had a great return. And the World Shedquarters was apparently a hit, too! Improvements like cubbies, built in storage, the Elfa shelving system in the pantry, the new kitchen cabinets with slide outs, etc, all tied in to our organization-based design concept. And trust me…people know organized and simple when they see. They’re drawn to it. Nobody “wants” to live a cluttered life. So, show people a little calm and they’re drawn right in.

On the tech side, we used Trello as a planning tool to manage, share, and track our To Dos. Trello is a collaboration tool that organizes your projects into boards. In one glance, Trello tells you what’s being worked on, who’s working on what, and where something is in a process. We had a “Get House Ready for Sale” board that had lists for Inside, Outside, and Done. As we finished tasks, we’d move the from the Inside or Outside board, over to the Done board. I like it because it’s very visual, as opposed to standard “list” based. I’ve been using it since. You can find out more at Trello.com. Steve Dotto has some great videos on Trello over at DottoTech.com. I’ll put a link in the shownotes.

So again, Key Point #2 is to make your plan. This will go a long way in helping to ensure you stay on track with Key Point 1, too, making sure your actions are in line with your goals.

OK…Key Point #3 is: Understand the value of margin.

Remember our definition of margin is “Uncommitted time and space in your life.” In this case, I’m referring to the ‘unused space’ portion of our definition. In the real estate world, nothing (meaning empty space and square footage) is worth a whole lot more than your “stuff” that takes up that space!

There were so many things we could have kept “just in case” but as we were going through this I kept reminding myself that “just in case” things do nothing but get in the way. When you really need something, you can find, rent, or borrow it. As a worst case scenario, yes…you may have to buy it again. So forget about the just in case stuff. It’s just getting in your way. If you need something, you’re smart and can find it when you need it. Trust yourself and your resourcefulness.

Tying in with that…our Edit & Forget It Challenge in 2013 and 2014 was key! It set the stage for truly decluttering our home and our day to day lifestyle. That said, we still got rid of well over 3000 more things in 2015 as we were simplifying to sell your home just before the move! We intend to live even more “light and lean” in our year in the apartment and in our new home in East Aurora.

We’ve just really embraced the idea of incorporating margin in our home and appreciating the openness and empty spaces in it. As we’ve decluttered our home over the past couple of years or so, we’ve really come to love the increased peacefulness that having less stuff has given us.

So again…Key Point #3 is to understand the value of margin. Free space. Both the Census Bureau and the National Assoc’n of Home builders list the number one reason for moving, as the pursuit of a better home. And one thing that consistently ranks at the top of desires for home attributes, is space. Living space and storage space. Show them the margin, they’ll show you the money. Or, give yourself some margin and gain a little more peace.

And finally…Key Point #4 for us was: Get past the mentality that you’re selling YOUR house. It’s far more about the buyers buying THEIR future home!

They need to see themselves there…the possibilities, the opportunities, and the wonderful memories they’ll make there. It’s not about you. If they walk into a messy, poorly maintained, or cluttered home, it becomes about you and how you live, and not about them. It needs to be about them!

So again…key point #4 is you’re not selling your house, they’re buying their home. It’s kind of like gift giving… If I’m looking to give you a gift, I look for a gift that you’ll want and appreciate, not necessarily one that I want to give. Same goes for selling your house.

Wrap Up:

So if you’re simplifying to sell your home, here’s a quick recap:

Key Point 1: Make sure your actions are in line with your goals
Key Point 2: Planning is a must!
Key Point 3: Understand the value of margin. Free space.
Key Point 4: You’re not selling your house, they’re buying their home.

So…there is no way we could have gotten more than our asking price, had such a great sale experience, and wrapped things up so quickly if we hadn’t simplified our lives and our home.

Vanessa was able to keep an influx of clients happy, and we were able to prep, list, and sell the house, move, and develop and launch a 3-week, multimedia and coaching product all over the course of 6 weeks! (More on Vanessa’s product in later shows).

And boy…were we ready for our road trip!!!

Question:

So, are you planning on simplifying to sell your home or do you want to make a positive change in your life? Do you think some of the key points we mentioned could help? If so, we’d love to hear about it and what tools or strategies you’re using that are helping you. Leave us a comment below!

Announcements:

Feedback:

Special thanks to Jodialgara, Suea626 , Whitephone, and Ja-Ro-El-Sha for your reviews on iTunes!

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!
• The Pursuit of Perfect by Tal Ben-Shahar
• Our Realtor Kim McCullough
• Supermom vs Super Mom
• Website Guide
• Comprehensive list of past SLT Episodes

Photo Credit MarkMoz12

The post SLT076: Simplifying to Sell Your Home appeared first on Simple Life Together.

But when we came to a decision point, we used a different framework for evaluating our final choice…and actually choosing where we’re moving to. So, armed with all we learned from the 4 Direction Ideation Tool process, we did our final analysis through the lenses of the 4 major areas of our life: Home, Work, Community, and Self.  And yep, we’re moving! We don’t have a hard and fast timeline yet, but we actually put our money where our collective mouth is and bought a lot to build on! Read More…

Topic:  4 Critical Areas You Need to Consider When Downsizing

Background

So there are 4 critical areas you need to consider when downsizing, moving, simplifying, or making any other major change in life if you want to achieve and maintain some kind of congruence. They are Home, Work, Community, and Self.

I borrowed and tweaked some definitions for these from a course I took through Wharton taught by Stew Friedman. But the true key is that you need to define these areas for yourself. What works for you might be completely different from what works for us and that’s fine. Again, the goal is to achieve some congruity between these areas and create what Dr Friedman calls “4 Way Wins.” A 4 Way Win is an activity that has a positive impact on each of the four major areas of your life. Again, those are Home, Work, Community, and Self.

Example

Continuing on with our example of looking for the ideal place for us to live, you can listen in to the episode and hear how we looked at those 4 critical life areas and how they impacted our downsizing efforts and our simplicity journey.

So the big announcement for us is that we’re moving to East Aurora, New York. Yeah…we know…we’re the family that is actually moving TO the Buffalo, NY area! But we know exactly what we’re getting into! I’m from Buffalo and it’ll be great to get back there after 31 years away, and living all over the world. And the little village of East Aurora embodies so much of what we’re looking for in a small town community. If you listen back to Episode 65 you’ll be amazed at what we said we were looking for, and what East Aurora has to offer. All except “mild winters,” that is!

“Anyhoos” (as Vanessa would say), here’s a quick video of some of the history of East Aurora and it’s influence on simplicity. You’ll see right off why we’re attracted to it!

Four Areas

So we’ve mentioned these four major life areas. Let’s address these one at a time. If you listen in to the show, you’ll see how we used each of these to evaluate where we’re going to call home.

The first area is Home. The home, or family, can include the people (or animals) you live with, your family of origin (parents, siblings, and others), or your family of creation (spouse, partner, significant other, children, and others). We include our physical home too. For us, we want that to be an outgrowth of our relationship with those close to us, and serve as a setting for interaction with them.

The second area is Work. Now, this could be different for everyone. For most people, this is your job… what you do for a living or, if you’re between jobs, what you’re aiming to do next. If you’re in school, then consider school as part of your work domain. You can include here the wide array of things you do as part of your career.

Then we have Community. Community can mean friends, neighbors, social groups, religious institutions, charitable activities, political committees, membership in nonprofit organizations, or anything that bears on your impact on the world beyond your work and your family.

Finally, we have Self. Self includes your physical and emotional health, intellectual and personal growth, leisure, and spirituality.

Wrap Up

So that’s it! The four life areas we considered and analyzed as we downsize our life. Starting off with a strategic focus using the 4 Direction Ideation Tool was a great start, but honing in using the major life areas of Home, Work, Community, and Self really helped us to decide where we want to live.

Again, whether you’re downsizing or not, take some time to examine your life using Home, Work, Community, and Self as lenses. You might just be surprised how many “4 way wins” you’re able to achieve and help bring some real congruence to your life!

Question:

So, what decisions could you make to achieve more 4 Way Wins? Are you considering downsizing or a big move in your future? If so, we’d love to hear about it and what tools you’re using to make your decisions. Leave us a comment below!

Announcements:

Feedback:

Special thanks to Jodialgara, Klund08, SimplyClearly-Laura Spawn and SherryLCarver.com for you reviews on iTunes, and to Henriikka in France and Katie in Okinawa for your comments on SimpleLifeTogether.com!

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!
• Supermom vs Super Mom
• Website Guide
• Comprehensive list of past SLT Episodes

Photo Credit Timothy Valentine

The post SLT075: 4 Critical Areas You Need to Consider When Downsizing appeared first on Simple Life Together.

One of our most popular shows was Episode 55, 7 Habits for Highly Effective Simplicity. We passed along what we feel are the top 7 habits you can develop to bring some serious simplicity into your life. That show was shared thousands of times…over 2300 times on our Pinterest page alone! Well, today we’re going to share 3 more. So let’s jump right in!  Read More…

Note: Get a copy of Supermom vs Super Mom for yourself or gift it to a Mom who needs a little “less” in her life. It’s less than $5 and will save you countless hours and effort!

Buy Supermom vs Supermom

Topic:  3 Simple Living Habits You Can Use Right Now

Habit 1: When searching for a solution, start with yourself first. Chances are, just like Dorothy with the ruby slippers in the Wizard of Oz, you had the power all along.

Tap into resources you already have. Shop in your own closet, pantry, etc…

When you work to solve your own problems, you are exercising your innovation muscles!

Too often we ask someone else for an answer. At least Google it before you ask.

By looking outside yourself, automatically you established a need…a need that didn’t exist. That makes you a consumer instead of a producer and plays right into the hands of the marketing messages we’re subjected to 3-5000 times a day.

Habit 2: Often, establishing a simplicity habit involves establishing a framework that helps you deal with things in a predictable manner. Try experimenting with different frameworks to see what works for you! Here are 3 we use:

The W-I-N Framework: One I’ve been using more and more lately is the WIN framework. WIN stands for “What’s Important Now” and Vanessa first heard about it in Greg McKeown’s excellent book Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less.

The Eisenhauer Matrix Framework: You’ve probably seen this one before, but just imagine a simple foursquare matrix. The vertical axis plots importance and the horizontal axis plots urgency. So if you picture the four squares, the top/left square is Box 1, Urgent & Important box. The top right is Box 2, Less Urgent & Important. Box 3 on the bottom/left is Less Important & Urgent. And finally, Box 4, Less Important & Less urgent, is on the bottom/right. The folks over at Eisenhauer.me did a great little video:

Isn’t that the truth! “What is important is seldom urgent and what is urgent is seldom important.”

The S.I.M.P.L.E. Method of Organizing Framework: Another framework is Vanessa’s S.I.M.P.L.E. Method© of organizing which she breaks down in great detail in her book Super Mom vs Supermom: Simplicity Tips for Busy Moms Here’s an outline:

Strategize:
• What are your needs?
• How do you want your space to look, feel, and function like?

Identify:
• What’s working?
• What’s not working?
• What are your limitations of the space?
• Draw or take pictures of the space.
• Take measurements.

Make Piles:
• Clear your space one area at a time.
• Work from left to right and top to bottom.
• Sort into general categories…like with like.
• Don’t edit yet! Make the piles first to see what and how much you have.

Pare Down and Edit:
• After you make piles then tackle one pile at a time…one item at a time.
• Decide: Do I USE it? Do I LOVE it? Do I NEED it?
• If yes…KEEP it!
• If no…LET it GO!
• When you’re done editing, remove unwanted and unneeded items immediately!

Let’s Organize:
• Assign zones.
• Keep like items with like items.
• Put it where you use it.
• Put frequently used items within arms reach.
• Make sure things are easy to get to…think accessibility; open bins, simple systems, etc.
• Don’t compromise safety for organization.
• Use containers and containers within containers.
• Label, label, label!

Evaluate and Maintain:
• Establish routines.
• Develop habits.
• Set reminders.
• Don’t forget the One-In, One-Out rule.
• Repeat the  S-I-M-P-L-E Method as a means to maintain your system or to update your systems when your needs change.

You can find the whole SIMPLE process in Vanessa’s book on Amazon. Seriously, it’s less than a decent cup of coffee and you should treat yourself.

Habit 3: Lead Others To Simple Living By Leading Yourself:  The number 1 question or pain point we get from people is “How do I get (someone they care about) to embrace simplicity? They’re into simplicity and someone close to them isn’t. It may be a spouse, a parent, your kids, a friend…whoever.  Well, the real bottom line is this: you just need to lead by example. Sure, you can establish some controls with kids, but for the most part just setting the example will go a long way to influence others to adopt positive change.

Wrap Up:

So there you have it! Three more simple living habits you can use to make your life a little easier. As we enter the Holiday season of 2014 we’re faced with lots of simplicity challenges. Be good to yourself in all the right ways. That includes forgiveness if you get off path a bit.

And the new year brings lots of opportunities for new beginnings, too. If you need some extra motivation, scroll through the older episodes of the back catalog and re-listen to some of those shows.

You can find links to all our shows on one page by going to SimpleLifeTogether.com/showlist. But here are 5 that can really help you jumpstart your New Year: Episodes 51, 52, 55, 63, and 65.

Question:

So, what new simplicity habits are you willing to try? Are you ready to start tapping into your own innovation and resources? Which of the 3 frameworks we shared might work for you? And finally, what area of your life can you start simplifying that sets the example for others? We’d love to know and I’m sure others would too! Let us know what you think in the comments below. 

Announcements:

Project 333

Why not start out the new year with a challenge? 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.

Edit & Forget It Challenge

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!
• Supermom vs Super Mom
• Skora Minimalist Shoes
• Vibram 5 Fingers
• War of Art 
• Power of Habit 
• Essentialism
• Thrive  
• Halftime
• Checklist Manifesto
• Work The System
• Comprehensive list of past SLT Episodes

The post SLT074: 3 Simple Living Habits You Can Use Right Now appeared first on Simple Life Together.

So I guess you could say that we’re simplifying Simple Life Together. We should just jump right into the dirty work and break it all down for you…  Read More…

Note: Get a copy of Supermom vs Super Mom for yourself or gift it to a Mom who needs a little “less” in her life. It’s less than $5 and will save you countless hours and effort!

Buy Supermom vs Supermom

Topic:  Simplifying Simple Life Together

It Hasn’t Been an Easy Decision to Simplify Simple Life Together!

On the last episode and up until we went to SimpleREV in Minneapolis we intended for this episode to be our last for quite a while. Here’s why:

• What started off as us documenting our journey to simplify our lives, turned into something more…something better than we expected!
• We unexpectedly built an amazing community of supporters and like-minded people in 154 countries.
• We’ve gotten and continue to receive such heart felt support from that community…especially when we shared some of our toughest challenges.
• We’ve also made some amazing friends along the way.
• We were blessed with opportunities to speak about our life and our podcast at different conferences and on different podcasts.
• We’ve been blessed with the opportunity to meet many of the people who inspired us both personally and professionally on our journey. Folks like Leo Babauta, Joshua Becker, Patrick Rohne, Mohammed Tohami, The Minimalists, Joel Zaslofsky, Dan Miller…just to name a few. Some of them have become good friends.
• Even better…we’ve gotten to meet some of our loyal listeners and supporters…how cool is that? And, we’ve helped others in the community who are just starting out and making a real impact; folks like Dave & Sheryl Balthrop, Chris & Sarah Wehkamp, JF and Cheryl Moreau, Lara Blair, and others.
• We were blown away by the amount of positive feedback about the show and how we influenced others to simplify their lives too. Feedback that brought us to tears. We never thought we could impact people the way that we did…and be impacted by them, as well.
• The podcast helped us to really focus on what was important to us…and solidified our passion for simplicity and to live more deliberate and meaningful lives

But Producing the Show Isn’t All Sunshine

Although we love sharing and teaching others, over time, the success of our podcast led to the feeling of obligation of having to produce awesome content ALL the time. And let’s face it…our lives just aren’t THAT interesting that we have some type of major topic to talk about for 40 minutes each week. Still, we started realizing that the show was shifting from documenting our journey to “having” to produce good educational content each and every week, then every two weeks. Some of which took a lot of time to either research or compile coherent thoughts.

And we started to feel the pressures of the podcast from:

• Coming up with content
• Arranging our week to fit in research, recording and editing
• Dealing with tension between the two of us...running out of content, waiting until the last minute to produce, the time obligation, defining roles and expectations, mistaken assumptions of who should do what, etc.

We get along really well and, for the most part, what you hear on the show is what you get with us. But every once in a while, working together on the show stretched things a little bit. Not too often, but definitely more so when we started feeling like we HAD to do a show as opposed to the times when we just couldn’t wait to share something. Hopefully, those tougher times were transparent on your end and you weren’t any the wiser. They weren’t often, but hey, we’re human, you know?

But that’s not all…we’ve also reached a part of journey where it made sense for us to pause the podcast a bit and shift from regularly scheduled content to “targets of opportunity-type” content…at least for now.

We’re Coming Into a Time of Refocus

The cool thing is that we’ve reached an important waypoint on this part of our journey, and now it’s time for us to refocus and work toward that end. But just like in any journey, when it comes to careers there are breaks along the way…if you’re lucky that is.

Back in our military days…during patrolling, we would occasionally take breaks on our mission called “SLLS Halts” (pronounced ‘sils’) that’s an acronym for Stop, Look, Listen, and Smell. Those halts would let you take things in and sense what was going on at that point in the operation. A time to just focus. I think we need to do that with life, too, and I feel like this SLLS halt I’ve taken has really refocused me on what I love and what I excel at. And that’s being in a leadership position with a team.

Wrap Up:

So this is what we’ve decided: Keeping in mind our original goal of the podcast and in light of our new focus in life….it’s not the end the end of Simple Life Together! As we have things to share, we will. That’s what we started out to do and that’s what we want to continue to do. Just not on a regular scheduled basis. So we’re simplifying a bit. But the sharing will continue. And I think it will be a better quality because it’s not rushed, forced, or done out of a sense of obligation…but from a point of sharing and community.

Many many thanks to you! We can’t thank the community enough for your constant support of SLT and hope you continue to support us when we do decide to pop in from time to time!

We are blown away at the community on Edit & Forget It Facebook Page and plan on keeping it going and participating as long as the group is active. We’ll pop in from time to time, but the really cool thing is that it’s really at a point where it’s a bunch of great folks that have a ton of advice and support to offer.

Question:

So does simplifying the show sound okay to you? A little less of us…a little less predictability…but still here to share our journey? We’d love to know.  Let us know what you think in the comments below. 

Announcements:

SimpleREV!

• SimpleREV was amazing!  We’ll have more about it soon, but I just have to say…it really exceeded expectations. So much so that I actually tweeted this out:

Project 333

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.

Edit & Forget It Challenge

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!
• Supermom vs Super Mom
• Comprehensive list of past SLT Episodes

Photo Credit: Modified Photo From Ken Conley

The post SLT073: Simplifying Simple Life Together appeared first on Simple Life Together.

What does it really mean? Can we really achieve a balanced life? And so we got to talking about balance for a while, and thought we’d explore that a little more…. (Read more…)

Note: Get a copy of Supermom vs Super Mom for yourself or gift it to a Mom who needs a little “less” in her life. It’s less than $5 and will save you countless hours and effort!

Buy Supermom vs Supermom

Topic:  How Do You Define Work Life Balance?

It seems like the whole “balance thing” has become a buzz word. We hear about balance all the time in magazines, on television, supposed experts, life coaches, etc. Terms like work life balance, balanced diet, and even balanced budget are pretty pervasive.  But what does balance really mean in your life? We think “balanced” is different for everyone and there’s no one prescribed balanced lifestyle that works for everyone. Nor is there one way to define work life balance in a way that’s universal. So, we took a look at it from our own experience.

For us, work life balance includes myriad topics we’ve discussed on previous shows, such as:

• The right size home
• The right amount of time spent on work
• Valuing experiences vs things
• Freedom from stuff…in exchange for more free time to do what we love
• Healthier living and relationships
• Working as part of a team, focused on a larger goal…at work and/or in the community
• Essentially, we define work life balance as living a fulfilling life…that will include ups and downs but overall full of happiness, joy, etc.

As we talked about what this balance meant to us, there were some pretty specific things that were NOT included in our definition of work life balance, too. Here are some:

• We don’t think it means being on permanent vacation
• It’s not about striving to eliminate all challenges in  our life…that’s part of life! Sure, balance is easier when you don’t have challenges, but that’s not real life!
• It’s not about eliminating everything…just all the “junk”

So what gets in our way of achieving a good balance? For us, historically it’s been things like:

• Putting an overemphasis on work related tasks when it interferes in other areas of our lives
• Over obligating ourselves monetarily through too much spending
• Over obligating ourselves by accepting too many commitments that sap our time
• Consumerism always makes you feel like you’re missing something, and if you have this item, take this pill, look this way, then your life will be complete
• Overindulging in one way or another, such as with:
  • Food
  • Drink
  • Technology

Speaking of technology, that deserves a deeper look. What’s the problem with technology? It’s invading every realm of our personal space, that’s what! It’s even encroaching on the most intimate of spaces and events:

• The bathroom
• The shower
• The bedroom
• Family meals

When we overindulge in technology, it distracts our attention and focus, and affects our ability to communicate and deal. For the younger generation of teens, it’s even impacted the way they communicate. Many rely on electronic communication versus face to face communication. In some, this has hindered their ability to deal with confrontation. Technology, when abused, hinders our ability to be present…to pause, and be in the moment; to be alone in our thoughts to contemplate.  Ironically most people say they want to “give it up”, but never do.

How We Strive To Create Balance

So here are some ways we try to maintain to ensure we stay true to how we define work life balance. We:

• Review our goals
• Reward ourselves when we achieve our goals or reach milestones
• Avoid triggers and bad situations (negative relationships, inappropriate foods, shopping malls, etc)
• Establish “no-tech” days or digital fasts. I deleted the Facebook app from my iPhone about 2 weeks ago (Yay!)
• Schedule in family/fun time
• Take time for ourselves
• Focus on the present and don’t dwell on the past
• Keep moving
• Check things off your to-do lists….even if it means removing a to-do item all together
• Learn to value experiences over things

Wrap Up:

So…in the end, like most things, we define work-life balance on our own. It’s not 50/50…it’s not 80/20. It’s up to You to determine the balance that is right for you, You make a plan to achieve that balance, and hopefully, building on the habits we talked about last week, You develop the keystone habits routines, and rituals that bring about the balance that’s right for you.

Question:

So what does a balanced life look like to you? How do you find or work towards that balance in your life? We’d love to know.  Share your successes and struggles in the comments below. 

Announcements:

•          Our LAST Regular Episode:  

  • The next episode of Simple Life Together will be our last regularly scheduled episode of the show. Of course, we’ll talk a lot more about that on that episode, but we wanted to give you not only a “heads up”, but also a chance to write in via email (Dan, Vanessa), the Facebook page, and the Edit & Forget It group on Facebook and ask us any questions you think should be answered on that final show, and we’ll do our best to answer them candidly.

• SimpleREV Tickets

  • Be sure to check out the podcast Dan does with Joel Zaslofsky called All Things Simple Rev!  In the latest episode we talked about the changes quite a bit and we’re stoked! So is our friend and keynote speaker for the event, Joshua Becker from BecomingMinimalist.com, and all the other speakers as well. Of course you can listen to the latest episode at SimpleREV.com/008.
  • There have been some BIG changes to SimpleREV! As of now, the number of tickets is capped at 60, and EVERY TICKET is now essentially a VIP ticket! So make sure you lock yours in today.
  • Currently, there are only a handful of tickets left, so hurry!
  • SimpleRev is being held on Oct 3-4, 2014, in beautiful downtown Minneapolis on the University of St Thomas campus. To get your tickets at the lowest price that will ever be offered, just go to SimpleRev.com/tickets. And be sure to check out the SimpleREV podcast in iTunes, as well. Or just search iTunes for SimpleREV, all one word.

• Project 333

  • 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.

• Edit & Forget It Challenge

  • 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.

iTunes Reviews:

Thanks to all of you for thinking of us and taking the time to leave a review:

• Annareview123 (Sweden)
• Molly DeMond (United States of America)
• PhilipHMA (United States of America)
• cwp102c (United States of America)

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!
• Supermom vs Super Mom

Photo Credit Quinn Dombrowski

The post SLT072: How Do You Define Work Life Balance? appeared first on Simple Life Together.

But let me back up just a bit and talk about my positive changes to how I spend my early morning. Following a visit to the doctor and the results of some medical testing, I decided that I need to get more active. Of course, my wife Vanessa had been encouraging me to do this for years…but you know how sometimes when the “advice” comes from a spouse or other close family member you occasionally ignore it? Well, yeah…that. Moving on…

Note: The school year starts soon! Get a copy of Supermom vs Super Mom for yourself or gift it to a Mom who needs a little “less” in her life. It’s less than $5 and will save you countless hours and effort!

Buy Supermom vs Supermom

Topic:  The Power of Habit

I had always intended to start walking, but I never seemed to be able to fit it into my day. But as I’ve explained in the past my morning ritual consisted of me waking up about 2 hours earlier than the rest of the family, making a delicious cup of coffee with my Aeropress, and sitting down for some “me” time behind my Macbook Pro. I knew that had to change and I intended to not only establish a new walking habit, but to eventually turn that into a ritual as well.

Vanessa and I have defined “ritual” as a mindful act or actions that have an overarching benefit. Think of a ritual as the sweet spot; something that probably needs to be done, that you actually enjoy doing. So as I started off to develop my new habit of walking, The Power of Habit was playing in my earbuds on Day One. As I listened and walked, Mr Duhigg explained what he calls his Habit Loop which consists of Cue, Routine, and Reward. He also highlights what he calls “Keystone Habits;” small changes or habits that people introduce into their routines that carry over into other aspects of their lives. Duhigg contends that Keystone Habits have a ripple effect into other parts of your life, creating positive change unexpectedly. He used examples of exercise and eating together as a family as Keystone Habits, and I’d use our family time around the fire while camping (that “fire circle” I’ve mentioned before) as a prime example, too. Well, thats exactly what I was hoping to develop with my walk, a firm Keystone Habit. So I started off deliberately to ensure I did all I could do to make this work.

Knowing there are many ways to interrupt developing a new habit, here are a few things I did to help ensure success:

• I prepared the night before by setting out my walking shorts, shirt, my RHA noise canceling aluminum ear buds, and Vibram Five Fingers. Yes, I wear (and LOVE) those funky toe shoes!
• I set my alarm to ensure I walk at the same time every day.
• When the alarm goes off in the morning, I turn it off, and say to myself “Get up, get out!” Some days are just tough and it’s easy to make excuses. But I know that once I’m out there on my walk I feel better. So I say every morning…Get up, get out!
• So once I’m up I go make my coffee. My ritual includes my beloved Aeropress and Cafe Bustelo Espresso.
• Armed with my coffee and my iPhone loaded with an audiobook or good supply of podcasts, I head out for between 1-1.5 hours and cover 4+ miles each and every day. And I LOVE it!

Sure enough, this walking habit has matured from a simple habit, to a routine, and is now a ritual that I enjoy. It has also become what Mr. Duhigg would refer to as a Keystone Habit, as well, spreading other goodness into various areas of my life. I’ve made great strides with my eating habits and other facets of my life by adopting the principles laid out by Mark Sisson in his Primal Blueprint. You can find out lots more about that at his website called Mark’s Daily Apple. He has so much terrific (and free) information there, but I admit I devoured the audio versions of his books The Primal Connection and The Primal Blueprint. To date, following Mark’s program, I’ve lost over 30 pounds, eliminated most of my prescription medicines (and cut the final one to half dosage), transitioned my complete diet to natural food sources, and I feel better than I have in years. Truly an amazing transformation, all stemming from one new habit: my daily walk.

Wrap Up:

So, if you’ve been waiting for a time to start tapping into the power of habits, maybe now is perfect for you. Be sure to check out The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg. I’m sure we could all use some more Keystone Habits in our lives to help us live more fully, more simply, and more purposefully. Habits don’t start without action, so if you didn’t start yesterday, then today is your next best option.

Question:

So what are your Keystone Habits? What habits have you developed in the past that you’re following today to shape your tomorrow? Are they positive habits that support the pillars of your Life Plan? Or are they habits that aren’t really congruent with how you want to live your simple life? We’d love to know. Share your successes and struggles in the comments below. 

Announcements:

• Be on the lookout for a great guest post tomorrow from Cheryl and Jean-Francois Moreau about Simplifying Your Playroom.
  • Cheryl and Jean-Francois recently launched their site “Revive” which focuses on simplifying various aspects of people’s lives including their spaces, minds, bodies, and relationships. You can find that at http://Revivers.ca. They’re out of Ottawa, Canada, and you can follow them on Twitter @reviversca and check them out on Facebook, too!

• SimpleREV Tickets

  • There have been some BIG changes to SimpleREV! As of now, the number of tickets is capped at 60, and EVERY TICKET is now essentially a VIP ticket! So make sure you lock yours in today.
  • Currently, there are only 17 tickets left, so hurry!
  • SimpleRev is being held on Oct 3-4, 2014, in beautiful downtown Minneapolis on the University of St Thomas campus. To get your tickets at the lowest price that will ever be offered, just go to SimpleRev.com/tickets. And be sure to check out the SimpleREV podcast in iTunes, as well. Or just search iTunes for SimpleREV, all one word.

• Project 333

  • 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.

• Edit & Forget It Challenge

  • 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!
• Supermom vs Super Mom
• Mark’s Daily Apple

Photo Credit Audrey Low

The post SLT071: The Power of Habit appeared first on Simple Life Together.

After our presentation at the NAPO 2014 Conference in Phoenix, we met a certified professional organizer, Miriam Ortiz y Pino, who turned out to have a little more in common with us than being an organizer like Vanessa.  She’s been practicing voluntary simplicity for a long time now and after talking with her we thought it would  be great to have her on the show to share her thoughts on what voluntary simplicity means to her, and also tap into some of her tips and advice to those who want to simplify their lives too.

Note: The school year starts soon! Get a copy of Supermom vs Super Mom for yourself or gift it to a Mom who needs a little “less” in her life. It’s less than $5 and will save you countless hours and effort!

Buy Supermom vs Supermom

Topic:  Voluntary Simplicity with Miriam Ortiz Y Pino Interview

Miriam Ortiz y Pino  is a Certified Professional Organizer, Simplicity Expert & Coach, Entrepreneur, Writer, Blogger and Creator of The Streamlined System. For over 15 years Miriam has worked with entrepreneurs and other busy and creative people to eliminate the distractions, simplify systems and create routines so they can get it all done practically effortlessly.  The More than Organized Blog was recognized as one of the top 5 Simplicity Blogs in the world and she has contributed to several books. You can check out her website,http://www.morethanorganized.net, for free articles, resources, and to sign up for her FREE “One Minute Mail (& email) Solution Kit.

1. Tells us a little more about what you do and how you make lives simpler.

2. Everyone enjoys a little backstory…can you share with us a little bit about your life before becoming a professional organizer (in other words…were you always organized or did you have to learn to become more organized, etc)?

3. Living a life of simplicity is different for everyone, can you share with us what simplicity means to you and how you embrace it in your own life?

4. In your experience, what are the most common areas people request your help for getting organized and adopting simplicity?  Why do you think they struggle?

5. Getting and staying organized and embracing a life of simplicity is more than just buying organizing products, watching “how to” videos, reading books or even hiring a professional organizer.  Can you share with our listeners your advice on what it takes to embrace a simpler and more organized life…and make it stick?

6. You offer more tips and advice on your blog and website. Can you tell us little more about your workshops, products and services? I know we have a lot of DIYers out there…

7. Is there anything else you’d like to share?

8. What is the best way for our listeners to learn more about you?

Question:

So, what does voluntary simplicity mean to you? How are you practicing voluntary simplicity in your life? Please share your thoughts in the comments below. We’d love to know!

Be sure to leave a comment below.

Qs & Comments:

Announcements:

• Would You Like To Share Your Simple Life Story?

• We’d love to interview you for the show! Have you started your own simple living journey and learned some lessons that may help fellow Simple Life Together listeners? If you’d like to share your story then drop us an email at Dan@SimpleLifeTogether.com or Vanessa@SimpleLifeTogether.com

• SimpleREV Tickets:

  • Early Bird tickets are now available for SimpleREV! Only 50 tickets will be offered at the Early Bird pricing so make sure you lock yours in today.
  • SimpleRev is being held on Oct 3-4, 2014, in beautiful downtown Minneapolis on the University of St Thomas campus. To get your tickets at the lowest price that will ever be offered, just go to SimpleRev.com/tickets. I’ll also put a link in the shownote to the SimpleRev podcast in iTunes, as well. Or just search iTunes for SimpleREV, all one word.

• Project 333

  • 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.

• Edit & Forget It Challenge

  • 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!
• Supermom vs Super Mom
• More Than OrganizedMore Than Organized FB Page

Photo Credit Gisela Giardino

The post SLT070: Voluntary Simplicity with Miriam Ortiz y Pino appeared first on Simple Life Together.

During our recent trip, we covered over 6600 miles with our tiny teardrop camper in tow. But thankfully, we didn’t drag along a lot of complexity with us as we traveled. But simplicity doesn’t just “happen.” Some deliberate decisions and actions ensured we could enjoy our experiences together as a family without some of the misfortunes of the Griswolds!

Note: The school year starts soon! Get a copy of Supermom vs Super Mom for yourself or gift it to a Mom who needs a little “less” in her life. It’s less than $5 and will save you countless hours and effort!

Buy Supermom vs Supermom

Topic:  Why We Love Simplicity

We absolutely love the freedom to spend our time (for the most part) the way we want to. That’s why we love simplicity. All the things we have done to simplify our lives over the past couple of years is really starting to pay off. So when the time came for our summer vacation, all the dividends of our efforts manifested themselves throughout every facet of our trip. Now, we always like to leave you with some solid take-aways for every blog post or podcast episode we do. So, the take-away for you isn’t us talking about our trip…I mean, who cares about that other than us, right? But rather, the things we experienced tie directly in with almost everything we talk about on Simple Life Together. No doubt you take what we talk about and adapt it for yourself, right? Well, that’s exactly what you’ll do with this info, too. And if we’re lucky, maybe we’ll even save you some time or effort by helping you avoid some of the mistakes we’ve made.

So here are a few key points from the show:

• How we made time to take a vacation, chose to align our work w/our Freedom Pillar, and then juggling clients to free up vacation time.

• Why we went where we did and a little about each stop, including:

  • Florida
  • Nashville: Mastermind group and dinner with a fellow CPO, her garden, small town, etc…
  • Other stops in the Blue Ridge area
  • Why one of our ‘hopeful’ spots to live in ended up being a “no-go” for us
  • Meeting some full-time RVers
  • Stopped for an over-nighter in Shenandoah NP. Look out for lions, tigers and bears (oh my!). Well, just bears, actually.
  • A visit to Luray Caverns
  • Why we went to Hershey, PA (duh…chocolate!)
  • Lake Placid in the Adirondacks
  • The Buffalo, NY area and Sprague Brook Park

• Highlights from the trip:

  • Meeting George & Sheila
  • Spending time with family (basically, for all the same reasons we talked about in Episode 35)
  • Kevin & Evette’s amazing eggs!
  • Exploring Buffalo
  • Visiting Elvis’ Graceland
    • We wonder what it would be like to live that lifestyle sometimes, but I’d bet Elvis would have traded with us on a few occasions.
    • Thanks to Big Jim Sykes of Sirius/XM Elvis Radio at Graceland for letting me explore and get a photo op in the studio setup
  • Small space living in our teardrop, and our son in his Hennessy Hammock
  • Enjoying simple foods and not eating too much ‘junk’ on the road

• More ‘Wins’ and Lessons Learned

  • Again, we LOVE our Merino wool clothing choices and our techniques of packing light!
  • You can’t beat the good ol’ fashioned fun of sitting around a campfire! In essence, we really enjoyed slacklining, fishing, time with family
    • For another take on spending time with family, check out the new blog by Chris & Sarah Wehkamp of ParentsWho.com
  • There’s a big difference between “living the dream” and just “buying the dream”! We met someone along the way who “bought the dream” but never lived it.
  • And finally, what it felt like to come back to our simple home.

Question:

So, what are some ways you’ve invested in simplifying your life? How are those dividends paying off for you? We’d love to know!

Be sure to leave a comment below.

Thing Segment:

Dan: Nearly 30 days off of social media! It was awesome!

Vanessa: Being told by Sunshine, “Mommy…now’s not the time to be on your phone.”

Announcements:

• Would You Like To Share Your Simple Life Story?

• We’d love to interview you for the show! Have you started your own simple living journey and learned some lessons that may help fellow Simple Life Together listeners? If you’d like to share your story then drop us an email at Dan@SimpleLifeTogether.com or Vanessa@SimpleLifeTogether.com

• SimpleRev Tickets:

  • Early Bird tickets are now available for SimpleRev! Only 50 tickets will be offered at the Early Bird pricing so make sure you lock yours in today.
  • SimpleRev is being held on Oct 3-4, 2014, in beautiful downtown Minneapolis on the University of St Thomas campus. To get your tickets at the lowest price that will ever be offered, just go to SimpleRev.com/tickets. I’ll also put a link in the shownote to the SimpleRev podcast in iTunes, as well. Or just search iTunes for SimpleRev, all one word.

• Project 333

  • 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.

• Edit & Forget It Challenge

  • 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!

• Dan’s Merino Wool Clothing
• Vanessa’s Merino Wool Clothing
• Dress With Less
• ParentsWho.com
• Hennessy Hammock
• SimpleRev Tickets
• Supermom vs Super Mom

 Photo Credit: Yours Truly

The post SLT069: Head Over Heels In Love With Simplicity appeared first on Simple Life Together.

Well, it’s been over 6 months and 20  Simple Life Together episodes since then and while we’ve mentioned quite a bit about our progress along the way, we thought we owed you a good, solid wrap up. So this is it!  Read more…

Note: Our new book Supermom vs Super Mom is digital and will help you eliminate clutter in your life, too!

Buy Supermom vs Supermom

Topic:  Simplify Your Wardrobe Redux

When your goal is to simplify your wardrobe, you don’t expect to learn a whole lot of lessons about your attachment to “stuff.” But that’s just what happened with us. Over 6 months ago, Vanessa packed up most of her clothes and put them up in the attic. And then just a few days ago, we sat down and started talking about the process and what we’ve learned along the way. As we talked, I said, “You know what? This is good stuff. We really ought to be recording this!” So we moved on out to our World Shedquarters, sat behind the mics and just had a candid conversation. Vanessa even shared a few journal entries she did early on in the challenge. Here’s a sample:

Day 2: Well I woke up and and the first thing I did, even before going to the restroom was check out my wardrobe. Yup…still pretty empty…nothing really changed. So I cried again. I was grumpy all day…frustrated with the challenge…even more frustrated with my emotions.

But miraculously as the day went on, I started to settle into the idea of living with less. It’s not like this was life or death….it’s a simple challenge….and one I don’t have to commit to if I don’t want to. So that seemed to brighten my spirits a little. And with that….I revisited my closet, made some final edits and settled into the fact that this was just a challenge…only a 3 month challenge.

 So, have a listen and consider this episode a inside look at our own personal triumphs and struggles. It was just Vanessa and me having a little one on one talk, but we thought you’d appreciate being a fly on the wall. If you decide that you want to simplify your wardrobe a bit, too, we’d love to hear some of your lessons learned.

Question:

So, what are some things you’ve learned along the way as you try to simplify your wardrobe? How did you handle your struggles? Did you have support along the way? Was 33 the right number of things for you, or was it more or less? We’d love to know!

Be sure to leave a comment below.

Qs and Comments, iTunes Reviews

Thanks to mcevjael who wrote: “Great content…every episode. 5 Stars. It’s obvious how much prep work goes into each episode. Thanks for the valuable content and the easy listening.”

 Announcements:

• Would You Like To Share Your Simple Life Story?

• We’d love to interview you for the show! Have you started your own simple living journey and learned some lessons that may help fellow Simple Life Together listeners? If you’d like to share your story then drop us an email at Dan@SimpleLifeTogether.com or Vanessa@SimpleLifeTogether.com

• SimpleRev Tickets:

  • Early Bird tickets are now available for SimpleRev! Only 50 tickets will be offered at the Early Bird pricing so make sure you lock yours in today.
  • SimpleRev is being held on Oct 3-4, 2014, in beautiful downtown Minneapolis on the University of St Thomas campus. To get your tickets at the lowest price that will ever be offered, just go to SimpleRev.com/tickets. I’ll also put a link in the shownote to the SimpleRev podcast in iTunes, as well. Or just search iTunes for SimpleRev, all one word.
  • There will be some great workshop leaders there, including Joshua Becker from BecomingMinimalist.com, Mike Vardy from Productivityist.com, Brooks Duncan from DocumentSnap.com, David Delp from PilotFire.com, and others.
  • And be sure to check out the All Things SimpleRev podcast as well. There’s a link in the shownotes, or just search iTunes for SimpleRev, all one word. On Episode 3 Joel and I talk with our friend Joshua Becker about…you guessed it…simplicity! So have a listen.

• Project 333

  • 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.

• Edit & Forget It Challenge

  • 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!

• Dan’s Merino Wool Clothing
• Vanessa’s Merino Wool Clothing
• Dress With Less
• Evernote Essentials
• Automate Evernote
• SimpleRev Tickets
• Supermom vs Super Mom

 Photo Credit: Yours Truly (adapted from Wikimedia)

The post SLT067: Simplify Your Wardrobe Redux appeared first on Simple Life Together.

“When you’re working on that Life Plan, or your dreams and goals, prepare for those opportunities you want to come along. I’m a firm believer that you can determine your own destiny if you make your own future. Shape it yourself. You’ll have obstacles along the way for sure, but you’ll also find encouragement and inspiration, too.”

We want to give you a little bit of context for our journey by connecting some dots. Our goal is that it may help you form you own dots to connect later on. So, If you’ve been listening in or reading our blog posts for a while and are familiar with many of our back episodes and posts, now you’ll see exactly why we picked some of the subjects that we did. If you’re new to Simple Life Together (and we have more and more joining us each week…yay!) then this will be a great “jumping on” point for where we are and how we got here! So, the “What’s In It For You” is this...taking deliberate small steps forward from the ideation we talked about on the last show, will help you shape your own journey to live simply. “The best way to predict your future is to create it” is a great way to think about it. So thanks, Mr Lincoln, for that fine quote and the title of today’s episode.  Read more…

Note: Our new book Supermom vs Super Mom is digital and will help you eliminate clutter in your life, too!

Buy Supermom vs Supermom

Topic:  The Best Way To Predict Your Future Is To Create It

Like we said earlier, you’ll see how a lot of our past episodes relate to the things we are doing in the “initiate movement” step of the TLPs, to move towards our simple life goals. In no particular order, here are some of the things we’ve done, are still doing, or getting ready to do, to move us forward:

The Edit & Forget It Challenge

We introduced The Edit & Forget It Challenge back in Episode 9. The Edit & Forget It Challenge has fulfilled a lot of objectives for us. Here are a few:

• It helped us loosen our grip on “stuff”…physically, emotionally, and intellectually. By intellectually I mean that buying became a lazy, default “easy button” that overrode the acts of contemplation (considering whether or not we really needed something), innovation (what else could I use, how can I get access to that?), patience (do I need it now?), and appreciation (caring for what you have now so it can serve you long term).
• E & F helped us develop new habits toward spending. (why did I ever buy this?)
• It taught us to be more deliberate about what we buy or allow into our lives (things, circumstances, commitments and events).
• And, it influenced us to physically downsize our stuff so we can achieve the goal of living in a smaller home, customized to our lifestyle now and long-term.

Edit & Forget It Continues to Challenge Us

We recently did a another full frontal assault on our garage and it felt fantastic! It helped us reach a few key objectives that we had as our goal. Namely, we:

• Identified our biggest pain points with the garage and finally solved them
• Eliminated duplicates, triplicates and quadruplicates of hand tools. This allowed me to find what I needed so much more quickly
• Eliminated some “space stealers” without sacrificing storage capability. This opened up a LOT of floorspace that was formerly taken up by yard tools, etc that encroached on the main area of the garage.

We still have more to go in the garage! Not that we have so much “stuff”, but when you’re fine tuning,  getting to exactly where you really want to be it takes time. I still have some files out there that we need to go through with a fine-toothed comb.

The Upside of Downsizing

In Episode 42, The Upside of Downsizing, we took a look at some of the benefits of downsizing:

• It not only includes downsizing your stuff, but your commitments and obligations too.
• You’ll save money and time now…and direct them towards others important goals
• You’ll save time & effort…yardwork, maintenance, etc.
• In a downsized space, things tend to run more efficiently: less to care for = less stress and confusion….a smaller home means smaller utilities bills, and systems don’t have to work so hard.
• One thing that Vanessa is always cognizant of when working with clients is that by downsizing now you can decrease the chance of a major inconvenience to loved ones if you have to ask for their help when you wait until you “have to” downsize.
• Downsizing now can give you a sense of control. You’re doing it on your terms as opposed to waiting until you have to downsize…which, like I just stated, could cause undue stress and resentment.

But we’ll tell you this…watch out for some unexpected positive side effects, too! Downsizing has a funny way of simplifying your life overall. When you simplify, you’re more focused of your life goals, more deliberate with your purchases, and more in-tune with what’s important to you like family, relationships, your health and on and on…

 Setting Limits to Simplify Your Life

Other concepts we explored back in Episode 38, Preparation Meets Opportunity, and Episode 54, Setting Limits to Simplify Your Life, have worked and are continuing to work for us:

• First and foremost we developed 5 pillars (Faith, Family, Fitness, Finances, and Freedom) and goals within those pillars to keep us on track and focused.
• Selling our land was a huge step in our “initiate movement” phase. It freed us up to purchase the Guidon, our tiny teardrop camper. That act alone fulfills alot of our goals and priorities. We reached a few financial goals as well as our goals to travel more and spend more time as a family.
• In preparation for living small, we’ve established some boundaries there as well:
  • Limiting how big our home will be
  • Editing our possessions now (almost 5000 things gone in a year and a half!?!?)
  • Preparing to go down to 1 car as soon as we can
  • Getting rid of cable, data plans on tablets, etc…
  • Editing our obligations and commitments as well

Other Ways We’ve Set Limits for Ourselves (aka, “Keeping Us Honest”)

We also limited ourselves to a smaller camper for our travels. Traveling is one of the primary reasons for us wanting to live simpler lives. Living small would allow us the opportunity to travel more. Originally we thought the answer to our traveling dreams was to get a big Class A motorhome. But after further contemplation we realized it would be more restrictive (in regards to cost, time to maintain it, and places we could actually visit). The RV would have required us to find a place to store it, pay lots more in fuel costs, and even restricted the kinds of campsites and parks we could go to. It was way more than what we wanted and needed.

Instead, we decided our teardrop camper was a better fit for us. Although, by design it limits us to what and how much we take, it gives us way more freedom in regards to our time, money and places we can travel to and visit.

An added benefit to our tiny camper is that it has really given us a taste of living small which is our end goal. We mentioned that we actually camped for 3 weeks in a 50 square foot loaner teardrop camper last summer and it was fabulous! We learned how to plan simple meals, how to pack even lighter for the trip and how to create simple routines just as we would in our normal home…they were just a little different and on a smaller scale. We honestly didn’t miss all the luxuries our 1800 square foot home had to offer. Matter of fact, the only thing Vanessa missed was having her own bathroom…but that’s it. We didn’t miss having our laundry room (we just made weekly trips to the laundromat which was awesome because we could do a bunch of loads at once!). We didn’t even miss our big kitchen, or our backyard or home office shedquarters because the views out camping were way better than our backyard. Not having a home office actually helped us curb our digital addiction! So basically, the camper solidified the idea that we can live small and still be happy.

And the same thing goes for our Jeep. We knew eventually we wanted a 4 wheel drive that would be beneficial on our travels and in different climates. So we ended up getting one (a little sooner than we planned but hey…preparation and opportunity helped us out here. Even on short notice!). The Jeep is small, but because of it’s restrictions in storage space, we are much more deliberate about what we bring on trips. Actually, that makes things so much easier when it comes time to pack up and go!

Wrap Up

So, all of these things things are just examples of how we used the tools of Strategic Simplicity and what we call “systematic ideation” to move us forward in our journey of living simpler in different areas of our lives. From ideation to initiation, you can see how systematically looking at things in your life, can really help you move forward…no matter what your goals or dreams are.

Now, the next phase for us will be the “Conduct Reconnaissance” phase! We’ll be doing some recon this summer on our trips out east and west…and probably for the next couple of years as we explore and hone down the places we’d like to live. We developed some criteria of the ideal place for us (which we discussed in detail in Episode 65) and now we’re executing part of the plan by visiting places before we move on the the final troop leading procedures steps, “Complete The Plan” and “Issue The Final Plan”…which of course is moving to a place we’ll call home. From there on out, it’s “Supervise and Refine” for us!

Major Takeaway:

We’re far from the “destination” of our simplicity journey…but it feels great to be on the path. So the major takeaway here is this: You don’t “find” your path to living simply. You make it. You predict your future by making it happen! Our path certainly won’t be yours, but we can share some tools, some experiences, and some support to one another along the way to forge our own path. And it all starts with some ideation, determination, and some deliberate actions to not only make dreams a reality, but make your journey a whole lot of fun, too. As Mr Lincoln said, “The best way to predict your future is to create it.” Start creating the future you want, today.

Question:

So, what are some things you’re doing to predict your future by creating it? Are you downsizing? Prepping for a new career? Starting a side gig business? What are some things holding you back from getting started? We’d love to know.

 Be sure to leave a comment below.

Qs and Comments, iTunes Reviews

We had some terrific iTunes reviews! Thanks to:

TClongLPC, Prankstr45, and Sherry from SherryLCarver.com!

And some great website comments, too! Thanks to:

Don Hamilton, Tania of MauiShopGirl.com, and Jenny Thompson, Sara Grafton from Stamp Across the Miles, Hope Griffin from HopeNGriffin.com, Sheryl Balthrop from SimpleLifeReboot.com and Toni Scott from TannerAssociates.com.

So yeah…Episode 65 was a pretty popular episode so check it out if you haven’t already. Thank you all so much for taking the time to write in!

 Announcements:

• Possible Meetup in Phoenix?

• We’re speaking at the National Association of Professional Organizers Annual Conference, so we’ll be in Phoenix, AZ from 27-31 May. If you’re in the Phoenix area and are interested in a meetup, email Vanessa and maybe we can set something up in Eventbrite. It would be great to meet you!

• SimpleRev Tickets:

  • Early Bird tickets are now available for SimpleRev! Only 50 tickets will be offered at the Early Bird pricing so make sure you lock yours in today.
  • SimpleRev is being held on Oct 3-4, 2014, in beautiful downtown Minneapolis on the University of St Thomas campus. To get your tickets at the lowest price that will ever be offered, just go to SimpleRev.com/tickets. I’ll also put a link in the shownote to the SimpleRev podcast in iTunes, as well. Or just search iTunes for SimpleRev, all one word.
  • There will be some great workshop leaders there, including Joshua Becker from BecomingMinimalist.com, Mike Vardy from Productivityist.com, Brooks Duncan from DocumentSnap.com, David Delp from PilotFire.com, and others.
  • And be sure to check out the All Things SimpleRev podcast as well. There’s a link in the shownotes, or just search iTunes for SimpleRev, all one word. On Episode 3 Joel and I talk with our friend Joshua Becker about…you guessed it…simplicity! So have a listen.

• Project 333

  • Yes…we’re still at it! 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.

• Edit & Forget It Challenge

  • 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
• Evernote Essentials
• Automate Evernote
• SimpleRev Tickets
• Supermom vs Super Mom

 Photo Credit: Yours Truly (adapted from Wikimedia)

The post SLT066: Predict Your Future appeared first on Simple Life Together.

Note: Our new book Supermom vs Super Mom is digital and will help you eliminate clutter in your life, too!

Buy Supermom vs Supermom

Topic:  Strategic Simple Living

Ok, so what is “systematic ideation” and how can you use it? Well, I’m sure there’s lots of different ways to systematically come up with ideas. I’m a bit of a tinkerer…kind of a MacGyver type and enjoy product design. I even recently had a company put one of my ideas into production and they’re getting ready to release it. But years ago, I read a book (I can’t for the life of me remember or find the title) that sparked my interest in systematic ideation.

But today we’re going to share one ideation tool with you that you might be able to use on your simplicity journey. We adapted this from a post we saw on Governing.com that had absolutely nothing to do with strategic simple living. Still, the tool was intriguing, so we adapted it for our use.

The 4 Direction Ideation Tool

So here you go: A good way to be more systematic about your ideation is by looking in all four “directions”. By that we mean, Outward, Inward, Backward and Forward. It’ll help if we give an example, so we’ll show you how we used this tool in our search for the “perfect” town or place for us to live. Of course, you can use it for any ideation exercise you wish!

• So first we have Look Outward: We’re going to look at the local, regional, and national possibilities. We could even look internationally if we wanted.
• Next we have Look Inward: What do we really want? What are our “must haves”, and what are the “deal breakers?” Vanessa will break this down a bit in a minute and share some things we consider.
• Look Backward: Doing a candid review of what has and hasn’t worked in the past. What did we like about it, what did we dislike.
• Finally, we have Look Forward: What do we want it to look like, feel like, be like?

Our Search for the Perfect Place to Live

Back in Episode 49, Live the Life of Your Dreams, we talked about our “Freedoms From” and our “Freedoms To.” One of those freedoms to was “Freedom To Choose Where & How We Live.” So, again, just to give you an example of using the tool on our quest for strategic simple living, let’s look at our search for the “ideal” place for us to live.

So, before we start the 4 directions, here are some qualities we know our dream location will have:

• A quality grocery store within walking distance
• Close to downtown shops; coffee shops, bookstores, diners, local shops, etc…oh and free wi-fi is always nice…
• We’d like to live near water. Not ocean…preferably a creek or river…or even a lake
• Small acreage to maintain; ¼ – 1 acre max!
• Good schools…or good home-school co-ops if needed
• We’d prefer an empty lot to build to our exact liking
• No size restrictions on home…for us that means small, not big
• No Home Owner’s Association (HOA) would be ideal
• If HOA…hopefully open to green/sustainable building techniques or upgrades
• Reasonable tax rates…Military retirement not taxed…state taxes
• Local farmers markets
• Outdoor activities easily accessible…fishing, camping, hiking, biking, etc.
• Local attitudes and atmosphere…not too stuffy…easy going where the community cares about taking care of and maintaining a safe and healthy place to live.

So Looking Outward:

• We’re not tied to a specific geographic location like where our families live.
• Visiting family and friends is already a part of our plan, and one of the main reasons we want to live small is so we can travel large!
• Although we could live internationally if we desired, at this point we are more grounded here in the US. Again, we’ll scratch our international itch through travels abroad.
• We want 4 seasons…with relatively mild winters ;o)

Looking Inward:

• Keeping our 5 pillars in mind (Faith, Family, Fitness, Finances, and Freedom), we want a place and lifestyle that can support all of them in fair balance. For example, we don’t want to live in a place with a high cost of living that would restrict our freedom to travel and visit/spend time with family.
• Additional must haves…safe environment, access to the recreational activities we love, the outdoors, ability to live small, high walkability rating (walkscore.com) and 4 mild seasons. The reason these things are so important to us is because these things fulfill us.
• Deal breakers…restricting our freedom to live in a small, environmentally conscious home….too much traffic…high taxes, intolerance, etc!
• Bottom line, we want a place with personality!

Looking Backward:

• We actually miss apartment-style living! No yard maintenance, small space with a home for everything, little home maintenance and access to fitness and pool facilities.
• Yet we like having our own home and a yard to chill and play…BBQs, darts, playing catch, gardening, fires, bird-watching ;o)
• We also like designing and creating our own unique home.
• Don’t like cookie-cutter “suburbia” homes. Although many are incredibly beautiful and offer tons of amenities, in our experience and the suburban homes we lived in, they lacked a sense of community.

Looking Forward:

• What will it look, feel, be like?
• For our example of our ideal location, what does a day there look like?
• What does a week there look like (routines, shopping, weekend, etc).
• What do the seasons look like?
• While these are cyclical, what does it look like in a linear sense, from now to a point in the future?

Major Takeaway

So the major takeaway here is this: By all means, DREAM. Dream Big! But when it comes to getting serious about strategic simple living, be systematic about your ideation. Look Outward, Look Inward, Look Backward, and then look Forward.

By going through this process of ideation, you may come up with more questions than answers initially. But in the end, you’ll probably be a lot closer to what you want and be able to formulate a real plan of action.

Question:

So, what is one of your long-term simplicity or other life goals where you could use this ideation process? Is it your home, your career, a business opportunity, a passion, or even a relationship? We’d love to know.

 Be sure to leave a comment below.

Thing Segment

Vanessa: I just turned 40 years old and feel great!

Dan:  Recently we had to do some document faxing. We usually bug Dan’s ex and send faxes from her office, but this time I just used the HelloFax extension for the Chrome browser. HelloFax makes it easy to sign documents and send faxes online. You’ll never need to print, sign and scan documents again! You can get 50 free fax pages each month, for 6 months! If you want to check out Hello Fax just go to SimpleLifeTogether.com/hellofax.

Qs and Comments, iTunes Reviews

We just wanted to say thanks to Genevieve Parker Hill for including us in her post, 9 Websites To Help You Live Simply. She lists some fantastic simplicity blogs and we’re honored to make the cut!

And also to Sheryl and Dave Balthrop for mentioning us in their post The 7 Phases of Your Heroic Journey to Margin and Simplicity.

 Announcements:

• SimpleRev Tickets:

  • Early Bird tickets are now available for SimpleRev! Only 50 tickets will be offered at the Early Bird pricing so make sure you lock yours in today.
  • SimpleRev is being held on Oct 3-4, 2014, in beautiful downtown Minneapolis on the University of St Thomas campus. To get your tickets at the lowest price that will ever be offered, just go to SimpleRev.com/tickets. I’ll also put a link in the shownote to the SimpleRev podcast in iTunes, as well. Or just search iTunes for SimpleRev, all one word.

• Project 333

  • 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.

• Edit & Forget It Challenge

  • 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
• Evernote Essentials
• Automate Evernote
• SimpleRev Tickets
• Supermom vs Super Mom
• PackingLust.com
• SimpleLifeReboot.com

 Photo Credit: Marina del Castell

The post SLT065: Strategic Simple Living appeared first on Simple Life Together.

So, who better to talk about smoothies, than our friend and someone who’s become our own personal… “healthy liquids expert,” Farnoosh Brock, the author of The Healthy Smoothie Bible!  Read more…

Note: Our new book Supermom vs Super Mom is digital and will help you eliminate clutter in your life, too!

Buy Supermom vs Supermom

Topic:  Farnoosh Shares The Skinny on Healthy Smoothies

We asked Farnoosh a bit about simplicity and a lot about healthy smoothies and her new book. So, we’ll share the questions we asked her with you here, but to get all the goodness you’ll just have to listen in to the show this time.

• Before we get into the book, let’s start with simplicity. You’ve really adopted simplicity into your life over the last couple of years and had a terrific guest post on Joshua Becker’s Becoming Minimalist blog that we’ll link to in the show notes. Share some thoughts on how your life has changed with your focus on simpler living.
• When we talk about juicing, one of the first questions we’re asked is what’s the difference between juices and healthy smoothies, or juicing and blending. How would you answer that?
• Which do you recommend, juicing or smoothies?
• So Farnoosh, what would you list as some of the benefits of integrating healthy smoothies into your lifestyle?
• How do you recommend people get started with healthy smoothies?
• Be honest…what is your favorite smoothie?
• Tell us about the process of making healthy smoothies, and share some tips on how you’ve simplified your smoothie making?

Major Takeaway:

So the major takeaway here is this: Adding healthy smoothies to your lifestyle is a simple way to increase the intake of fruits, vegetables, certain superfoods, and even supplements into your life. While we’re big juicing fans, sometimes prep and cleanup from making healthy smoothies is a LOT easier. Give it a try! You can get your own copy of Farnoosh’s Healthy Smoothie Bible today!

Question:

So, you know we’re enjoying more smoothies! And if you didn’t see it, Vanessa did a post this past week about dehydrated snacks that we like to make, such as fruits and jerky. Be sure to check that out, too.

But how about you? Have you adopted any new healthy changes or simple foods lately? Do you have any tips or advice you’re willing to share? We’d love to hear it.

Be sure to leave a comment below.

Qs and Comments, iTunes Reviews

And we got a nice voicemail from Connor Trueman  from Journey To Simple and also Liz Neighbors on our Speakpipe app on the website. Thank you both so much for phoning in!

 Announcements:

• The SLT Facebook Page:

  • We have a Simple Life Together Facebook page and forum. Yeah…some of you are saying “FINALLY!”
    • Now, admittedly, we’re not the biggest fans of Facebook, but it seems to be where most people are.
    • We’ve had the private Edit and Forget It page on Facebook for over a year and it’s become a wealth of information and and a great resource for everyone there. We’re hoping the open Facebook page for Simple Life Together will grow to be the same.
    • We’ve installed a forum app there too so we can categorize things by topic. That should help a lot!
    • We haven’t started seeding topics there yet but it is an open page and open forum so feel free to start setting up topics too!
  • So, we look forward to seeing you on our open Simple Life Together Facebook page
    • We’re building the new Simple Life Together page on Vanessa’s previous GetSimplifized page. So, while the URL has already changed to Facebook.com/SimpleLifeTogether, it’s not changed in the Facebook search yet. It still shows up as GetSimplifized.
    • FYI, Facebook told me they have a 14-day waiting period for page name changes, so it should change on the 21st of April.

• Mastering Evernote:

  • If you’re looking to master Evernote, two books we recommend are “How to Automate Evernote” by Kosio Angelov, and Brett Kelly’s “Evernote Essentials”.

• SimpleRev Tickets:

  • Early Bird tickets are now available for SimpleRev! Only 50 tickets will be offered at the Early Bird pricing so make sure you lock yours in today.
  • SimpleRev is being held on Oct 3-4, 2014, in beautiful downtown Minneapolis on the University of St Thomas campus. To get your tickets at the lowest price that will ever be offered, just go to SimpleRev.com/tickets. I’ll also put a link in the shownote to the SimpleRev podcast in iTunes, as well. Or just search iTunes for SimpleRev, all one word.

• Project 333

  • 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.

• Edit & Forget It Challenge

  • 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.

Note: Our new book Supermom vs Super Mom is digital and will help you eliminate clutter in your life, too!

Buy Supermom vs Supermom

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!
• Healthy Smoothie Bible
• Healthy Juicer’s Bible
• All of Farnoosh’s Books on Amazon

• Dress With Less
• Evernote Essentials
• Automate Evernote
• SimpleRev Tickets
• Supermom vs Super Mom
• PackingLust.com

 Photo Credit: Farnoosh Brock

The post SLT064: Healthy Smoothies Made Simple With Farnoosh Brock appeared first on Simple Life Together.

But what it all boils down to in the real world is developing a simple plan that is right for YOU, and then kicking things into gear! When it comes to simple living or simplifying certain areas of your life, there are some things that have worked for us and that you can use to start making strides in areas of your life that you want to simplify.   Read more…

Note: Our new book Supermom vs Super Mom is digital and will help you eliminate clutter in your life, too!

Buy Supermom vs Supermom

Topic:  Five Steps to Simple Living

We’re just going to offer 5 ways to help you simplify your life…at your own pace.

Okay, first… Take an objective look at where you are.

Once you look at where you are now, you can figure out where you want to be and start working in that direction.

Number two…start with one area of your life.

Simple living has so many different facets. But what’s one area you want to fix? Is it your physical clutter, time commitments and obligations, finances, your professional life, personal life, health? What do you want to focus on? Pick one thing first, then edit what isn’t working and try to streamline ways to keep it simple…and keep it going. Here’s an example: a major area of frustration for me was our kitchen counter that became “The Clutter Zone”. The first thing we did was get rid of the junk, then Dan came up with the idea of making some cubbies in the columns next to where the clutter was collecting…and it worked great! That one change had such a huge impact on our physical space that it led to more and more opportunities to simplify. And that’s what we’re talking about for our third point…

Simple living will become addictive!

And once you start that one area, you’ll likely find you’re ready to expand your efforts and carry that momentum into simplifying other areas of your life. So as we just mentioned regarding those cubbies…that worked so well that the idea spread to other areas of the home to control and contain our clutter.

• Focusing on our finances was another area that we wanted to simplify. So we focused on selling (editing) our land which set us up to tackle other financial goals we had, and buy our teardrop trailer outright.
• Our Edit and Forget Challenge became a lifestyle and not just a one time event! The same thing can happen in other areas of your life, too, like health and fitness. Sometimes we try to do everything but quickly get burned out.
• The best thing to do is to keep it simple and work on one thing at a time. Here’s an example: For us, the idea of doing a 60 day juice fast sounded great, but it just wasn’t realistic for us. Instead we chose to make it part of our weekly diet plan…slowly incorporating it at least 3-4 times/week. By doing that…it has become a regular part of our life…something we’ve been able to sustain for over two years. And we became addicted to how good it made us feel which led us to look into other way to improve or expand our healthy eating goals. Juicing led to eating more raw foods… and eating smaller portions…and now smoothies. Matter of fact, we’ll have Farnoosh Brock back again on the next show to talk about that! You see, when you start small or with one thing at a time, it’s much easier to implement it, sustain it, and spread to other areas of your life. So have a rough plan…a punch list, if you will, of areas you want to simplify. That way, you can concentrate your efforts and capitalize on your efficiencies.

And the fourth thing is that by doing this, you can Go At Your Own Pace.

You’ll know what pace is right for you and when it’s time to stretch a bit or ease up. Find people, books, podcasts or blogs that help guide and support. But don’t fall for the “gurus or experts” who pretend to have some secret formula or easy solution. They sound great, but they don’t know you. You know you. Follow what feels right to you. And as we mentioned before, be prepared for some friendly “critiquing” along the way from others who just don’t get it…YET. We talk about that pretty in-depth in Episodes 13 about escaping cubicle life and in Episode 55, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Simplicity.

So for a quick recap, we had 1- Take an objective look at where you are, 2- Start With One Area of Your Life, 3- Know That Simple Living Will Become Addictive, and 4- Go At Your Own Pace.

Now, the 5th and final step is… Take action!

Get started and tweak things as you go! Try personal simplicity challenges, like our Edit & Forget It Challenge, Project 333, and others. Measure your progress against your own yardstick and try to stick to your objectives. Of course, it always helps to have a very well developed plan, but to paraphrase von Moltke, “No battle plan survives first contact with the enemy.” So, armed with your motivation to simplify and your rough plan from Step 2, get started and be prepared to tweak things along the way. That way you can always stay on the offensive and have the agility to change course when you need to, but still work toward your objective. There are lots of sayings in the military that follow this advice, such as “improvise, adapt and overcome,” and “Flexibility is the key to Airpower.”  So, as you take action, remember it’s better to follow your overall objectives than it is to follow a rigid plan. So there you go…5 Steps to Simple Living at Your Own Pace.

Major Takeaway

So the major takeaway here is this: Remember, no matter what area of your life you’re trying to improve, there is help out there. But don’t fall for the “gurus or experts” who pretend to have some secret formula. They don’t know you like You know you. Follow what feels right to you. Figure out where you are now, where you want to be, make a plan, take action and tweak along the way. That’s it. If that sounds vaguely familiar, that’s because it’s about the same thing as the OODA loop we talked about WAY BACK in Episode 16, Making Decisions Like a Fighter Pilot.

Question:

So, have you ever found yourself frustrated with the advice of so called gurus or experts? Or do you take advice with a grain of salt and adapt a little here and there to fit your needs? Do you have any tips or advice on ways you’ve been able to reach your simplicity goals and stay on track? We’d love to know.

 Be sure to leave a comment below.

Thing Segment

Dan just reviewed a terrific Evernote guide titled “How to Automate Evernote, Save Boat Loads of Time And Make Your Life Easier“. It’s a 76-page ebook on how to automate Evernote with some cool programs he’s talked about before such as If This Than That, Gmail, and others. Kosio, the author, sent Dan a copy and it has some pretty interesting tactics that’ll save you lots of time. You can find it at SimpleLifeTogether.com/automate. It goes great with Brett Kelly’s “Evernote Essentials“, another terrific book to help you make the most of Evernote. You can get that at SimpleLifeTogether.com/essentials.

Qs and Comments, iTunes Reviews

And we got a nice voicemail from Genevieve Parker Hill from PackingLust.com on our Speakpipe app on the website.

iTunes Reviews:

Candabar: The best simple living podcast out there!!! If you are looking for a way to cut down and live a more simple and meaningful life, look no further! This podcast is perfect for that and it has really helped me. Don’t bother with any other simple living podcast!!!

Mopjunkie: The two of you are a great inspiration. I found you recently on James Kinson’s Cash Car Convert. I’m in!!! I had to come to the realization that I had too much stuff! We’ve already started the reduction phase and also just signed up for your edit and forget it. The two of you are entertaining yet informative! I listen during my 30 minute commute and your segments are just the right size, begin in the morning and finish in the afternoon. Look forward to the drive, yet know I will soon be caught up soon as I listen to a different session each day. Love your shedquarters!!! And keep up the good work!

James Sandercock (Canada): Real life, real hosts, real help. Vanessa and Dan bring well focused, good humoured, and encouraging words of advice into my home each time I listen (and re-listen) to their podcast. They are not syrupy sweet silver lining know it alls. Instead they are sweetly helpful, dig for the silver, know some…and share some type people. They follow a great structure with a lot of fun and loving banter between the two of them. I have subscribed and look forward to each episode. Sincerely, a mum in the toy filled trenches with four manic munchkins!

 Announcements:

• Our Big Announcement!

  • We’ll be doing the show every other week, versus weekly, to keep things “fresh”.

• Plus, we want to pursue even more things, too. Here are a few:
  • You’ve heard us talk about our teardrop trailer. Well, we have wanted to do a podcast about our teardrop camping adventures but haven’t been able to find the time.
  • We also want to do some more writing, short-form videos, etc.
  • Dan is also considering taking some classes so that will take a time commitment.
  • We have lots of travel planned for the summer and want to document that for Teardrop Talk.

• And…just to keep you on your toes…we’re going to switch back to Thursdays for our typical podcast release days, too!
• Matter of fact, we’ll be producing more content than ever…just spread more evenly across how we live our simple life together.
• Just to give you a little more insight into our plan, instead of doing a completely separate website for our new Teardrop Talk podcast and videos, we’re going to start out by just doing a separate tab right on SimpleLifeTogether.com. We may have to switch that down the road. We’ll let you know when that goes live and, of course, we’d love to have you follow along there, too.
• We’re hoping that we’ll be able to bring some of our Teardrop Talk listeners over to the simplicity side, and lead some of our simplicity lovers over to teardropping, too!

• Our Next Big Announcement

  • We have a Simple Life Together Facebook page and forum. Yeah…some of you are saying “FINALLY!”
    • Now, admittedly, we’re not the biggest fans of Facebook, but it seems to be where most people are.
    • We’ve had the private Edit and Forget It page on Facebook for over a year and it’s become a wealth of information and and a great resource for everyone there. We’re hoping the open Facebook page for Simple Life Together will grow to be the same.
    • We’ve installed a forum app there too so we can categorize things by topic. That should help a lot!
    • We haven’t started seeding topics there yet but it is an open page and open forum so feel free to start setting up topics too!
  • So, we look forward to seeing you on our open Simple Life Together Facebook page
    • We’re building the new Simple Life Together page on Vanessa’s previous GetSimplifized page. So, while the URL has already changed to Facebook.com/SimpleLifeTogether, it’s not changed in the Facebook search yet. It still shows up as GetSimplifized.
    • FYI, Facebook told me they have a 14-day waiting period for page name changes, so it should change on the 21st of April.

• SimpleRev Tickets:

  • Early Bird tickets are now available for SimpleRev! Only 50 tickets will be offered at the Early Bird pricing so make sure you lock yours in today.
  • SimpleRev is being held on Oct 3-4, 2014, in beautiful downtown Minneapolis on the University of St Thomas campus. To get your tickets at the lowest price that will ever be offered, just go to SimpleRev.com/tickets. I’ll also put a link in the shownote to the SimpleRev podcast in iTunes, as well. Or just search iTunes for SimpleRev, all one word.

• Project 333

  • 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.

• Edit & Forget It Challenge

  • 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
• Evernote Essentials
• Automate Evernote
• SimpleRev Tickets
• Supermom vs Super Mom
• PackingLust.com

 Photo Credit: Yours Truly

The post SLT063: Five Steps to Simple Living appeared first on Simple Life Together.

So as important as editing is…and that’s an ongoing process…understand that just as important on the road to simplicity is your ability to slow your accumulation of stuff.  Read more…

Note: Our new book Supermom vs Super Mom is digital and will help you eliminate clutter in your life, too!

Topic: Stop the Accumulation of Clutter

But stopping the accumulation of “stuff”(aka clutter) is not as easy as flipping a switch. You’ve got to change your mindset, establish boundaries like we talked about back in Episode 54, and exercise a great amount of self-restraint.

The reality is, most of us have been on autopilot when it comes buying and accumulating things. To consume is human. But consuming is easy…too easy as a matter of fact; which makes slowing the accumulation a little more challenging. But who doesn’t like a healthy challenge?

Ways to Stop Clutter from Finding Its Way Into Your Life

Awareness

The first step in slowing the accumulation is becoming aware of your own buying habits and also being aware of how marketers and advertisers work.

The Stuff Cycle: On the last show, Dan introduced the Stuff Cycle as this seemingly natural 6-Phase cycle of why and how we consume stuff.

You can go back and listen to that in Episode 61, but remember the 6 phases are the:

• Perceived Need Phase
• Acquire Phase
• Utilization Phase
• Replacement Phase
• Edit Phase and the…
• Refine Phase

Let’s focus mostly on the Perceived Need phase and how that influences the Acquire phase. There are a few things you can make yourself aware of that influence how you perceive unmet needs or desires which effect how you act in the Acquire phase.

Marketing Strategies: Being aware of how Marketers and advertisers try to convince you that your life will be so much better if you get their product. Now…a lot of times they’re right. We definitely like some products we buy because they have made our life simpler….or added value to our lives. But more often than not, products just add clutter.

Here are just a few strategies marketers will use to get you to buy “stuff”:

• They’ll use simplicity and minimalism against you: 
  • Ex: Target had a commercial about minimalism with their clothing….yeah right!
  • Ex: After saying Vanessa didn’t use or need a lot of product because she takes a minimal approach to makeup, she was told at a makeup counter that the manufacturer was “all about minimalism” too.

• They tout their products will make life “easier” but usually they just cause more clutter. 
  • “If Necessity is the mother of invention, Convenience is the mother of the unitasker!”

• They use “sale” terms are used over and over again but their real intent is to make you buy. Such as:
  • “It’s FREE!!!” Well, nothing is ever FREE. 
  • Advertisers will tempt you with quantity over quality by using “Buy one get one free” or “Buy 5 for the price of 4” strategies for example. Seriously? You only need 1 tub of yogurt. Can you really go through that much before it spoils? Just sayin’. Or…
  • Buy one get one free but…“just pay shipping and handling”…which usually ends up being outrageous!

• They capture your information for their sales funnel and hope for a later sale.
  • Ever put your name in a drawing to possibly win a FREE whateveryoucallit? Well, you just entered their sales funnel. Now they’ve got your email or mailing address.
  • Your name will be added to a list for a later sales pitch at their convenience
    • Most likely, they’ll sell your info to third parties (for profit) and those companies will contact you, too!

• They offer a deep discount to you now, to be made up by them later (sometimes in multiples).
  • “Save 20% off your purchase today if you open up an account with us”
  • These deals almost always come with hidden fees.
  • They also cause temptation for easy purchases later since you have a store card.

• They’ll strategically place front of the store sales, clearance items, and end of aisle “As Seen On TV” gadgets and unitaskers. These places are “key terrain,” giving stores a marked advantage. They use these areas strategically to:
  • Capitalize on impulse buying
  • Make you to think “you can’t afford not to buy it”
  • Funnel traffic through to increase likelihood of sales because they know you’ll pass it.

Action Steps:

Now that you know, how do you stop the flow in the Perceived Need phase before you act in the Acquire phase?  Here are some techniques we use and you can too!

Change your mindset. If you want simplicity, you need to focus on your needs and priorities. LESS really is MORE! Practice it…and embrace it.

Ask yourself the following questions before you buy:

• Do I need it?
• Will I use it?
• Where will it live in my life if I buy this?
• What actions will I have to take to make it fit in my life?
• What will I have to move or get rid of to make room for this?
• What type of maintenance and upkeep will be required?
• Is it really going to add VALUE to my life?

Create Boundaries for yourself:

• Use the one in one out rule.
• Wait a period of time before making any purchase. 
• Reconsider bulk items…will you use them, will you have room for them?
• Have a budget.
• Shop with a purpose…with a list…and stick to it.
• Research products before buying.

Consider borrowing or outsourcing:

• Ex: Yard service vs owning a ton of yard equipment
• Pay for access to entertainment versus buying it. Things like:
  • AppleTV, HuluPlus, Netflix instead of owning a lot of DVDs or subscribing to cable
  • Only buy entertainment that has been “vetted” by others with similar tastes:
    • Movies that have been vetted
    • Music you absolutely love
    • Books with great reviews or recommendations

Stem the Flow of Junk Mail Advertisements:

Go back and re-listen or re-read Episode 24. Specifically, we give you some great tips to stop the mail flow, cut down on ads, and opt out of things you just don’t want to receive. It’s a great, proactive way to stop accumulation…stop it before it even gets to you!

Major Takeaway

So the major takeaway here is this: Yes, slowing your accumulation can be challenging when it comes to simplifying your life, but by being more aware, mindful and deliberate about what you consume, after a little practice it won’t be s0 difficult. Sure you may splurge here and there (like we talked about back in Episode 60 , What’s Your Simplicity Splurge?), but hopefully you won’t feel as guilt-ridden because that “splurge” was a deliberate one and not one based on impulse or weakness.

Question:

So, how do you slow the accumulation of stuff into your life? What tips or techniques do you use that could help the rest of us as we try to combat the temptation of consumerism? We’d love to know.

 Be sure to leave a comment below.

Thing Segment

Dan:  Taking my Dad and nephew driving around the Texas Hill Country. Once again, experiences win out over stuff!

Qs and Comments

MicheleStiches wrote and said…

Dan and Vanessa,

As a mom of 7 kids (5 of them now moved out) I could comment on this topic till the cows come home! I’ll try to stick to just a few things. Let me preface by saying that with 7 kids, and limited income, some of our family ways have been out of necessity, but know that much of this can work for many or few!

We tried to limit toys. We found that the creative-play toys (like blocks) were likely to last longer than toys that only did one thing. Also, we tried to get toys that could easily be added to, for example, Thomas the Tank Engine wooden train set or Legos…enabling them to build bigger, and more complicated set-ups but not adding to the sense of clutter.

We also limited organized extra-curricular activities. Each kid got to choose one sport or music lesson they could do. This taught them that you can’t do it ALL. You have to decide what you really love and what is truly fulfilling. It also taught them that what they do as an individual affects the whole family, and sometimes the good of the many outweighs the good of the one.

A wise woman once told me to never do for your children what they can do for themselves…i.e. teach the kids to clean their own messes, pick up their own toys, do their own laundry. This is one thing that worked really well for us. My kids even had assigned days for laundry to prevent arguing over the washing machine. Not only were they responsible for their own stuff, but we had chore charts and everyone helped with the shared spaces of the home. They washed dishes, dusted, swept, vacuumed, scrubbed bathrooms, etc. And I confess, we never paid our kids for these jobs. We wanted them to learn that it was part of being in the family. Mommy doesn’t get paid to cook dinner. Daddy doesn’t get paid to mow the lawn. We do it because we all work together to keep our home running smoothly.

Our kids have all worked outside the home. They learn that spending money equals giving up a piece of your life for whatever you are buying. It is amazing to watch a young person at a store who “NEEDS” something, change their mind after you tell them, “Sure, you may get that if you want to spend YOUR money on it!”

Another thing that we do in our family is start at an early age educating our kids about responsibility and unrealistic expectations. We have a saying:

“With adult privileges comes adult responsibilities.”

For example, my kids know from a very young age that if they ever want a car, THEY will have to pay for the car (and the gas, and the insurance, and the maintenance.) Granted, there has been a time or two when we have helped them out a bit, but they do not EXPECT this from us. We do it as an act of grace and love…a gift. We actually have one teenage son who got rid of an older car he had been gifted by a grandmother! After a year of ownership, he realized he was sacrificing a large chunk of his life working just to put gas in the machine and pay for the constant repairs. He decided having a car was not worth it!

We also teach our children that when they decide to leave the nest, they are on their own financially. I know this may seem harsh to some readers, but we explain to them that if they want to be an adult and make their own decisions and not have to report to us, then they get ALL the responsibility (rent, utilities, food) that comes with that privilege. This is only fair. It is responsibility that often grounds people and keeps us from behaving foolishly.

 Announcements:

• Folks, we need some help over there on Amazon reviewing the book. Again, just go to SimpleLifeTogether.com/supermom to pick up your copy of Supermom vs Super Mom and review it too!

• Check out the first episode of All Things Simple Rev, the podcast about the SimpleRev simplicity summit I’m working on with our friend Joel Zaslofsky. 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.
  • Location: Minneapolis, Minnesota
  • Date: October 3-4, 2014
  • Venue: University of St. Thomas Downtown Campus
• Joel put together a fantastic page on SimpleRev.com where you can find all your transportation options, lodging, what to do, how to get around…everything a conference attendee would like ask about the area at SimpleRev.com/allittakes.

• Special thanks to ScrappydCote  for the review you left for us on iTunes. It really does help people find the show.

• If you’d like to leave a review, just go here on iTunes and click “View in iTunes,” launch iTunes, and then click “Write a Review.”

• 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: FreddieBrown

The post SLT062: Stop the Accumulation of Clutter appeared first on Simple Life Together.

Well first off, simple living with kids doesn’t have to be an oxymoron. Like simplifying the rest of your life, simple living with kids will take some planning, work, and positive change, but it will be well worth it. Read more…

Note: Our new book Supermom vs Super Mom will be free on Amazon all day Friday, 21 March 2014 from midnight PST to midnight PST.

Topic: Simple Living With Kids

Well worth it, yes…but notice I didn’t say “well worth it in the end.” That’s because there really isn’t an end when it comes to simplicity…that’s why we call it a journey.

The “Stuff” Cycle:

Before we get into the different stages of our kids’ lives and how that effects simplicity, there’s something that needs to be addressed first. I call it the “Stuff Cycle”…for lack of a better term. If you don’t realize you operate in a stuff cycle before you have kids, you will as soon as you’re expecting. Here’s how it goes:

Perceived Need Phase:

• All the things advertisements tell you you need
• All the things you ‘think’ you need
• All the things everyone else ‘thinks’ you need and don’t hesitate to tell you

Acquire Phase:

• Purchase, gift, rent or borrow

Utilization Phase:

• You figure out what you really need and use

Replacement Phase

• You fill those needs with things that actually work

Edit Phase:

• You take action to get the things you don’t need, don’t use, and don’t work out of your life

Refine Phase:

• Continuously evaluate, acquire, replace or upgrade as necessary, edit as required.

Simplicity Issues at Different Stages of Our Kids’ Lives

Babies:

• Just making sure they are cared for requires so much (or we think it does)
• Amount of stuff required at home…but babies grow up so fast that it’s impossible to use every toy or clothing item 
• Amount of stuff required on the road
• Time and attention required

Toddlers:

• First steps of independence
• Just trying to stay ahead or just keep up parents feel they need to buy every learning gadget or tool so they are ahead when they start kindergarten

Kids:

• Starting to understand commercials and get a taste for consumerism and wanting more
  • Brand name toys
  • Brand name clothes
  • Even exposure to peer pressure

Teens:

• Consumerism: clothing, gadgets, food
• More time commitments with extracurricular activity, work, etc.
• As parents now it’s crunch time to teach them the life skills to be successful adults.

Adults:

• Are you responsible or do you hang on to your grown kids’ “stuff” as they start their adult life?
• Do they feel “entitled” to things beyond their income?
• What’s your comfort level or threshold for monetary support?

Ways to Keep Simple Living With Kids, Simple!

• Toys and Gifts
  • Family members go overboard (time for a talk)
  • Birthday parties (manage expectations)
  • Holidays (manage expectations)

• Boundaries
  • Not every room is the play room (CELF study, Episode 14)
  • Don’t buy more storage for more toys…edit the old to make room for the new…create a boundaries or limit of how many toys your kids can have
  • Limit screen time
  • Personal chores (clean up after self)
  • Family chores (team building, contributing)

• Routines and Rituals are key to simple living with kids
  • They make kids comfortable and let them know what’s expected of them
  • We’re creatures of habit…good or bad
  • Morning
  • After school routines
    • Snack
    • Homework
    • Dinner clean up and declutter
  • Holidays
    • Again, managing expectations of your kids and relatives
    • Edit before big gift-giving events

• Having constant communication with your kids
  • Reinforcing ideas
    • Talk about your values regularly
    • Try to instill valuing experiences over things
  • Set the example:
  • • Pick up after yourself
    • Limit your own TV and Internet exposure
    • Play with your kids
    • Read to them
    • Give away and donate things (bring your kids along)
  • Stick to your guns on your rules, boundaries and routines. You’ve got to use them and hold everyone including yourself accountable

Major Takeaway

Yes, kids provide their own unique spin on simplicity, but just like us it has a lot to do with how you establish norms in your home, how you manage expectations, the example you set, the boundaries you establish, and how effective you are at using the Laws of Learning (Vanessa covered the laws in Episode 13 in the segment called First Steps on the Road to Simplicity). Just like simplifying the rest of your life, simple living with kids will take lots of planning, work, and positive change. But it will be well worth it for you and serve them well in their life too.

Question:

So, how do you simplify life with your kids? What tips or techniques do you use that could help the rest of us? We’d love to know.

 Be sure to leave a comment below.

Thing Segment

Vanessa: Attending the Minimalists meetup, and seeing our friend,  SLT listener and Edit & Forget It member Robin. My main takeaway from Ryan and Joshua was that minimalism looks different for all of us. I also like their take on what they allow or edit in their lives; basically they don’t keep anything that doesn’t add value to their lives (kind of like our “use it, need it, love it” questions we ask when deciding what to edit from our lives).

Dan: The new Add-Ons function in Google Docs. Provides additional functionality right inside Google Documents and Spreadsheets. In your Drive menu bar you’ll notice a new menu option title Add-ons. Click Get Add-ons and explore…you can do mail merge, Avery labels, bibliographies, etc…FREE. For more on Google Docs, check out out our tutorial.

Qs and Comments

Kerry emailed us his story…

Dan and Vanessa,

I couldn’t decide whether to write and tell you how much I appreciate your podcast or to share a little bit of my cluttered story… so I will do both.

I am an Air Force officer, having served for 13 years so far. While I haven’t moved around as much as you did in your careers, moving forced me to take stock of what I owned and what owned me. I grew up with a lot. My dad was a successful doctor and business owner. When I say we had a lot, that might be understating. Christmas morning was like walking into a Toys R Us. While I certainly appreciated the fact that I was lucky, I never took it for granted and shared a lot with my big family that didn’t have as much.

It wasn’t until I joined the Air Force and got married that I began to considered how “stuff” made me feel. I realized that I had hoarding tendencies (from my mother) and a desire to simplify (probably from my dad). From the perspective of having moved away, I realized that my Mom was a hoarder with means. That is, she could afford to keep everything. We had multiple vacation homes and each one had a basement or attic packed full. In addition, she had three 20×40′ storage units, all neatly organized but full! My parents divorced around the time I finished college and joined the AF and my mom continued to spend, collect and store. As a few examples, we had every Dept 56 Christmas Village, Halloween Village, Snow Baby, etc ever made. She also framed EVERYTHING! And you don’t throw away framed things so she now has, in storage, somewhere between 500 and 1000 framed prints.

The longer I was away from home, the more uncomfortable I was going home. While everything in my mother’s home is nice and clean, it’s everywhere. I realized she had a problem when I went home for my sister’s funeral and actually couldn’t set a drink down because every horizontal surface is covered. In the past few years, she has spent and collected herself into near bankruptcy and I still can’t get through to her. But… I started my own journey of self-reflection and consideration. I began to realize that it felt good to divest myself of clutter. I am no where near where I hope to end up, but my awareness of “stuff” has been amazing. I was always a person who collected “just because”. I had 39 bottles of Marylin Merlot wines because people kept buying them and I didn’t know what to do with them. I had every knick knack from childhood stuffed into boxes all over. Most of this stuff (and lots more) is gone. But what I really wanted to do is share with others is that the family aspect can be really hard. My mom and lots of other family members attach so much meaning to stuff that it comes between relationships often. When she visits me and my family, she will load my kids up with toys from the Goodwill. I have asked her not to do this and specifically told her that it makes me stressed and unhappy. But the message isn’t received. When she finds out that I get rid of a lot of the things she buys she is upset. In my mind that means stuff is affecting our relationship.

As for my life, I am inspired by what you guys do and say. I connected with Dan’s story for a few reasons. I am very techie and a mac guy to boot. I am also into home improvement and woodworking. While you guys have your teardrop, I grew up flying hot air balloons (fourth generation pilot). So I own a balloon and that certainly comes with a lot of stuff. But I do my best to keep things simple. I drive a pickup because the balloon fits in the back, but that means I don’t have to own a separate vehicle. Ballooning is my passion and I really enjoy doing it with my family. But if it ever started detracting from life, I would give it up.

So, I have a long way to go, but I am enjoying it. My wife is naturally not a clutterer, but she isn’t sold yet on my journey. I choose to share the important lessons that make my life better. Maybe they will sink in. I learned a long time ago that I can’t force her to do anything she isn’t ready for. Thanks for what you do. I believe it works.

– Kerry

 Announcements:

• Folks, we need some help over there on Amazon reviewing the book. Again, just go to SimpleLifeTogether.com/supermom to to review the book.As a special incentive, Supermom vs Super Mom will be available for free all day Friday, 21 March 2014 from midnight PST to midnight PST.

• I’m working with our friend Joel Zaslofsky of Value of Simple on the SimpleRev simplicity summit.  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.
  • Location: Minneapolis, Minnesota
  • Date: October 3-4, 2014
  • Venue: University of St. Thomas Downtown Campus
• Joel put together a fantastic page on SimpleRev.com where you can find all your transportation options, lodging, what to do, how to get around…everything a conference attendee would like ask about the area at SimpleRev.com/allittakes.

• Special thanks to Chauddog, Turtletruth, and Robinvb1 for the reviews you left for us on iTunes. It really does help people find the show.

• If you’d like to leave a review, just go here on iTunes and click “View in iTunes”, launch iTunes, and then click “Write a Review.”

• 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: Theo B

The post SLT061: Simple Living With Kids appeared first on Simple Life Together.

Well, that’s perfectly fine. We all seem to have that little something that we’re just not willing to give up. For some it’s photos, for others, it’s coffee paraphernalia. Almost all of us have our little simplicity foil…that thing or things that seem to go against our efforts to simplify. Read more…

First, A Big Announcement!

Okay, we’re sharing some big news on this show…our first book, Super Mom vs Supermom: Simplicity Tips for Busy Moms, A Simple Life Guide to Getting Organized, Finding Margin, and Embracing Simplicity for Moms is done! Well, done enough! We’ll be updating the cover any day now, but it will be live in the Kindle Store at Amazon.com hopefully on Saturday, 8 March 2014.

So, we’re posting the final draft, minus the cover art, on the Edit & Forget It Challenge Facebook page for the next 3 days, so you can have a look or download the DRAFT pdf free there.

If you’re not a member of E & F you can always sign up for free at SimpleLifeTogether.com/edit. You’ll receive an email with directions on how to join the Facebook page.

We ask that you do us a big favor and review the book on Amazon.com (we’ll post the link to the book on the Facebook Edit & Forget It Challenge page, and here on the website, as soon as the book is “live” on Amazon).

So here are some of our goals we had in mind with the book:

• This one is “mom” focused but has great info for everyone. So, even if you’re not a mom, we’d love for you to have a look!
• We wanted to keep it short but packed with info! Minimal fluff. 
• Most people aren’t inclined to read a 300 page simplicity book!
• Like we said, it’s the first in our series of “Simple Life Guides for Less Than a Latte”, so it’s priced at $4.99 for now…until the price of lattes goes up! We think that’s a great deal and hopefully others will too! 
• Of course, we’re giving you complete access to the draft on the FB page for the next 3 days, but if you’d like to purchase the book on Amazon when it’s available, that would be especially great!
• We ask that you do us a big favor and please review the book on Amazon.com, too. Amazon rankings are directly tied to reviews and downloads. So, the more purchases and the more reviews, the more exposure the book gets, and the more likely people are to find it! Again, we’ll post the link to the book on the Facebook Edit & Forget It Challenge page, and here on the website, as soon as the book is “live” on Amazon.
• Most people who read it won’t be current listeners or readers so the book has lots and lots of links to our shows and Vanessa’s videos. Therefore, most of the info will be new to them.
• So, all told there’s about 96 pages of written content, with access to around 50 hours of audio podcasts, and a bunch of topical videos related to the written content.
• Of course we hope for glowing reviews, but be honest. If you see any glaring mistakes, please opt to let us know personally by email, versus an Amazon review. You can reach us by email. 
• We have plans for more Simple Life Guides, and you can read more about that in the book!

OK, so this is our first book and book launch. We KNOW we’re going to make some mistakes along the way with it but we’d really, really appreciate all your help.

Finally, anything you can do to help make the book a success would be awesome and so, so appreciated! We wouldn’t have the confidence to even do this without your support! So, as soon as you have it, please feel free to share the Amazon link with your Facebook friends, tweet it out, or gift the book to a mom you know could use it.

Topic: What’s Your Simplicity Splurge?

OK, We’ll Go First…

So we thought we’d share some of our splurges with you, and maybe talk about some of the feelings that can rise up around that little splurge. Some people feel like it’s a weakness, others feel like it’s a reward.

• Dan’s simplicity splurge: Hot sauce and spicy foods

• Vanessa’s simplicity splurge: Upgrading to more quality items (whether it’s a new purchase or rep
  • We’ve gotten better as slowing down what we let into our lives and have made a conscious decision to bring in more quality goods if and when we need to.

• Bose Soundlink Mini

• Marino cool clothes (pricey, but I only need a few and I absolutely won’t go back to cotton)

  – Icebreaker Merino Wool

  – Ibex Merino Wool

• Macbook Air

• Apple Thunderbolt Display

How Do You Feel About Your Simplicity Splurge?

Do you find yourself struggling with having a simplicity splurge despite all your simplifying and editing?

• Are you questioning your commitment?
• Do you staunchly defend it?
• Do you avoid talking about it?

Are you feeling guilt about your simplicity splurge? If so, you may want to analyze your priorities. Is your splurge interfering them? If so:

• Maybe it’s too much of a splurge?
• Maybe you’re not giving yourself enough credit for what you’ve accomplished so far in your journey?

If your splurge isn’t interfering with your goals, maybe it’s:

• A good healthy way of having balance in your simple life!
• Maybe it’s a little reward that you should enjoy for all your simplifying efforts?

Major Takeaway

So the major takeaway here is this: Most likely, you’re splurge is okay, and well deserved. Take a good look. Is your splurge, your little foil to your life of simplicity causing you guilt or getting in the way of your priorities? If not, then drop the self imposed guilt trip. If it IS getting in the way, think about why your behavior hasn’t changed and set up a plan to get back on track.

Question:

So, what’s your simplicity splurge? Is it a healthy one and and more like a little reward for all your efforts, or is it undermining your priorities? We’d love to know. We’d love to know.

 Be sure to leave a comment below.

Qs & Comments Segment:

Karen left us a nice voicemail of the website: Audio

Erik left us a nice comment on the website. Here’s just some of what he said:  “Hi guys.   I was so happy to discover your podcasts and to find a community of folks who have similar outlook.  My partner of 27 years and I have decided to downsize and simplify.  …We are super excited about our life changes and your podcasts and WEB site are providing us valuable resources and affirmation that we are not alone in our pursuit of a simpler life. Thanks again!”

 Announcements:

• I’m working with our friend Joel Zaslofsky of Value of Simple on the SimpleRev simplicity summit.  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.
  • Location: Minneapolis, Minnesota
  • Date: October 3-4, 2014
  • Venue: University of St. Thomas Downtown Campus
• Joel put together a fantastic page on SimpleRev.com where you can find all your transportation options, lodging, what to do, how to get around…everything a conference attendee would like ask about the area at SimpleRev.com/allittakes.

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

• If you’d like to leave a review, just go here on iTunes and click “View in iTunes”, launch iTunes, and then click “Write a Review.”

• 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: chuckanastasia

The post SLT060: What’s Your Simplicity Splurge? appeared first on Simple Life Together.

Once in a while when the topic of our simpler lifestyle comes up, someone will ask, “Well what are you going to do to fill all your extra time?” It’s a valid question, I guess, but one we can easily answer.  Read more…

Topic: What “Make the Most of Your Margin” Means for Us

So how would you answer how you planned to fill your “extra” time”? Actually, anyone could make an endless list of things to fill their “spare time”. But I think what separates us from our former selves (our pre-simplification selves), and what makes those of us on this simplicity journey a bit different, is that we would likely answer it very similarly. We’d say, “Well, first of all, I don’t feel the need to fill my margin, but if I choose to use some of it, it will be doing things that are important to me. Things that help fulfill my Life Plan.”

First, let’s review what we mean by margin:

This is how we define it: We define margin as “uncommitted time and space in your life.” Margin is what gives you options. Margin is what allows you to be spontaneous. Margin is what makes you feel more free. Just as there is a place for work and commitment in our life, there must also be a place for margin.

Margin on a page helps us appreciate the written word, the content and the context. But if those written words went from one side edge to the other, and from the very top of the page to the very bottom, the written words wouldn’t nearly as enjoyable. Those margins give us a place to make a little note; to record a thought or a question. The margin helps keep the written words, the message, in focus.

I know we’ve all been working on building more margin in our lives. Here are some things we’ve done to achieve more margin:

• Decluttered
• Reduced voluntary commitments
• Streamlined our processes and systems
  • Setting up routines for all the must-do items
  • Making room for the want-to-do items

But, there comes a time when we’re faced with the fact that what we’ve let into our lives has stolen our margin from us. Here are some ways margin slips away from us…

• When you answer “Yes” to be on that committee you really would rather not be a part of
• When you say “Yes” to that dinner party invitation even though you really don’t want to go
• When you’re guilted into being a chaperone for the field trip…you just gave away some of your margin. 

But when we decide we’ve had enough, we can vow to take that margin back. That is the first step. What follows is a stream of questions that all seem to start with “How?”

• How can I get my time back?
• How can I have more options?
• How can I stop feeling like I’m juggling chainsaws?”

Making the Most of Your Margin

Here are some key things you can do to make sure you do what you can to make sure you make the most of your margin:

• Be careful how you fill it (Parkinson’s Law corollary)
  • Parkinson’s Law states: Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.
  • Corollaries include:
    • Storage requirements will increase to meet storage capacity
    • Data expands to fill the space available for storage
  • Well, we’re pretty sure that applies to margin, as well!
• Make sure you choose things that are congruent with your Life Plan
  • Things that don’t require too much “stuff”
  • Things that don’t take all your margin
  • Support as many of your Life Plan pillars as possible (no magic number here, just the more the better.)

Here’s What We’ve Chosen for Us and Why

• Yours will be vastly different and that’s fine…but here’s some of ours:
  • Camping>teardrop vs Class A motorhome>minimal>forced outdoors>go off grid, if desired (fulfills Freedom and Family Pillars)
  • Tenkara traditional Japanese fly fishing>out in nature>minimal>stores easily in teardrop (fulfills Freedom, Family and Fitness Pillars)
  • Gymnastics>minimal equipment (Fitness Pillar)
  • The way we cook:
    • Big Green Egg >multi-use>grill-roast-smoke-low /slow-hi/fast (Fitness and Family Pillar)
    • Making sausage (Fitness Pillar)
    • Dehydrating: veggies, fruits, jerky (Fitness Pillar)

Major Takeaway

Know that you don’t need to fill your margin, but if you choose to use some of it, make sure you’re doing things that make the most of your margin. Choose things that flow right along with your Life Plan. Be frugal with your margin, be conscious of how you spend your margin…just like you are with your money. Invest your time in quality activities, not a larger quantity of activity.

You’ve worked hard for your margin. Make sure you take time to enjoy it!

Question:

So, how do you spend some of your margin? Have you considered which of your life pillars you’re supporting by your activities? We all enjoy different things in life, so tell us your favorite activities that you invest your margin time in! We’d love to know.

 Be sure to leave a comment below.

Thing Segment:

Our daughter mentioning while we were camping this past weekend: “This is the life!” 

Qs & Comments Segment:

Miriam commented that she’s made great strides at meal planning:  “…now each week I pull out the monthly plan, copy over the coming week’s menu and tweak as necessary.  So simple.  With enough variety but not opening up the entire world of choices which mostly get rejected and just cause me stress to sift through.  Since I plan at the start of each week I can change the plan a little or experiment if I want to, but from a position of stability.”

 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.
  • Location: Minneapolis, Minnesota
  • Date: October 3-4, 2014
  • Venue: University of St. Thomas Downtown Campus
• Joel released a fantastic “All It Takes to get There” page on SimpleRev.com at SimpleRev.com/allittakes. As the name implies it covers all your transportation options, lodging, what to do, how to get around…everything a conference attendee would like ask about the area. It’s great, so check it out.

• 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:

• iTunes Review: Marsha for leaving us such a nice review on iTunes.
• If you’d like to leave a review, just go here on iTunes and click “View in iTunes”, launch iTunes, and then click “Write a Review.”

• 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: Daniel Hayes

The post SLT059: Make the Most of Your Margin appeared first on Simple Life Together.

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…

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

The post SLT058: Maintaining Simplicity…Don’t Let Your Simplifying Work Go To Waste! appeared first on Simple Life Together.

So, last week we introduced the Qs & Comments segment where we answer questions you send in. And today we have our first guest on talking about how she’s simplified her life, too! But before we tell you any more about our special guest, we want to give you a little background on this new segment. Read more…

Background for Simplicity Profiles:

We’re looking at doing Simplicity Profiles about once a month. We’ll start the show with our featured guest and talk with them about simple living, how they embraced simplicity, what they’ve learned along the way, etc. We think the talks will last anywhere from 15 to 25 minutes. Sometimes longer, sometimes not. Then we’ll do the announcements, sometimes a Thing segment, and sometimes the Qs & Comments segment.

We told you there would be a few changes coming along, didn’t we? We think it’s great to highlight your stories, and for you to be able to share:

• Your triumphs
• Your challenges
• Your struggles
• Things you’ve learned along the way

Each of us has our own story when it comes to simplifying, simplicity and simple living. Sharing what you’ve learned, what you’d do differently, advice you’d share, and even mistakes you’ve made on your journey, helps us all grow individually and as a community. We’re all in this together, so we’d all love to hear from YOU.

When we started Simple Life Together, we kind of felt alone on our journey. We really wondered who would want to listen in and weren’t sure whether or not what we had to say mattered to anyone but us. Well, you’ve changed that for us, and we want to change that for you, too.

We’ve been incredibly inspired by stories from the Edit & Forget It Facebook page, emails we’ve received, voicemails…you name it. YOUR story is unique...and if you’re willing to share it, it can serve to inspire others to follow your path. We’ve found out first-hand that something we mention in passing on the show can have a positive impact on someone on the other side of the world…and make their life a little better. Your story can do that too! The world is waiting, and we want to share our platform so you can share your story just like we have.

Simplicity Profile:

Tania Ginoza is an Assistant Financial Controller who lives in Hawaii. She is also a freelance writer and blogger who shares her passion for design, a creative life and living well on her website MauiShopGirl.com. When not crunching numbers or writing, she can be found walking the beach during sunset hoping to spot a whale or two!

1. Tell us how you got started on your simple living journey…and maybe paint a picture of what your life was like before you started simplifying your life.
2. What was the catalyst?
3. Everyone struggles in some way when it comes to simplifying or editing, or making major life changes. What has been the biggest challenge(s) for you along the way? And do you still struggle with any?
4. What does your life look like now that you’ve been on your simplifying journey?
5. Can you share with us some things you’ve learned along the way or things that you may have learned from others on the Edit and Forget It FB page?
6. What advice would you give someone who is “on the fence” about where to start simplifying in their own life?
7. Tell us how people can find you (mauishopgirl.com)

 Question:

So, how have you been simplifying your life!  We’d love to know. Be sure to leave a comment below.

Qs & Comments Segment (New):

Our first question comes from April. April wrote in wondering how to cut down on the stuff coming into your home, especially gifts for her daughter? She doesn’t want to deny her daughter, but believes kids can suffer from analysis paralysis with too many toys.

Next up is a voicemail from Jared. Jared asked how do best deal with digital clutter. Jared’s physical life is clutter free and in good shape, but he wonders how he can make his digital life clutter free, too!

Sara wrote in saying how she loves the style of the small cottage plans from Tumbleweed Tiny House Company and also wanted to hear more about our consideration to get rid of one of our cars to become a “one car family.” 

 Announcements:

• Dan is 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, and even others like Brooke McAlary of Slow Your Home and Mohamed Tohami of Midway Simplicity will be supporting from afar.To learn more, just go to SimpleRev.com or SimpleLifeTogether.com/rev
  • Dates: October 3-4, 2014
  • Location: Minneapolis, Minnesota
  • Venue: University of St. Thomas Downtown Campus

• 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:

• Help support SimpleLifeTogether.com by using our Amazon Affiliate Link for purchases you make. Thanks!
• Dress With Less
• Tania referenced Eileen Fisher’s YouTube channel

Photo Credit: BlueRidgeKitties

The post SLT057: Simple Living with Tania Ginoza of MauiShopGirl.com appeared first on Simple Life Together.

And it’s not just when you have less, but we tend to compare just as much when we have more than others too. Read more…

Topic: Beware of the Comparison Trap

How does comparison typically make us feel? Does it make us jealous, like we’ve been slighted? Are we envious, like we deserve something too? Or maybe we feel proud and superior because we have more or better quality things? Often we fall into a comparison trap that leaves us feeling anything but good. Maybe what we should strive for (when it comes to “stuff,” any way) is to try and stop comparing altogether.

That’s not to say that there’s no place for comparison. When used as a tool to discern, and when used objectively, comparison can certainly be a good thing. Take for instance:

• Determining who is the right fit for a job or position at a company or on a team. Comparison is ok when strictly used to determine a person’s skills and qualifications to perform a job or fill a position.
• Judging the quality of products or services that we invest in. Things such as comparing prices, materials used in a product, where we’ll get the best value for an education or the experience level and ratings of a service provider…those are most definitely legitimate reasons to compare. These may actually be considered healthy reasons to compare.

But we begin to fall into the comparison trap when we begin to use it to determine our value and self worth, or even worse, the value and worth of others. When we compare ourselves to others it leads to nothing but discontentment and unhappiness. And here’s why:

• The comparison trap is one of the negative side effects of the hyper-consumer society. It tantalizes our subconscious with the false notion that our success is based on being rich, famous and having more, more, more.
• That “gotta have more” mentality automatically puts us in the race of “trying to keep up with the Joneses.” But where does that really lead us? Do we ever achieve enough? There will ALWAYS…I repeat ALWAYS be folks with more stuff. We typically turn to this set of questions regarding things and happiness:

If you’re not happy with the stuff you have now, would you be happier with twice as much? How about 10 times as much? Chances are, you’d be happier with half…

The problem with the comparison trap is that it always leads to envy, jealousy, and sometimes resentment. I know I’ve often been guilty of this in the past…and even sometimes today. Back in Episode 6 we spoke with our friend Joshua Becker of Becoming Minimalist. Joshua notes notes in his new book, Clutterfree With Kids, that “Comparisons are always unfair. We typically compare the worst we know of ourselves with the best we presume of others.”

But, bringing it back to “stuff”, sometimes we aren’t much better than we were when we were kids, comparing what kind of tennis shoes we had or what kind of jeans we have. As we get older, the comparison trap just manifests itself differently if we don’t put it in check; what kind of car, boat, suit, purse, house, shoes, etc. What kind of job, what’s your title, benefits, perks…what your kids have, where they go to school… I’ve even seen adults one upping each other over what their adult kids do, drive, live…just perpetuating the cycle.

The bad news is it’ll always be there. But the AWESOME news is, for us, it ends when we say it ends. But we can’t end it for anyone else, they’ll always compare. But we can end it for ourselves.

There are two very simple ways to help you combat the comparison trap. They really don’t need any explanation, so we’ll just list them here. You’re smart, you can figure out the rest:

1. Know and believe that experiences and people such as family and good friends will always make you happier than things ever can. And…
2. When you feel yourself slipping into the comparison trap, try celebrating other’s successes instead of envying them.

Final Thoughts

So what does comparison do for us? Well, it can certainly be helpful for some things, but when we succumb to using a tool like comparison to gauge our worth, status, or standing based on things that we have or don’t have, it leads us down a slippery slope and into the comparison trap. But, much like Dorothy’s Ruby Slippers…each of us has the power to escape the choke hold that comparison can put on us. Where comparison can be our kryptonite, simplicity can be our superpower.

Question:

So, do you find yourself comparing what you have against what others have? If you do, how does it make you feel? If you’ve stopped, what made you stop and how does that feel differently? We’d love to know. Be sure to leave a comment below.

Qs & Comments Segment (New):

Claire wrote in to talk about living in a small space. She suggested that Dan’s desire to live in 500 sf may be a little too tight for a family of four. She thinks that Vanessa might be more on track with 750 or more sf.

Don asked us what our approach is to home decor. He says he’s always liked simplistic home design but how we strike a balance between minimalism and still having a “homey” place to live.

April and her husband have a 6-year-old daughter and want her to be able to play and create, but need to set up better boundaries. So, April asked Vanessa a few questions, such as: What do you do with your daughter’s toys? Does she play in her room? Also does she do crafts at home and if so, do you do that on the kitchen table and just clean up for dinner?

THING Segment:

Vanessa:   Joshua Becker’s new book: Clutterfree with Kids. I love all of Joshua’s books and I honestly a little skeptical at how this book would be any different.  But of course he delivers.  What I like most is that it’s a simple 200 page book that has very practical advice on how to raise your kids to live clutter free.  It’s not an organizing book…it’s a book about intentional parenting.  Joshua gives a compelling reasons for minimalism in all of his books, but having read his books…in this one it feels like he’s writing more with conviction. It’s definitely worth the read. You can find out more at SimpleLifeTogether.com/clutterfree.

 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, and even others like Brooke McAlary of Slow Your Home and Mohamed Tohami of Midway Simplicity will be supporting from afar.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

• 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:

• OrthoMonkey
• Hikerbird
• CajnIndian
• Rebbie4274
• NRamsland

• 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 Unknown

The post SLT056: Beware of the The Comparison Trap appeared first on Simple Life Together.

Now, there are tons of things you can do to simplify, but we wanted to hit what we think are the top 7 things that have worked for us, and we want share them with you! So let’s get started! Read more…

Topic: 7 Habits You Can Develop to Simplify Your Life

We want you to be able to take just these 7 habits…seven things you can start doing today, to have a better tomorrow, a better year, and a much better chance of achieving the lifestyle that you want for yourself and your family.

So here goes…

Habit 1: Begin with the End in Mind

• This one comes straight from our military planning background and also Stephen Covey’s 2nd habit in his book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
• We call it “Desired End State” which we developed through our Life Plan process
• Establish Priorities…we call them our Pillars (F⁵)
• Once we have Priorities, we can begin working toward our goals
• Vanessa really hit on working toward your goals pretty hard back in the “Tips for Successful Resolutions” in Episode 008
• Keep you actions aligned with your goals and priorities to stay on target: 
  • The target is your desired endstate, or the end in mind
    • My rear sight is my priority or my pillar
    • But the front sight is what I need to have in focus.
  • When you fire a weapon, you have to keep four fundamentals in mind: sight picture(SP), sight alignment(SA), breath control and trigger squeeze.
  • Let’s focus on just SA and SP
    • Sight Alignment is Front & Rear Sights
      • Rear sight = Priority
      • Front Sight = Goal
    • Sight picture is Front/Rear Sights and Target
      • Target = End State
      • Front & Rear sights aligned with each other
      • Front & Rear sights aligned with your target
  • For instance, we may have an end state in mind, and we may have a priority, but if the actions we take aren’t aligned as we pursue our goals, we’ll never hit the target. It’s the same thing I talked before about back in Episode 32…it’s All About the Choices We Make

Habit 2: Strive to Simplify versus Organize.

• Our take is: Clutter is the disease, organizing steps are the cure, but simplicity is prevention!
• Yeah, organizing is…well…kind of reactive.
• We saw this when we gave our presentation at Organize and Energize a little over a week ago…and how different our message was from the different organizers who presented.
• Much of the talk was about how to “maximize your space” to fit more in your cabinets and closets…which is all great stuff, too…but focused more about “editing your space” to give yourself some room and margin.
• Now, Vanessa will be the first to tell you that organizing is still very near and dear to her heart, and is a wonderful tool to help maintain simplicity in your life.But, it’s very eye-opening when you clarify the difference between the two.
• Vanessa advocates decluttering and simplifying your life first then organizing what’s left. And, she’s starting to think of herself more and more as a “Simplifier” than a “professional organizer”….hmmmm.

Habit 3: Embrace the idea of “less is more.”

• Sounds so cliche, but the more you simplify, the more this is reinforced.
• One of our earliest episodes….Episode 004 titled “Benefits of Organizing and Having Less” addressed this very idea. It addresses the some of the benefits of having less.
• Hundreds of people have (and still are) experiencing this very concept with our Edit and Forget It Challenge.
• Opt for “reductivity” over productivity. Get rid of tasks instead of juggling them!
• What it all boils down to, is that by embracing the idea that less truly is more, you will in turn become more mindful of the what you allow into your life. It will allow you to be more content and grateful for what your have and learn to appreciate living in the moment.

Habit 4: Learn to Value Margin in Your Life

• We define “margin” as uncommitted Time and Space.
• For this habit, we’re going to focus on the “Time” aspect of margin.
• We talked about limits in last week’s show, Episode 54. In that we mentioned that boundaries allow you to respect your time and for others to respect your time too.
• Learn to say NO (Episode 009 The Power of Saying No). “No” allows you to have margin to breathe, relax, contemplate or be spontaneous.
• It also allows helps you to say “no” to unproductive and unmeaningful obligations…and “yes” to valuable and more meaningful experiences?

Habit 5: Value Experiences over Things

• With most of our treasured “things”, their value is in the experience they provide, not the item itself. Examples for us include our teardrop camper, our bikes, etc. Alone they aren’t so meaningful…but when used in line with our life goals and priorities (like our love of the outdoors and being with family) then they can help create those experiences.
• Advertisers sell “experiences” in commercials and ads and not “things”. They know you want happiness. Experiences bring that, not stuff.
• Take advertisements with a grain of salt. Remember,  you MUST be absolutely sure you are intentional about your purchase (and will use it), and not just getting sucked into another “gateway gadget” like Dan talked about back in Episode 14.
• Try to live in the moment with your experiences, and value them.

Habit 6: Establish Habits, Routines and Rituals

• We’ve talked about this many times and at length in Episode 30 “Buying Time” (which focused on habits routines and rituals) as well as Episodes 02 and 15: “How Routines Can Simplify Your Life” and “Creating Your Morning Routine”
• So…we won’t foot stomp that so hard here. Just know that if you take a hard look at the things that DO work for you in life right now, then it’s probably because it’s a habit, a routine, or it’s become a ritual. Just model that behavior.

Finally, Habit 7 is Understand that You are Different and that’s OK.

• In Episode 13 we talked about the Crabs in a Bucket story and Frogs in pot of Boiling Water adage… you may want to go back and listen to those.
• Just know, that there are lots of forces in your life that will try to keep you from changing…to keep things the way they are.
• It’s going to take some effort to fight that gravity. And that gravity may be in the form of family or friends.

So there you go…7 habits you can start developing today, to help you have a better tomorrow, a better year, and a much better chance of achieving the lifestyle that you want for yourself and your family. A life more…simple!

Question:

So, we know these aren’t the only  7 habits you can use…so tell us what we missed! What are some habits you’ve developed or are working on to simplify your life? Let us know! Be sure to leave a comment and share at SimpleLifeTogether.com/055.

THING Segment:

Dan: Choosing Tenkara, a more minimalist/simplicity-style traditional Japanese fly fishing, over western style fly fishing. Dan’s goals are to avoid a “gateway gadget” situation and concentrate more on the experience of fishing…not the gear. Dan says, “The more you know, the less you need.” 

Vanessa:  Andy Stanley’s podcast is called Your Move.  Now, it is a faith based podcast but it’s NOT heavy on the spiritual content.  It’s much, much more!  Vanessa finds it more of a motivational, thought-provoking, leadership-driven, and inspirational podcast. And it’s funny!  Now…specifically, he has a series called Recovery Road that is directly line with everything that we talk about here on Simple Life Together.

 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, and even others like Brooke McAlary of Slow Your Home and Mohamed Tohami of Midway Simplicity will be supporting from afar.To learn more, just go to SimpleRev.com or SimpleLifeTogether.com/rev

• 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 Nicki425…thanks so much for your review of the show!

• James Kinson from the Cash Car Convert podcast had us on his show this week and it was a pleasure to talk with him. For many of us, our car is our biggest ticket item next to our home, and James is a thought leader who advocates buying your cars without buying into debt. Check out James’s show and listen in as he interviews us at cashcarconvert.com/008. 

• 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

The post SLT055: 7 Habits for Highly Effective Simplicity appeared first on Simple Life Together.

But setting limits is actually a really good thing! Limits are a fantastic tool to help simplify your life and actually help you appreciate the things that are most important to you. Learning to accept, use, and embrace limits can help make a whole lot of sense of the hyper-consumer society we all live in. No limits? No way!

So let’s get started! Read more…

Topic: Setting Limits

So I first thought about the framework of setting limits being a truly positive thing while I was watching a Tony Robbins training video. In it, he mentioned that sometimes limits were good, and the example he used was a glass. If you’re thirsty, you pour yourself a glass of water. The glass limits or contains the water so you can drink it. Without the glass to limit the water’s flow, the water would pour right through your hand.

Well, sometimes the weirdest stuff will get me thinking. And, true to form, Tony’s comment got me thinking about the positivity of limits that help us on our simplicity journey. So here are a few examples from our family:

Stuff We Have

• “No limits” certainly doesn’t work when it comes to your clutter! We’ve been working on setting limits on how much “stuff” we have in our house, and getting rid of excess (things we don’t Need, Love or Use) to make margin in our life.
  • That’s why the Edit & Forget It Challenge was so important to us last year and helped us get rid of over 3000 things, and why we’re doing it again this year! 
  • This sets us up for the much, much smaller home of our dreams someday, too.
  • So the point is, by limiting the stuff we have, our actions are congruent with our goals

Stuff We Buy

• We’re also setting limits to control what we allow into our lives.
  • Of course we have to buy things, but we don’t need to buy everything we’re “told” we need…

What We Expose Ourselves To

• This is hard to do with all the advertisements we’re exposed to on a daily basis. There certainly seems to be no limits to that!
  • We did a presentation together recently and shared some insight into just how much, we are exposed to consumer advertisements using Real Simple Magazine as an example (that magazine that’s supposed to make your life simple, right?):
    • In a 236 page issue:
    • 111 pages were dedicated solely to FULL page ads (that’s nearly half of the magazine)!
    • 125 pages had some form of content on them
      • Of these, 50 pages had ¼-½ page ads (with an additional 85 “hidden” ads)
      • Leaving only 75 pages dedicated to “ad-free” content!
    • So that’s 250 ads total in just one magazine! AND…you had to sift through 10 full page ads before you even got to the Table of Contents!

Our Family Time

• So here’s another one–even when it comes to our Life Plan pillar of “Family,” we knew we wanted more family time together, and camping was our choice for family entertainment and adventure:
  • We were looking seriously at a huge Class A motorhomes with all the comforts of home (more actually).
  • But we came to our senses and limited ourselves. And, our little teardrop trailer won out. Thank goodness!
  • The teardrop has everything we need (and more), but limits how much we can take.
  • That said, it opens up where we can actually travel to as it’s much more cost effective to use than a big motorcoach and we can easily “boondock” in remote areas that don’t have water or electric hookups.

Media Consumption

• We’re also setting limits on our media consumption.
  • We’re not big TV show watchers (other than a slight Downton Abbey addiction, and of course Call The Midwife).
  • Actually…we spent more time deciding what the heck to watch than actually watching!
  • So we’re…getting rid of cable TV. We’ve grown way too tired of the 24 hour news cycle, and the incessant commercials, and the “not-so-real” reality shows.
  • We’re going with just the basic over-the-air TV and our Apple TV or Roku with Netflix and Hulu. Saved $100 per month!

Things Dan’s Cutting Back

• Recently downgraded Pro Mindmeister account to the free account and saved $9.95 per month!
  • Great tool
  • Wasn’t using it enough
• Canceled membership in an online community.  Saved $10 per month!
  • Loves a good online community
  • Just not going there enough
• Cancelled data plan on iPad. Saved $25 per month!
  • Need to limit access anyway
  • If access NEEDED, can just use phone’s hotspot and tether my iPad to that.

Limits and Children

• Setting limits is especially good when it comes to children. Limits help establish boundaries which in turn help children grow, problem solve, expand their creativity, focus and practice self-restraint.
  • Think about a child that has too many games and toys. If one game is too challenging then she’ll simply give up and move on to the next. Or if she gets bored of one toy she’ll move on to the next, and the next, and the next.
  • When you limit the amount of toys or “stuff” then you are encouraging your children to use their minds, expand their creativity, think more, focus, and work harder to solve problems.
  • Limits teaches children to appreciate what they have (whether they know it or not) and to be resourceful.

Limits and Food

• Limits can be used in a positive way by being intentional of what we eat and how much.
  • When you eat too many chips, too much dessert or whatever…it’s usually going to make you sick or feel pretty awful. So limit yourself.
  • You know what they say…too much of anything is never a good thing.

Final Thoughts

So, why think of “setting limits” in a negative sense, when they can be a fantastic tool to help simplify your life. Use limits to your advantage and craft your limits to help ensure you keep on track with your priorities that are in line with your Life Plan. Sure, the slogan “No Limits” is popular these days, but it’s often used to describe what your spending cap should be for the product they’re hawking.

Establishing limits or boundaries can be pretty empowering and it goes hand in hand with embracing the Power of Saying No. Together they can help you live a life with intention and and keep you focused on your priorities.

The last thing we want to do is expand on the word congruent that I mentioned earlier. This whole congruency thing has become our watchword lately. But, limits we set are congruent with our priorities we set out in our Life PLan. Remember, we call our priorities our 5 Pillars of FAITH, FAMILY, FINANCES, FITNESS and FREEDOM. It’s kinda like back in our military days, sometimes people would talk about Command & Control like it’s one thing. It’s not, it’s two very distinct things. Command is like our Life Plan, control is like the Priorities and limits we use to ensure our actions are congruent to our Pillars. So, that’s how we frame limits in our lives. It works for us, and hopefully it can work for you, too!

Question:

So, what limits do you use to help keep your life on track? Which limits are the most difficult to keep? Let us know! Be sure to leave a comment below! 

THING Segment:

Resisting some marketing temptations and making sure our own actions were congruent to our 5 Pillars.

So our little girl Sunshine was awarded with a “FAIRNESS” award at school…which is pretty cool because it’s like a little reinforcement that we’re teaching her the right things. Well, she also came home with a so-called “award” to go see the San Antonio Spurs basketball team play. She got a free ticket, but of course…she had to get at least one adult ticket too. Naturally she was so excited to win an award, and as a parent you want share in the excitement and praise their good work. So I (Vanessa) started to plan how we were going to go to this game, because of course….we’d have to take the whole family to celebrate. Well, the pressure was on because I had only one day to make a decision. But when I brought it to Dan and as we were trying to figure it out, he was like, “Vanessa…the thing is…would have even considered going to a Spurs game if Sunshine hadn’t won this award?” And I said, “no.” So it really made us think about how quickly you can react to the “FEAR OF MISSING OUT” but when we actually stopped and thought about it, we realized this wasn’t in line with our normal way of spending time together or our priorities (because that would have been a pricey family night out). We’re not going to the game, and we’re celebrating Sunshine’s award together, as a family, in a way of our own choosing.

 Announcements:

• It was great to see some SLT listeners at Organize & Energize this past weekend here in San Antonio! It’s so cool to meet like-minded folks who listen to the show. We feel it kind of validates that we’re not alone on this simplicity journey…and we have to support one another along the way.
• 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

• LDJ6611 from United States
• JLGN13 from United States
• Mel Coppola from Australia
• dancamp77 from United States
• hannahrichards from United Kingdom
• Michelle Dragon from Australia 
• Petronella Van den Akker-Helder 
• EldarX67 from United States 
• Move Over Alligator from United States 
• Heather CW from United States 
• ScrappyDcherie from United States 
• THEBIX18 from United States 
• Swissmiss111 from United States
• Thank you all so much for taking the time to share your heart-felt comments. We really, really appreciate it so much.

• 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

The post SLT054: No Limits? Setting Limits to Simplify Your Life appeared first on Simple Life Together.

So, if you’re considering doing the Challenge…if you’re ready for fewer things cluttering up the margin in your life…we thought we’d share some of the experiences we had as we eliminated over 3000 things from our lives last year. Plus, we’ll tell you how you can sign up too (it’s FREE!), and and we’ll go over the “rules” (think of those rules in air quotes because you can shape them a bit to fit your needs).

So let’s get started! Read more…

Topic: The Edit & Forget It Challenge

Our Experiences from 2013

Starting Out: As we embarked on this challenge I was chomping at the bit! Editing clutter has become second nature to me. Not just because of the work I do as an organizer, but because I make a regular habit of letting go of clutter in our home. I’ve also come to appreciate the concept of “less is more” and so I’ve been ready to let go of a lot more things for awhile.

• We started off easy by editing our own clothes first. We’ve mentioned before that starting the Edit and Forget It Challenge by editing your own clothes is a really good place to start simply because, for most of us, we don’t share our clothes so its usually easier to make decisions on them.
• What’s interesting, is we started the challenge knowing we really didn’t have much clutter in our home to begin with, but I knew once we got to the garage it would be a different story. 
• The cool thing about the garage project was that Dan…well…he let me take over. He decided “hey…she does this for a living…I need to let her lead the way.” That was cool and it worked out well. But there were a few other reasons why it worked out well other than me leading the charge:

1. We set a date…actually we set aside an entire weekend just in case we couldn’t finish in a day.
2. We shared the same goal. We both wanted less stuff overall… and to make room for our car (or future teardrop camper) to fit in.
3. We worked as a team. The beautiful thing about working together is not only do you have additional manpower…but you’ve got someone to help guide or keep you in check. Like asking tough questions to really get you to think about if you should keep an item or not. Or knowing when to take a break when the other is tired or struggling to make decisions.

• So, we were able to meet and exceed our Edit and Forget It goal once we edited the garage. And it felt AMAZING!!! You know how cool it is to set a goal and then achieve or surpass it…it’s AWESOME!
• And that’s what you are going to experience. But there are a lot of other things you’ll experience along the way which I’m going to go over with you in a moment. But first let me break down what our actual stats were for you:

Our Results: We edited 2920 things (a little more because I lost count and forgot to record a few things…plus we didn’t count all of our garage items).

• Of those 2920 edited items: over 2300 were donated or given away
• Over 130 were recycled
• Over 150 items were sold
• 50 were digitized (keepsakes and manuals)
• The Best Thing…was that only 190 items were TOSSED! It felt so good that we had better options of letting go than to dump it all in the trash!!!!
• Another cool thing….was that we made over $2000 from selling our stuff! Which included things like our treadmill, oriental silk rug, saddleback leather bags, clothes we sold at a yard sale, power tools, home fitness equipment, and podcasting equipment. Oh, and we sold our land which freed up a lot of other financial obligations…that was the biggest EDIT (but we didn’t include that in our stats)!
• We used Ebay and Craig’s List for selling most of our stuff. It was really nice to get a little something back for going through the process.

Some Edit & Forget It Challenge “Side Effects”:  There were definitely some other side effects that we experienced that you might experience too by going through this challenge:

• Once you start you may not want to stop! We kept going even after we met our goal. Letting go of our clutter was such a relief and it gets addicting.
• You will become more mindful about what you let into your life in the future. It’s like this natural side effect of editing….you become more aware. As you edit, you will no doubt experience moments of frustration, sadness, or regret because you spent way too much or wasted money on things that you got little use from or they didn’t deliver on their promise to make you happier. It’s normal and it’s ok….I know Dan and I had several moments of shaking our heads thinking… “what were we thinking?!” But what I would recommend is to try and channel that frustration and regret and use it to your advantage by becoming more aware. You’ll have a better sense of what triggers you have that make you buy….heck after you go through the E&F it challenge you may be like: “I’m never going through that again!”, so you are now determined more than ever to not allow clutter into your life.
• A side effect of being more mindful and another benefit of the E&F Challenge is that you’ll curb your spending and probably save some money. I know I cut down dramatically on clothes, shoes and toy shopping. And Dan cut down on tech gadgets, etc….
• You’ll relieve yourself of some guilt. Have you ever looked at things in your home and thought… “Ugg! Man, we bought that gadget 6 months ago and we haven’t used it yet! We really should use that more!”? And then every time you see it you say the exact same thing. And after a while you start really getting down on yourself and feeling totally guilty? I know I felt the same way about our treadmill. I use to look at it everyday and think; “I really should use that!” And then I’d go for a run outside. Ha! But once we sold it, I no longer felt guilty for not using it as much as I was telling myself I should. The same thing happened when we sold my silk rug. I felt guilty for keeping this beautiful piece of art stored away for 8 years and not displaying it properly. But once we sold it, I was instantly freed of that guilt!
• If you join the E&F Facebook group, you’ll get a TON of help and support! Dan and I don’t have the answers to every editing question that gets posted….but there has been some amazing advice. I’ve learned so much from folks like, Dayis, Kaylin, Tania, Robin, Kate, Ellis, Anne and sooo many others on who are active on the E&F page.
• You can get overwhelmed at the tasks ahead. I know we put off the garage for a few months because of how big it was….and we’ve delayed editing our personal and professional boxes of papers and keepsakes until this year. But just start in one small/easy to edit area and then move to another, bigger area once you get into the groove. Remember, you have all year.
• Your family and friends won’t “get you” and think you’re crazy!!!!
• It may become a way of life. Like I said in the beginning, editing has become second nature. Mostly because we’ve made a habit of editing different areas of our home on a consistent or recurring basis. It may not be a specific date on the calendar, but I’ll know when it’s time to edit and reorganize when things are feeling chaotic like in a closet, garage or in the kitchen…it’s probably because it hasn’t been edited in a while. So, basically, once you feel the benefits of editing you’re going to want to keep going and keep it up.
• You may be tempted to test the “minimalist” waters….like Dan and I have with testing out a minimalist wardrobe. That was uber simple for Dan…and uber tough for me…at first. But it gave us an even greater sense of and appreciation for “less is more”. And you can experience the same thing…maybe not in every facet of your life or space, but just one small area. We highly recommend taking it to the next level once you’re ready and experience some of the benefits of minimalism.
• And I gotta say that this is just the tip of the iceberg. You’ll see over on the Facebook Page just how much this challenge has affected people’s lives. It’s really been kind of amazing. You’ll see…

Moving Forward in 2014: Our Edit & Forget It Challenge Goals

• Do a second round in the garage
• Digitizing more of our documents
• Digitizing our keepsakes and photos
• Continue with Project 333 and Dress with Less
• Contemplate becoming a one car family (yikes!)
• Implement new buying strategy of not buying anything until we’ve waited a week or two to think about it.

Things to consider:

The Numbers: To eliminate 2014 things from your home in 2014 the numbers work out like this:

• About 6 things per day
• About 40 things per week
• About 170 per month
• We’re also including going paperless because that is a great way to eliminate paper clutter from your home.

So, you may want to re-listen to Episode 6 and our interview with Brooks Duncan of DocumentSnap. We recommend ScanSnap scanners!

It’s also really good to have an accountability buddy and that’s what we and all the members of the Edit & Forget It Facebook Page are for. We keep each other on track, with encouragement, suggestions, and reinforcement.

Edit & Forget It Guidelines:

• Things that normally go together or that you originally purchased together count as one, e.g. a pair of shoes counts as one (not 2), a deck of cards counts as one (not 52) a puzzle counts as one (not 150).
• Donated packaged food counts, thrown out food does not.
• Scanned documents count as one original if disposed of. A document is a document whether it is a single page by itself or a ten page document. Each scanned document counts as one item.
• Consider not counting things that you don’t ordinarily keep in your home (like junk mail, catalogs, etc) if you recycle or trash them immediately upon receipt. But if you typically keep them in your home, then you should count them!
• To help track your progress we made a very generic spreadsheet that tracks:
  • What you sell (and logging the actual sale amount)
  • What you donate (and logging the market value)
  • What you give away
  • What you discard
  • And what you digitize!
  • You’ll get links to the spreadsheet that you can use when you sign up for the Challenge. Of course you can make your own if you’d like! We’ve had members simply gather things and take pictures. Whatever works for you. Now, I will say that some members even stopped counting. If it’s just way too much trouble to keep count, well…ok, but some of them who are continuing this year said they’ll keep an accurate count this time.
  • So, these are our guidelines. We’d love it if you’d join us! Feel free to use our guidelines “as is” or adapt them for your needs.
  • To sign up, just click here or click on the Edit & Forget It box on the right side of the page. 

Again, we know 2014 fewer things is a lofty goal and certainly won’t be for everyone. The focus of Edit & Forget It Challenge is eliminating as many things you truly don’t need any longer. It’s not about deprivation, it’s about reaching a point where you have what you truly need, love, and use. It’s about shedding some things that no longer have the impact on you that they once had, so you can focus on the quality of things you let into your life. The Edit & Forget It Challenge really will help you take control and build that margin in your life that you’ve had as your goal.

Question:

So, if you’re a returning Edit and Forget It member, what’s next for you? If you haven’t signed up yet, what’s holding you back? Are you ready for fewer things and a fuller life? It doesn’t cost a thing but you’ll get so much out of it. Oh, and would you like to hear from some of those that took or are taking the Challenge? We’re considering an occasional segment from members. Let us know! Be sure to leave a comment below! 

THING Segment:

Our trip to Vegas for the Podcast Awards. Well, we didn’t win, but we had a fantastic time with some amazing friends, none of which we wouldn’t have ever met if it wasn’t for this show.

• We spend time with Sherry, from sherrylcarver.com and Leh & Stephanie from the Healthy Married Life show, and Leh also does the Avid Woodworker Podcast.
• Sherry, Leh and Stephanie started out as SLT listeners and we’ve become great friends.
• We also had a blast with our friends Corey and Tawney from Ivy Envy Podcast and Mommy’s Cocktail Hour, and Nick from Who Dey Weekly.
• Our friends Cliff & Stephanie Ravenscraft, Chris Ducker and Pat Flynn hosted an amazing meetup and just hanging around with fellow podcasters was an awful lot of fun.
• And…we each had just one carry-on bag. So all our travel clothes, and our Dress With Less wardrobes paid off once again. It pays to live with fewer things!

So thanks again so much for taking the time to vote for us. Maybe next year is our year, huh?

 Announcements:

• We moved our show release days to Mondays for a while. We’re testing to see if that works better for our schedule. So, today’s show is going out on a Monday and look for future shows on Mondays, too. Now, you’ll have the whole week to listen to us on your commute!
• Special Announcement: Especially for listeners in and around San Antonio/Austin, TX…

Our friend and colleague Karen Meade of Let’s Get Organizing will be hosting her annual Organize and Energize workshop. It’s on Saturday, January 18th, 2013 from 9:00 Am to 1:00 PM at the Norris Conference Center, on Fredericksburg Road in San Antonio, Texas. There’s a great lineup of speakers talking about organization, financial planning, health and fitness…you name it. Dan and I will be there talking about “Five Things You Can Do To Lead A Simple Life In A Modern World”. For more information check out LetsGetOrganizing.com and we’ll have a link in the shownotes, as well.

• 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 Amodiovalerio Verde

The post SLT053: Fewer Things, Fuller Life! Are You Ready? appeared first on Simple Life Together.

So, if you’ve fallen short of your goals in the past, like probably all of us have at some point, we have 5 steps to help you build a more solid plan, and hopefully set you on the road to success.

So let’s get started! Read more…

5 Simple Steps to Make It Your Best Year Ever

Step 1: Take some time to do a review of the past year.

• Figure out what’s working for you and what’s not.
• As you list out what’s not working, are there any “repeat offenders”? You know, things you swore you’d stop doing but somehow find yourself still doing them? Yeah? Us too! 
• Keep track of these bad habits that keep working their way back in. You can find more about this in Episode 37.

Step 2: Make a conscious effort to prioritize, then change or eliminate THINGS that clutter your life…and establish new goals.

• Get help if you need it! Maybe it takes an outside set of eyes or ears to help you see things better.
  • Maybe some coaching or mentoring could get you on path quicker than just doing things yourself.
• Use S-M-A-R-T goals (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Results-focused, Time-bound). Instead of saying “This is going to be my best year ever! I’m going to be healthier this year!”, make sure you incorporate SMART goals. Here’s an examples for each part of a SMART goal:  
  • Specific =Juice daily, eat more raw foods (½ small meals are raw fruits, veggies and nuts), cut down on sugar and processed foods (keep count of number of grams/day), cut down on alcohol (only 1 glass of wine per day)
  • Measurable = If losing weight maybe a goal of losing 2 lbs/month; or for your health, maybe measure your blood levels for cholesterol, blood pressure, etc.; body fat percentage vs. weight, etc.
  • Attainable = Can you actually do this? Audacious goals are great…but they have to be realistic for you.
  • Results-focused = Lose X amount of weight, make X amount more money, save X amount of money, give away X number of items…etc. 
  • Time-bound = Daily, weekly, monthly or annual goal
• Some positive reinforcement sure helps! Partner up with someone or make your intentions public. Sometimes an accountability buddy or expectations from someone else is just what we need to give us that added positive peer pressure to stay on target.
• Track your progress…it really helps! For us, the Edit & Forget It Challenge is a great example. It really felt pretty amazing to see the numbers add up and watch our numbers goal get closer and closer. Even though it wasn’t truly about the numbers for us, tracking our progress gave us a quantitative gauge that we were on the right track. Plus, it was a SMART goal; it was a specific goal of editing 2013 items, it was measurable since it was a quantitative amount, attainable in that it wasn’t an unreasonable goal, results oriented in that we not only could see the results in terms of space we cleared up, but mentally we felt a weight lifted; and time-bound in that we had weekly, monthly and an overall annual goal.

Step 3: Take control of your time. 

• If you really want to make this your best year ever, you need to:  Define your responsibilities, joys and dreams.
• Align your commitments with your responsibilities, joys and dreams! 
  • To the extent possible, change or eliminate commitments that don’t align with your responsibilities, joys and dreams! 
• Accept that you won’t get it all done! Remember, there are only 24 hours in the day, 168 hours in the week. Make yours count. 
  • Don’t worry, we all get sidetracked. Here’s a recent example for us:
    • What we planned to do during the month of December:
      • Focus on some writing projects
      • Working on a book, and
      • Creating all new Edit and Forget It guide for this year!
    • What we actually got done:
      • We wrote, but not nearly enough on the book
      • But we did work on our new ebook, which we don’t have our final title for but we’re working on. 
      • We also just spent some time reflecting and there will be some changes to the show that we’ll talk about later in the Thing segment.
    • In all honesty, we allowed ourselves to get distracted a bit through the holidays. So, we completely understand that post-holiday feeling of “Wow…I feel way behind, but it’s time for me to get started.” So, when times are tough don’t get too down on yourself. Remember, you need to…

Step 4: Give yourself credit for your accomplishments!

• Too often we don’t celebrate our own accomplishments
• We can be our own worst critic and pretty hard on ourselves.
• You don’t have to succomb to guilty rewards or pleasures, but be sure to recognize your efforts. 

Step 5: Commit to a personal review schedule that works for you.

• Some do a daily review, but do a 20-30 minute weekly as a minimum. Set a reminder.
• Recording your thoughts helps track your progress. Use a journal, calendar event notes, Evernote, even a voice note if it’s easier, etc.
• Monthly reviews set you up for your annual review.

So, there you have it! Five Simple Steps to make this YOUR best year ever! To recap, those 5 steps were:

1. Review and reflect on the past year
2. Prioritize and make new SMART goals
3. Take control of your time
4. Give credit to your accomplishments, and…
5. Create and commit to a personal review.

Sure, you could just hop on the resolution bandwagon, make yourself some empty promises and avoid all the real effort. Or you really could take charge of your decisions, your actions, and your life. We’d be willing to bet if you really spend some time on Step 1, the other 4 steps will fall into place for you. Give it a shot. You deserve this year!

Question:

So, what are some of your goals for this year? How are you going to simplify? We’d love to know. Be sure to leave a comment and share at SimpleLifeTogether.com/052. So, are you going to get a jump on the New Year and start simplifying now? 

THING Segment:

Combined: Well, our thing this week has to do with some of our reflection time. Remember, the Thing segment started out as something that happened, someone or some “thing” that made our lives a little simpler during the previous week since the last show.

Well, one thing that will make life a little simpler is this: We took about 4 hours to plan one day just before the middle of December and just spent some time reflecting and bouncing ideas off of one another. Here is some of what we talked about with regard to the show:

• What we want our life together to look and feel like with regard to the show.
  • Candidly, we’re a year into SLT and we thought it was time to think about what’s working, what’s not working, etc. Just like a personal review.
  • We talked about:
    • The format of the show
    • Did some 80/20 analysis and came up with a page full of our “Pain Points”…things that held up production of the show, caused friction, etc.
  • So, we decided to make a few changes. Here they are:
    • Not do the Thing segment weekly, but as a target of opportunity.
    • Shorten our posts a bit but keep the full, unedited shownotes as a downloadable attachment.
    • Really work on getting better so we didn’t have to edit so much.
  • Together, these changes will help make producing the show a lot simpler for us. We’re not pros at the whole “production thing”. Putting the show out there every week still takes us up to 16 hours combined, and that just isn’t sustainable for us. So, we have to make it simpler because doing the show is important to us, and hopefully to you, too.

 Announcements:

Thanks to all of you who waited patiently throughout the month of December as we took a break. We missed you and we’re really, really excited to be back! 

So as we mentioned earlier, we are working on two big writing projects. The first will be a book for Amazon that will be a guide to help people through the editing process with steps, some checklists, and more. Plus it will go right along with the Edit & Forget It Challenge. The second project is another book, as well. We’re not sure if we’ll self-publish that or seek out a traditional publisher. So, more to follow on that down the road as we make progress…

We have to say Project 333 is going great for us! We had no problems over the break and are going strong with Courtney Carver’s Dress With Less microcourse. You can learn more about that at SimpleLifeTogether.com/dress.

Finally, the Edit & Forget It Challenge is back for 2014! So 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 Amodiovalerio Verde

The post SLT052: Make It Your Best Year Ever in 5 Simple Steps appeared first on Simple Life Together.

But, it sure is nice to have a general idea in mind, isn’t it? So, we wanted this show to serve as a sort of a Simplicity Quick Start Guide for your journey. You know how when you’re working on a puzzle you check the cover of the box from time to time to see if you’re on track? Well, that’s what we hope you do with the episodes listed here. Check them and gauge your progress once in a while. Read more…

Simplicity Quick Start Guide

So we broke our Simplicity Quick Start Guide down into 5 categories and listed some of our most popular topics in each. This way, you can go back and listen to those shows you may have missed, or re-listen to them based upon your simplicity goals. So here are the 5 categories we used:

• Starting Out…The Decision to Simplify
• Simplifying Everyday Life
• Organizing What You Have
• Designing Your Lifestyle
• Your Digital Life, Simplified

Part 1: Starting Out…The Decision to Simplify

• Beginning Our Simple Journey
• Edit & Forget It Challenge
• Becoming Minimalist
• First Steps on the Road to Simplicity
• How Typical is Your Home?

Part 2: Simplifying Everyday Life:

• How Clutter Effects Your Life
• Power of Saying No
• Simplicity for a Lifetime
• It’s All About the Choices We Make
• Your House is on Fire! What 5 Things Would You Save?
• How Routines Can Simplify Your Life
• Things to Eliminate in the Coming Year

Part 3: Organizing What You Have:

• The Benefits of Organizing and Having Less
• How To Organize Any Space
• Organizing Your Clothes Closet
• Helping Others Edit & Organize
• Why We Can’t Let Go of Our Clutter
• How to Organize Your Photos
• Organizing Important Document

Part 4: Designing Your Lifestyle:

• Creating Your Morning Routine
• Difference Between Being Frugal and Being Cheap
• Juicing with Farnoosh Brock
• Life’s Spam Filter
• Busy is the new “I’m fine”
• Live the Life of Your Dreams

Part 5: Your Digital Life, Simplified:

• Sun Tzu and the Art of Inbox Warfare
• Gateway Gadgets
• Living Without a Printer:
• Evernote Simplified, Part 1 and Part 2
• Menu Bar Apps & Browser Extensions
• Going Paperless
• Managing passwords with 1Password
• Backing Up Your Digital Information

Takeaway:

So, there you have it! A great Simplicity Quick Start Guide and the perfect resource to help you get a head start on simplifying your life in the coming year. Why wait for the New Year to make a resolution? Start now and get ahead of the pack.

Question:

So, are you going to get a jump on the New Year and start simplifying now? What are some of your favorite episodes? What did we miss that would make our Simplicity Quick Start Guide more complete?

THING Segment:

Dan’s Thing: Road time! Sleeping in the truck & teardrop, Hudson Bay Point blanket, Thoreau’s Walden (Librivox.org for..free) , seeds, lemon water and the occasional Tabasco Slim Jim! Had a great 2558 mile road trip so far! Made new friends, visited family, saw old friends (some after 25 years). Enjoyed seeing more of this beautiful country.

Vanessa’s Thing: Free kid’s Kindle Books from Amazon.com! All the joy of reading for our little girl but none of the clutter…woo hoo!

Announcements:

We’ll be taking the month of December off to concentrate on some writing projects! So, you’ll have PLENTY of time to catch up on previous episodes of Simple Life Together! Enjoy the holidays!

Consider signing  up on our email list!  If you’re not on our email list you’re missing out on one or two blog posts we do per week, and the occasional video, too. You can subscribe right here on SimpleLifeTogether.com over on the right side.

 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!
• Free Amazon Kindle Kid’s Books
• Librivox.org for free audiobooks
• Hudson Bay Point blanket

Photo Credit hmomoy

The post SLT051: Simplicity Quick Start Guide appeared first on Simple Life Together.

It’s nice to have one source that you can go to in whatever interest category you have. So, we wanted to put together an episode and talk about some of our favorite websites and blogs that helped us on our journey, and still do…our Top 20 websites!

Main Topic:

We’ve talked about many of these before and even had some of the authors on the show, but we want this show to be a tribute to them and a resource for you. We decided to break them down into 4 different categories to simplify things (go figure…that’s what we do here): Minimalism, Simplicity, Lifestyle, and  Lifehacking/Productivity/Tech…and we threw in a couple of bonus blogs too! So here they are, our Top 20 simplicity websites:

Minimalism:

• Becoming Minimalist: Joshua Becker (listen to our interview with Joshua on Episode 11)
• Zen Habits: Leo Babauta
• The Minimalists: Joshua Fields Millburn & Ryan Nicodemus

Simplicity:

• Midway Simplicity: Mohamed Tohami (Tohami interviewed us! You can see it here)
• Value of Simple: Joel Zaslofsky (we talk with Joel in Episode 33)
• Be More With Less: Courtney Carver learn more about Dress With Less)
• Simple Life Reboot: Sheryl and Dave Balthrop
• Slow Your Home: Brooke McAlary
• Unclutterer: Erin Doland and staff
• iHeart Organizing: Jen Jones

Lifestyle:

• The Simple Year: Kerry Reifel and now Kandice Bridges (listen to our interview with Kerry in Episode 25)
• Prolific Living: Farnoosh Brock (hear our conversation with Farnoosh in Episode 19)
• Tiny House: Alex Pino
• Rowdy Kittens: Tammy Strobel
• Apartment Therapy: They did a story about our office, aka the World Shedquarters)
• 48 Days: Dan Miller

Lifehacking/Productivity/Tech:

• DocumentSnap: Brooks Duncan (Brooks talked about going digital in Episode 6)
• 4 Hour Work Week: Tim Ferriss
• Lifehacker: Staff Lifehacker had Vanessa on TWICE for the ASK An Expert series. Check out Part 1 and Part 2)
• Digitwirl: Carley Knobloch and staff

Bonus Sites:

• (Tech) MichaelHyatt.com Mike Hyatt and team
• Real Simple: Staff
• On the Green Road: Cece Reinhardt + Brenda Daugherty

Takeaway:

So, there you have, the Top 20 simplicity websites and blogs that have helped shape our journey so far and that we still look to for information, inspiration and motivation.

Question:

So what are some of your favorite websites and how do you follow them? Do you subscribe to email lists, RSS feeds, etc? How often do you share content from your favorite websites, blogs or podcasts with a friend? Maybe it’s time to spread the love, huh?

—————————–

THING Segment:

Dan’s Thing: Community…especially the Simple Life Together and Edit and Forget It Facebook communities.  We learn so much and appreciate how everyone supports one another in their pursuits to simplify.

Vanessa’s “THING”: Dymo LabelWriter.  This label maker has made life so much easier for Vanessa, especially when it comes to labeling file folders! It’s fast, easy to use and very versatile with its many different sizes of labels.

Announcements:

We still have a couple slots open for Washington DC area meetup. We’d love to have you come join us for some great conversation, pay as you go snacks and drinks, and the chance to connect with others who are looking to lead a simple life in the modern world. We’ll be at La Tasca in Rockville Town Square at 7:00 PM on Sunday, 24 November. There are just a few spaces left. It’s a free event and really just a chance for us to meet you and get to know you face to face, so make sure you grab a seat before they’re gone! Just go to SimpleLifeTogether.com/dc to sign up or search for Simple Life Together at Eventbrite.com

Consider signing  up on our email list!  If you’re not on our email list you’re missing out on one or two blog posts we do per week, and the occasional video, too. You can subscribe right here on SimpleLifeTogether.com over on the right side.

 Shownotes:

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

Resources and Links:

• How to Peel a Hardboiled Egg (our nephew filmed this while we were visiting them in Florida…such a fun trick)!
• Joshua Becker books
• Dymo Label Writer

As always, you can help support SimpleLifeTogether.com by using our Amazon Affiliate Link for any purchases you must make. Thanks!

The post SLT050: Our Top 20 Simplicity Websites appeared first on Simple Life Together.

Maybe you’ve heard the saying that ‘A goal without a plan is a dream’. So, maybe live the life of your dreams should really be ‘Planning your life to meet your life goals!’ Naw…that doesn’t sound nearly as good. But sometimes it’s better to face reality and not sugar coat things. Whatever terms you want to use…life plan, desired end state, retirement plan…they are all planning terms to living they way we want to live. Continue reading…

Main Topic:

We totally buy into the thinking that you can live the life of your dreams. It’s really not a dream at all, but an attainable goal that needs to be planned for, and the plan needs to be flexible and well executed. The foundation of our plan is what we call our 5 Pillars. When we first started the show, and on a few episodes along the way, we talked about the 5 pillars that guide us on our journey and give us focus for our decision making. Here they are:

The 5 Pillars That Guide Us

• Faith
• Family
• Finances
• Fitness
• Future

Since nothing is set in stone and we like to keep our journey under continuous review, we often challenge ourselves and even question ourselves to make sure we’re on track. Those reviews have been pivotal to us, and make sure we keep stretching our simplicity muscles on a regular basis. That’s why we’re doing Courtney Carver’s Dress For Less and Project 333. That’s also why we like to do an occasional digital fast, and that’s exactly why we’ve changed our 5th Pillar from focusing on “Future” to focusing on “Freedom.” Having Freedom as one of our five pillars gives us the lens to view and evaluate things we let into our lives to ensure they really do make it simpler. That “thing” we purchase today will have ramifications tomorrow, so we strive to make sure it fits our long-term goals. That commitment we reluctantly make today, or make in haste, can also keep us from doing what we want down the road. Taking the time to establish your pillars and deliberately making decisions based on them can keep you on the path for your simple journey.

Here’s Why We Changed From ‘Future’ to ‘Freedom’:

One of the best books I’ve read in the past few years, and then bought the audiobook as well, is The Millionaire Fastlane by MJ DeMarco. Now, don’t be fooled by the title! It totally sounds like a cheesy “get rich quick” book, but honestly it’s anything but. I would recommend it to anyone who’s thinking about their financial future, setting up a side gig, or even just while considering how your finances affect how you want to live your life. All of this directly impacts your ability to live the life of your dreams.

Essentially, MJ describes three different paths that most people follow regarding money:

• The first path is the “Sidewalk”, where people are basically living from paycheck to paycheck and buy lottery tickets hoping for the big payoff. That’s their actual plan. I think we all know someone who falls into this category, and heck, I’ve had bouts with this myself in the past!
• The second path is what he calls the “Slow Lane”, which is basically the deferred retirement model we’ve talked about on lots of past episodes: work hard for 40 years, save money in your 401k, and hopefully you have enough saved up to retire at 65 and hopefully are still healthy enough to enjoy your golden years. That’s a lot of ‘hopefully’!
• Then there is what he calls the “Fast Lane” where you take matters into your own hands, develop the wealth you need to live the lifestyle you want. My take on MJ’s main point is that you should gauge your wealth by time and what you need to support how you want to live your life. Here are a couple of quotes from the author:

“Time is the most important asset I have, far exceeding money” and 

“The more I help, the richer I become in time, money, and personal fulfillment.”

Excerpts From: MJ DeMarco. “The Millionaire Fastlane.”

There is much, much more to his theories than that and I’m WAY oversimplifying it, but MY point is more focused on his explanation of ‘Freedom’. You know, I had read through his passages in the book a couple of times and understood them, but they really didn’t sink in…I didn’t internalize them. That was my fault, not his. But finally one day as I was walking along some paths in the woods at this park near our house, I was listening to the audio version of The Millionaire Fastlane again and that’s when what he was saying really sunk in. The lightbulb finally turned on. The concept itself wasn’t a new “revelation” for me…matter of fact it fit right in with the way we were already thinking…but I realized that the way I had thought of our ‘Future’ pillar, really translated into ‘Freedom’. The more I thought about it, the more Freedom stood out as what we were really searching for. “Future” seemed to be too nebulous for me now. Something that you always work toward and never achieve. But Freedom, as we defined it, was something tangible, within reach and something we could measure. So here’s the passage that finally broke through to me:”

“And finally, wealth is freedom and choice: freedom to live how you want to live, what, when, and where. Freedom from bosses, alarm clocks, and the pressures of money. Freedom to passionately pursue dreams. Freedom to raise your children as you see fit. And freedom from the drudgery of doing things you hate. Freedom is the liberty to live your life as you please.”

And there it was…our new 5th Pillar! So, as I thought more of Freedom I broadly thought of it in two categories: Freedom From and Freedom To. So we decided to put pen to paper…or actually fingertips to keyboards…and list out some of our Freedom Froms and Freedom Tos.

Freedom From:

• Freedom From Debt: Paying creditors and paying extra just for the convenience of having a credit card is like a financial leash. Owing money can prevent you from being able to explore life and try new things or commit your resources to better places like charities. Debt can control how you live, where you live, what work you do, how much work you have to do, who you may have to live with, who you have to repay, etc. Debt can negatively affect so many aspects of your life.
• Freedom From Excessive Obligations: We all have obligations, but when those obligations keep us from doing what we really want to do, it’s time to examine them. Maybe it’s time to shape our income streams so our obligations are more tenable? So we’re working on that!
• Freedom from Societal Expectations: like the big dream home…6-figure job…how you make a living…how many cars you have…what types of cars you have…how you raise your kids…what school your kids attend…what clothes you wear…how many clothes you have…etc.
• Freedom From Home Enslavement: Dream Home or a really pretty nightmare? Specifically, we don’t want to have a big lawn to manage or have to pay someone else to manage it for us. We want to be able to clean our home in an hour instead of 2, 3, or 4!, We want to live in a place with a small environmental footprint…ideally off the grid or close to it…sustainable anyway, no HOA and a realistic tax rate would be icing on the cake. Ideally…a home that is already paid for with minimum financial upkeep.  We heard a quote on a YouTube video the other day that said “You think you ‘own’ your home? Try not paying taxes on it for a couple years and see who ‘owns’ it!”
• Freedom From Attachment To Our Things: kind of in-line with societal expectations of wanting more and putting so much value on material possessions. This can be very challenging and not something that we’ve been able to switch overnight….which is why we started our Edit and Forget Challenge and are taking part in Project 333. Both of these challenges have really opened up our eyes to how much stuff we have…and how little or insignificant it all is in comparison to what’s really important in our lives. Which rolls into the next one…
• Freedom From Wanting More: more money…more home…more toys…more junk? More everything!
• And the last “Freedom From” we’ll talk about is…Freedom From Fear: We can do that by being prepared for emergencies, not living paycheck to paycheck, living within our means, living in relatively safe areas not prone to natural disasters, etc…whatever you think are solid preparedness measure for you and your family.

Freedom To:

• Freedom To Choose Where We Live…or how long we want to live there! Or if we want to move, do we want to rent or own, etc…
• Freedom To Choose How We Live…as in our lifestyle. Choosing a simple lifestyle free from debt and not buying into consumerism will allow us to live more deliberate lives…lives that we are mostly in control of instead of being at the whim of others, or society, or situations….Freedom To Raise Our Children As We Wish. Ways that instill values that we feel are important like: compassion, responsibility, accountability, humility, love, respect, hard work, and so on.
• Freedom To Pick Up And Travel…when we want to. Right now that’s a little difficult with our children in school…one who’s only 2 years away from graduating from high school, and one in kindergarten. Maybe we’ll think about homeschooling for a year or two and doing some traveling down the road.
• Freedom To Say No!: “No” to unhealthy relationships, “no” to commitments that aren’t in-line with our core values or our 5 pillars, and “no” to unnecessary emotional and physical clutter.
• Freedom To Say Yes!: “Yes” to taking a break, “yes” to spending extra time with our kids; “yes” to want to live a simpler life; “yes” to want to try something new and exciting; “yes” to whatever we decide makes us happy…even if it goes against the grain a bit…as long as it’s inline with our 5 pillars.
• Freedom To Define What Success Means To Us: Raising our children so that there is no doubt in their minds that they are loved….that we raised them to be independent, responsible, and compassionate adults…that they value themselves and are full of self-worth. Success that is defined not by material possessions but by the happiness we experience and fulfill as a family. Dan did a post on Success this past week and if you’re on our email list you saw that. If not, consider subscribing on the right side of SimpleLifeTogether.com so you get our written posts and video posts, too.

Now, these are some of our Freedoms. Yours may and should be different. But there’s certainly value in sitting down and writing them out.

Freedom Traps

But we feel like we owe you a warning. There are some “Freedom Traps” out there too. Some things dangle perceived freedom in front of you but, when abused, they become “freedom traps.”

• Remember when cell phones made you feel free to leave home or travel yet still be reachable? I vividly remember being on “telephone standby” tons of times in the military and not being able to leave the house. You were stuck there, sometimes for days! But when cell phones came along you were instantly freer. But they quickly became a digital lease…and I think we can all relate to that!
• The same thing goes for email. Freedom to communicate instantly with someone in the next cubicle or on the other side of the world! But it certainly wasn’t long before it started to control our whole day.

Unfortunately, it’s so easy to fall into these traps. You know, these traps aren’t labeled ‘TRAP.” The traps we face are cleverly disguised as the shiny new boat that’s on sale, has low monthly payments, and promises of freedom on the lake or high seas with friends and family. It’s the credit card commercials we’re inundated with, especially now, leading up to the Holidays, that promise joy, status, good cheer and love from those you buy things for.

We all face these traps. One trap we avoided was that huge Class A motorhome that we had picked out that was priced at just what we paid for our current home. It was big and shiny, had tons of storage for ‘stuff that’s supposed  makes us happy’, and five (yes 5!), flat screen TVs. Of course it also promised to give us a life at one with nature (that’s nature with 5 flat screen TVs) but with all the conveniences of home (more actually). All this as we traveled across the country in style!

Thankfully, we avoided that trap and opted for our tiny teardrop trailer, where we actually do get to enjoy our great country, live closer to nature, have all the conveniences we need to sleep and eat but without the fluff. Plus, we saved for it and paid cash. That’s freedom!

Takeaway:

For us, having Freedom as one of our five pillars gives us the lens to view and evaluate things we let into our lives to ensure they really do make it simpler. Like I said earlier, that thing we purchase today will have ramifications tomorrow, so we strive to make sure it fits our long-term goals. Taking the time to establish your pillars and deliberately making decisions based on them can keep you on path for your simple journey and have a much stronger shot at living the life of your dreams! Take some time and read the reviews of MJ’s The Millionaire Fastlane on Amazon and you’ll see that I’m not the only one who thinks so highly of it. I’m sure you’ll love it to!

Question:

So, have you taken time to think about & plan to live the life of your dreams? How have you fallen into “freedom traps” before and what do you do to avoid them now? We’re also curious to hear…what are your Freedom Tos and Freedom Froms? Let us know in the comments at SimpleLifeTogether.com/049, or reply to someone else’s comments too!

Thing Segment:

Dan’s Thing:  Belkin Mini Surge Protector with Dual USB Ports

Vanessa’s Thing: Courtney Carver’s Dress With Less Less and Project 333

Announcements:

2013 Podcast Awards:

• Simple Life Together is a finalist for the 2013 Podcast Awards in the Education and People’s Choice categories.
• Voting is still on until 15 November, and you can and should vote once a day at PodcastAwards.com.

Simple Life Together Meetup in D.C. Only a few seats left!!!

• We will be in the DC area for the week of Thanksgiving and are looking at having our first Simple Life Together meetup!
• We’d love to have you come join us for great conversation, pay as you go snacks and drinks, and the chance to connect with others who are looking to lead a simple life in the modern world.
• We’ll be at La Tasca in Rockville Town Square at 7:00 PM on Sunday, 24 November.
• Spaces are very limited but they’re FREE, so make sure you grab a seat before they’re all gone!
• Just go to SimpleLifeTogether.com/dc to sign up or search for Simple Life Together at Eventbrite.com

Shownotes:

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

Resources and Links:

The Millionaire Fastlane by M.J. DeMarco

Project 333 and Dress With Less

PodcastAwards.com

Belkin Mini Surge Protector with Dual USB Ports

As always, you can help support SimpleLifeTogether.com by using our Amazon Affiliate Link for any purchases you must make. Thanks!

If you haven’t already, please be sure to go to iTunes to subscribe to the show. Don’t forget to leave us a rating & review! Thanks!

Photo Credit: Modified Photo from dennisbehm

The post SLT049: Live The Life of Your Dreams appeared first on Simple Life Together.

So what’s the best To Do list? Well, the best To Do lists are the ones that works for you! Whether you prefer an analog or digital solution…anywhere on the spectrum of tying a string around your finger, pencil and paper, or the latest To Do app…figure out the tool or tools that work best for you and stick with it/them. Continue reading…

If you’re not sure which tools work best for you, don’t worry. Just take some time to think about, research and maybe even test a few tools for yourself before committing to one…or a TON of To Do list management tools. But before you get started, there are some things you should know or consider.

Main Topic:

To Do Lists in Four Simple Steps

We have lots of different types of To Dos: personal, professional, work, projects, etc. But no matter what type of To Do you have, there are four simple steps you have to focus on to get your tasks or To Dos done: CAPTURE them, CONTAIN them, ASSIGN a date and EXECUTE!

1. CAPTURE your To Dos. There are different ways you can do this (you may need to use several ways to capture your To Dos):

• Write them down. On scratch paper, a post it note or in a notebook.
• You can also record a voice memo.  We use Dragon Dictation and Evernote.
• Send an email to yourself. This is convenient when you’re on the road or out and about away from the office.
• Or directly input your task on your To Do list if you have immediate access to it.

2. CONTAIN your To Dos. This is WHERE your To Dos are kept. One of the best things you can do to manage your To Dos is to capture them in ONE PLACE!

• Paper notebook: Use one you can easily carry around with you or keep in your purse/backpack to take to meetings, on errands, etc.
• Digital: Google Tasks or spreadsheets are an easy tool to use when it comes to editing and not having to re-write your lists when they get messy on paper.
• Mobile apps: There are tons! Try searching for “best To Do apps” for your mobile device and try a couple out.

Note: Containing your To Dos usually requires some sort of a routine, like an end of work routine before closing up shop or a nightly routine at home where you gather all of your To Dos and put them in the proper “container.”

3. ASSIGN a date and time to get them done!

• Before you decide on WHEN…you need to first determine category (personal, work, projects, etc) and the priority of your tasks.
• Note: Priorities may change….that’s why you need to have a routine of systematically reviewing your To Dos.
• Then plug it in on your calendar. Remember…To Dos are pointless unless you assign a date and time to get them done!

4. EXECUTE your To Dos. Putting them on the calendar doesn’t guarantee they’re going to get done but you can use control measures to get help get them done like:

• Use reminders like on Google Calendar where you can set up email, text and/or pop-up notifications to remind you of your To Do item.
• Set alarms on your computer or mobile phone for To Dos you need to get done each day.
• Start a nightly routine where you review your To Dos for the next day.
• Use post it notes (strategically placed) as an additional reminder for those To Dos you just reviewed during your nightly routine.
• Create and put up checklists (again…strategically placed) to help remind you of recurring To Do items. These can be posted on paper, dry erase boards, large post it notes,  glass boards, etc.

Takeaway:

We all have To Do lists and it can get pretty overwhelming trying to manage all of the myriad tasks associated with them.  But if you keep it simple and take a different approach to how you manage your To Dos by Capturing them, Containing them, Assigning a time to get them done and then actually Executing those To Dos, then maybe it won’t be so overwhelming and you’ll start feeling a little more like you’re accomplishing those tasks instead of falling too far behind.

Question:

What types of To Do lists or apps do you use that have helped you simplify your life?  Please let us know and share your ideas and thoughts with us in the comment section below. We’d love to hear from you!

Interview with Erik Fisher of Beyond the To Do List

We had  the pleasure of interviewing Erik Fisher of Beyond the To List.  He has an incredibly popular podcast dedicated to productivity and making things in your life easier.

Thing Segment:

If you’re looking for a virtual assistant, Meredith Jones of Elms Marketing did an amazing job for us! She’s offered a free 30-minute consultation to just for SLT listeners and a 25% discount on VA services. Contact her at meredith@elmsmarketing.com

Announcements:

2013 Podcast Awards:

• Simple Life Together is a finalist for the 2013 Podcast Awards in the Education and People’s Choice categories.
• Voting is still on until 15 November, and you can and should vote once a day at PodcastAwards.com.
• Our friend Erik Fisher’s show Beyond The To Do List is also a finalist so be sure to show him some lovin’ when you vote, as well!

Simple Life Together Meetup in D.C.

• We will be in the DC area for the week of Thanksgiving and are looking at having our first Simple Life Together meetup!
• We’d love to have you come join us for great conversation, pay as you go snacks and drinks, and the chance to connect with others who are looking to lead a simple life in the modern world.
• We’ll be at La Tasca in Rockville Town Square at 7:00 PM on Sunday, 24 November.
• Spaces are very limited but they’re FREE, so make sure you grab a seat before they’re all gone!
• Just go to SimpleLifeTogether.com/dc to sign up or search for Simple Life Together at Eventbrite.com

Shownotes:

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

Resources and Links:

Erik’s Book Beyond The To Do List: Goals

Erik’s Podcast: Beyond The To Do List

Beyond The To Do List Website

Podcast Answerman Podcast

GTD by David Allen: Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity

Elms marketing VA Services

As always, you can help support SimpleLifeTogether.com by using our Amazon Affiliate Link for any purchases you must make. Thanks!

If you haven’t already, please be sure to go to iTunes to subscribe to the show. Don’t forget to leave us a rating & review! Thanks!

Photo Credit: Courtney Dirks

The post SLT048: To Do Lists In Four Easy Steps, & an Interview with Erik Fisher appeared first on Simple Life Together.

But, sometimes it’s like cable TV…500 channels and nothing on, right? You go into your huge walk-in closet and you can’t find a thing to wear! So what’s the real problem? Is it analysis paralysis…just too many decisions? Well, let’s dive into that. Read more…

Main Topic:

We all have different reasons for what we wear and how big our wardrobe is. It’s a pretty personal thing and each of us is unique, but maybe it is time to simplify your wardrobe a bit? Our ancestors certainly lived with a whole lot less than we do…and there are those who choose to minimize what they keep in their clothes closets. We decided to ask ourselves some very pointed questions about what we wear and why, and some others questions to see if there was an opportunity to edit our closets and drawers to a point that feels more like “enough” and less like “too much.”

Question: So what things shape your current wardrobe?

• Vanessa:
  • Work: professional business attire and hands-on organizing work attire.
  • Climate: mostly warm weather clothes needed here in San Antonio, TX.
  • Culture: cowboy, Western, relaxed.
  • Lifestyle: fitness and travel dictate need for lightweight and versatile clothing…nothing to iron!
  • Personality and Image: pretty tomboy look…fun yet put together…balance of attractive yet conservative clothing.

• Dan: 
  • The look: going for that “guy in shorts” with a little bit of “guy in tee shirt” look (ha-ha!).
  • Mostly comfort: work from home so commute is only 19 steps…like to stay pretty comfortable.
  • Uniformity: think of clothes as a uniform with everything capable of mixing and matching.
  • Weather: the San Antonio  heat really does dictate my wardrobe.

Question: So what does your wardrobe look like now?

• Vanessa:
  • A lot of fitness clothing.
  • Closet: 40% work and professional attire, 40% casual and 20% travel/merino wool and coats.
  • Few accessories: 8 purses, 6 belts, 6 scarves…but only wear or use half of each!
  • Shoes are my weakness! I hate to admit this… but I have 40 pairs, half of which are for professional attire which I wear maybe 10% of the time if that!

• Dan:
  • 8 of the same identical black short sleeve shirts, 4 identical long sleeve shirts, identical calf wool socks and SmartWool ankle sock…a lot of the same!
  • Very few “accessories”...a few baseball caps, 3 cowboy hats and only my wedding ring for jewelry.
  • On the “dressed up spectrum” most of what I wear is on the lounge around at home or very casual end.
  • Only have 1 or 2 options for business attire.
  • “Business casual” however is a little slim.

Question: What would your ideal wardrobe look like?

• Vanessa:
  • Nothing to iron.
  • Everything is comfortable.
  • Everything fits or is tailored to my shape.
  • All clothing is attractive and flattering.
  • Can coordinate pieces into different outfits.
  • A variety of colors other than black and brown (can be a limitation though).
  • No dry-cleaning.
  • Be able to pack everything I own in 1 piece of luggage or large duffle bag!

• Dan: 
  • Very casual wardrobe that doesn’t show sweat.
  • Drapes well and doesn’t bind or make me feel self conscious.
  • Mostly black or brown .
  • Favorite clothes are ones I can wear and feel comfortable in 70 degree weather.
  • I wish I could pull off keeping my shemagh around my neck like in the desert…they’re very functional.

Question: What are some of your favorite pieces and why?

• Vanessa:
  • My running shoes: bright hot pink, comfortable and fit my running style.
  • Bling bling cowboy pants:  comfortable, don’t stretch out, and are flattering on me.
  • Merino wool long skirt: comfortable, breathable, fits well and can look casual or sporty.
  • Shirts with built in bra: way more comfortable than having a separate bra!
  • Long necklaces and scarves: they can dress up an outfit in an instant!
  • Vera Wang tall riding boots: casual yet slightly dressy and I can wear with pants, skirts or shorts.
  • Sunglasses: stylish and can be used as a headband.

• Dan:
  • Cargo shorts: just comfy for everyday wear.
  • Shants: feel great, quick drying, pants or shorts!
  • Ranger panties http://goo.gl/ZLLnCs
  •  Ibex merino wool shirts.
  • Crocs Santa Cruz slip-ons and my brown leather Born Hobarts: for their look and feel.
  • Scottevest Qzip shirts: can wear alone or as a layer.
  • Different weight fleece shirts and zip ups: perfect for winter.

Reflection, personal takeaways, and things we learned:

• Vanessa:
  •  Just because your container isn’t stuffed doesn’t necessarily mean you don’t have a lot.
  • Realized I still had quite a bit of clothing! My perception wasn’t necessarily reality.
  • Although I do like versatile and utilitarian clothing…I care just as much about how they look and wondered if that’s a vanity or a self-conscious issue.
  • It’s not a bad idea to conduct a little 80/20 analysis every once in a while.

• Dan:
  • There are definitely things I can get DX (get rid of).
  • Don’t need so many of the same shirts…probably only half.
  • Too many shoes, too!

Courtney Carver’s Project 333:

So…recognizing all of these things, we’ve decided to take a look at Courtney Carver’s Project 333. Basically it’s a project that challenges you to pick just 33 things…and only 33 things to wear for 3 months. She also has a microcourse called Dress With Less that goes along with Project 333.

So here’s a little bit more on how it works:

• When: every 3 months (you can start any time)
• What: 33 items including clothing, accessories, jewelry, outerwear (coats, hats, scarves and gloves) and shoes.
• What not: items not included as part of the 33 are wedding bands or sentimental pieces that you always wear and never take off, underwear, sleepwear, in-home loungewear and workout clothing (as long as you don’t wear it as casual clothing too).
• How: choose your 33 items and box up the rest. You don’t have to toss them…just box them up and store away.

Courtney goes on to explain that this isn’t meant to be a project in suffering. If clothes don’t fit, or are in poor condition…replace them!

We’re definitely doing it! We were going to make our own plan, but we’ve heard so many great things about Courtney’s Dress For Less microcourse that I figured, “Why reinvent the wheel?” Heck, it’s only $15 and honestly, we’d spend way more in time trying to figure out how we were gonna do this! So, we’re going with Courtney’s course!  If you’re looking to simplify your wardrobe, consider joining us too!

Take Away:

We all have different reasons for what we wear and the size of our wardrobe. It’s personal and each of us is unique. Only you can decide what’s right for you, but maybe doing some experimenting once in a while will let you see how much you truly need or want to keep.

For us, we think we’re best served when we base our wardrobe on how we want to live, how to best portray who we are and the image we want to project. The more authentic that is, the smaller our wardrobe needs to be. Regardless of the size of the container, we’re trying not confuse needs with wants and we’re shooting to live with just enough. And for us, living with “just enough” is a perfect way to help make our lives simpler.

Question:

So, maybe it’s time to take a second look at your wardrobe to see what’s right for you? If you decide to makes some changes, we’d love to hear about them. Please feel free to share your thoughts with us in the comments below.

Thing Segment:

Dan’s Thing: Getting back to basics and spending some time riding horseback around the Silver Spur Ranch in the Texas Hill Country

Vanessa’s Thing: Same thing (pun intended)! Making new memories horseback riding too, and enjoying the benefits of paying for access versus ownership.

Announcements:

A HUGE thank you for all of you who nominated us for the Podcast Awards! Amazingly, Simple Life Together is a finalist in the Education category and also the coveted People’s Choice category. So, we’re up against 9 other shows in each category, but as Vanessa said there were over 4400 shows competing and we made the final cut. We really feel like we’ve already won.

So here’s how the shows were graded to make the finals:

• 40% from number of nominations
• 20% from relevance of content
• 15% from website design quality
• 15% from sound quality
• 10% from podcast delivery and show format quality

So what happens next?

• Voting starts 1 November and lasts until 15 November.
• You can and should vote once a day at PodcastAwards.com
• As much as we’d really like to win, we have no desire whatsoever to inundate you with info about this.
• So, if you’re up to voting every day for two weeks we’d love it. If not, vote when when you can. No matter what, we sincerely appreciate your support!
• As far as I can tell we’re the only podcast dealing with simplicity in any of the categories.
• Some of our good friends also made the finals so consider voting for them too: Mommy’s Cocktail Hour for Food and Drink, and Ivy Envy & Who-Dey Weekly in the Sports category.
• While voting is from 1-15 November only, the awards aren’t announced until 5 January at New Media Expo in Las Vegas, so it’s a bit of a wait!

Thanks again soooo much! SLT listeners rock!

Shownotes:

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

Resources and Links:

As always, you can help support SimpleLifeTogether.com by using our Amazon Affiliate Link for any purchases you must make. Thanks!

Courtney Carver’s Dress With Less and Project 333

Dan’s Ranger Panties 

Ibex Merino Wool Clothing

Icebreaker Merino Wool Clothing

If you haven’t already, please be sure to go to iTunes to subscribe to the show. Don’t forget to leave us a rating & review! Thanks!

The post SLT047: Simplify Your Wardrobe appeared first on Simple Life Together.

Well, the cool thing for you is you get a bunch of random tips…all solid in their own right, but boiled down into a few simple points! It’s like a pot luck dinner! Read more…

Main Topic:

Dan: 

It’s not the tools, it’s the work: Every once in a while I have to remind myself of a lesson I first learned long ago from my older brother, Kevin.

• Our big job in the Winter time growing up in the Southtowns of Buffalo NY was shoveling snow.
• Kevin always seemed to be getting lots more done than me!
• We had 2 shovels, the long push-type shovel that plows the snow and the typical square type shovel for shoveling the snow.
• Didn’t matter which one Kevin had, he always got more done than me.
• I was convinced it was the shovel and always asked him to switch.
• He always chuckled, but always switched with me. It didn’t make a difference.
• What Kevin was teaching me was that it’s not about the tools, it’s about the work.
• Occasionally, as a gadget guy, I have to re-learn that lesson.
• Once it sinks in though I realize it’s my big brother teaching me the lesson again, 40 years later and 1600 miles apart. Thanks Kev.

Take Away: Next time you go to buy that new tool, that fancy new laptop, download that next app that will supposedly solves all your problems…consider whether or not you need a new tool, or just need to master something you already have.

It’s natural to nest…yes, even for guys. But it can easily get out of hand and then it’s time to draw the line. Eventually, it’s time to simplify.

• So, over the years I’ve spent over:
  • 2 years living in tents.
  • I’ve lived in abandoned/bombed out buildings.
  • About 6 months living in wooden huts.
  • And 8 months living in a shipping container.
• Each time, I and everyone that I lived with in these places, went through a bit of a nesting phase. I’ve seen guys/troops:
  • Build complete dressers and nightstand sets out of MRE boxes.
  • Leave extra stuff home so they could fit hanging canvas shoe organizers in their bags to hang up.
  • Fight for foot lockers.
  • Or meticulously pack their rucksacks to the point where the seams were ready to burst.
• There was also a certain “hierarchy of needs” that Maslow might even find puzzling. Of course it differed by your job specialty, but the order of precedence I typically saw with my guys was this:
  • Make sure combat gear was organized to grab and go (#1)
  • Ruck/pack (#2)
  • Evolve from sleeping on the ground to sleeping off ground (#3)
  • Find a spot to hang your toiletry gear since you’ll be using that every day to wash your squishy parts or dangly bits (#4)
  • Pogey bait, gedunk, lickey chewies (#5)
  • Comfort/chill gear (#6) (music, cards, books, etc). Depending on how long it took you to get to your destination and the immediate tactical situation…this could go up as far up the list as #1!
• We’ve talked before about learning to “embrace the suck”. I think that’s a skill that everyone should be able to call on any time they deem it necessary.
• But like a pendulum, sometimes we overcompensate for those moments of suckage and let things get a little too comfortable.
• I always force myself to remember that too much of any positive yields a negative.
• Some of our parents and grandparents dealt with living through the Depression by saving everything for “Justin Case.”
• Sometimes when we feather our nests too much we lose ourselves in the fluff.

Don’t let fear or pride get in the way when you need clarification.

• I developed this techniques for myself…one of my favorite phrases to use when I need info about something out of my area of expertise is “Talk to me like I’m 3.”
• Even if it’s a subject I do know a bit about, I’ve come to the point where I don’t want to blindly trust my assumptions.
• So I tell the sales person, customer service rep, or whoever, “”Do me a favor, I want to make sure I completely understand you…talk to me like I’m three.”
• Here’s why I think this works:
  • It empowers the person you want to learn from.
  • It gives them a sense of responsibility that they are teaching you something and in my experience they tend to be more thoughtful.
  • Breaks down any pretenses of prior knowledge for both the sender and receiver.
  • It instantly relieves me of any responsibility for “you should have known this.”

Take Away:  So, if you find yourself not having as much of a clue as you think you’re supposed to have about a subject, try my “Talk to me like I’m 3” technique and I’ll bet it’ll work for you, too!

My last one is this: Given the option, I choose reductivity over productivity

• Just like any other aspect of simplifying your life, first you need to edit.

• It makes no sense to organize the deck chairs on the Titanic. That ship is going down!

• Focus on the things that need to be done and work to eliminate the unimportant. That way your full effort goes to what IS important and isn’t spread out among myriad tasks.

• Another aspect of reductivity for me is to identify the most important tasks first. For example:

  • With our new website design at SimpleLifeTogether.com I wanted to go back and make some improvements to older posts and shownotes.
  • I wanted to make them all in the same format.
  • I diligently started at Episode 45 and started working backward.
  • When I got to 30 I realized that it would have made a lot more sense for you…those who come to the site…if I had first started with our top 10 most popular posts! Those are the ones that are getting read the most.
  • Plus, I have a widget installed on the site that tells me what the top 10 posts are and it even displays them in the sidebar of the site!
  • Why didn’t I just start with those? I don’t know. What else am I just doing by habit? I wonder…

Take Away: So, once again, take some time to figure out what the most important or core tasks are for your big rocks. When you can, take care of those first!

Vanessa:

Can we change? I’m sure you’ve either heard the saying or maybe even said it yourself that: “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks?”

• Well, I’ve been thinking about this more and more lately; especially as we try to simplify our lives.
• While we’ve never pretended to be minimalists, I am very much drawn to the idea of becoming one….yet I feel so far away from reaching a point where I would even consider myself an  “aspiring-minimalist.”
• The reason I feel so far away from becoming minimalist is because I still struggle with fighting the temptations of buying and wanting things…which caused me to wonder…”Have I changed at all?”
• I also started to ponder this question more as I worked with my clients that struggle with getting and staying organized.
• As I started to feel like it was hopeless…I woke up from my contemplative haze and realized…wait a minute! Yes! Yes we can change….I’ve done it myself and I’ve seen others do it!
  • Like with my fitness…that was actually a lifestyle change.
  • I also changed my spending habits and improved my personal finances (mama doesn’t do credit anymore…and if she does…she pays the card off in full!)
  • And of course, how could I forget my road to getting organized myself…I was a mess for the first 10 years of my adult life!
• I’ve also seen change in others:
  • Folks who were drug addicts or alcoholics and then became and stayed “clean”
  • I’ve seen the faithless become faithful in different faiths.
  • Even seen folks switch from being selfish to selfless…devoting their lives to charities and helping others…Scott Harrison the CEO of Charity Water is a great example.
  • And of course I’m reminded often by my clients and loved ones of our ability to change like when:
    • Clients send me pictures or status updates of how they’re maintaining their organized spaces
    • Or when they proclaim their newfound love for their scanner and how they’ve transitioned from paper to paperless…a major shift for many of my clients.
    • And I definitely became a believer when my mom sent her first text message and FB post to me….that was huge coming from a woman who cursed computers for years and years (and now she has her own iPhone and iPad)!
• So Yes!  We can change, but we probably don’t appreciate the concept of change because it doesn’t happen as often or as fast as we’d like:
  • One reason might be because change usually takes effort and quite honestly, it seems like mankind is totally opposed to effort some times! We will take the path of least resistance whenever we can…its our nature, if we have that luxury.
  • Another reason might be because, changes that are worthwhile usually don’t happen overnight, which can be discouraging:
    • Take Simplicity for example…shifting from “wanting more” to “having enough”…or better yet….”wanting much less” is a huge mental shift
    • Or lets say Fitness…starving yourself to lose 10 lbs in a week is different than slowly losing that same weight and keeping it off.
    • I also liken it to the difference between graduating from high school vs graduating from college.  Sure high school was an achievement but graduating from college and getting commissioned after working 30 hours a week, completing a 4 year ROTC program and going to school full time was a much bigger accomplishment for me.
  • I also think one of the challenges we face with change, is that we fail to properly identify the core reasons for needing to change.
    • For example: wanting to lose weight to improve your health is a much different motivator than doing it because you feel pressured….by a loved one or society.

Take Away: If and when you want to change, you need to:

• First identify the reason for wanting to change.  Is it an internal or external motivator.
• Also identify if you really need to change.  If it ain’t broke, why fix it?
• Realize that significant change takes time, effort and commitment. You’ve got to beware of hitting the easy button…it’s not always what it’s cracked up to be. And that’s my next topic!

Beware of the Easy Button! This may be why there isn’t a whole lot of change going on!

• I usually ask “Can I hit the easy button” when I’m too tired, overwhelmed or not looking forward to doing something myself. These are some times I’m most susceptible to using the Easy Button:
  • Dinnertime
  • Work or home related tasks and chores
  • When our daughter wants to play and I’m too junking tired!

• I used to think that hitting the easy button was the smart thing to do….like knocking out tasks with little effort…or outsourcing things I didn’t want to do myself.  But come to find out, the real reason I was hitting the easy button was because I wasn’t managing my time well or keeping my priorities in check.

• But the easy button is so tempting….heck, that’s what consumerism is all about…how to make your life easy right!

• We’re so easily drawn to things that are easy…or promise to be easy, but in the end it can be a waste or even detrimental to you in the long run. Some random ‘easy button” scenarios I thought of were:

  • Instead of taking time to edit your possessions you put your excess in a paid storage unit to deal with “some day”.  Well, “someday” rarely comes but the rental statements sure do!
  • You know you should take care of your end of life documents, wills, estate, etc. but you hit the easy button and shove everything in a drawer with no rhyme or reason, leaving it for your loved ones to deal with.
  • Caving into your children’s begging and letting them eat snacks all day long. Or doing the dishes, laundry and meal prep without getting them involved…potentially missing out on teaching them about independence and responsibility.
  • Or my personal easy button…going out to eat instead of planning a healthy meal.  This is usually a case of not prioritizing and getting wrapped up in other tasks.  So what happens is we end of eating a fast food or unhealthy meal at a hefty price…GO MOM!
  • And the list can go on and on…easy loans…easy diets…easy pay…easy online degrees….etc.

Take Away: Now, there are certainly times when it’s ok to hit the easy button, like hiring a cleaning service or  lawn service, or using online banking and deposit mobile to save you a trip to the bank.  Some things really do make life a little easier and it’s usually because the cost pays in the time you can devote to something else. So that’s why I say...we all just need to BEWARE of the Easy Button and be deliberate when we use it!

What An Organized Person Is…or Isn’t:

• Someone posted a fill-in-the-blank question on Facebook the other day.  It said, “An organized person is __________.” Naturally I had to check it out!  And the most popular responses went something like this:
  • An organized person is….calm,
  • less-stressed,
  • able to multi-task,
  • a problem solver,
  • confident,
  • and my favorite response….”someone I desperately need in my life!”
• I have to admit, I would agree with pretty much all of these assumptions about an organized person…in general.
• But then I thought, what about asking the opposite of that question…what an organized person is not. I would expect some responses to be:
  • An organized person is not late,
  • stressed,
  • messy,
  • an adventure fiend,
  • a procrastinator,
  • very creative,(for some reason people equate organized as being boring)
  • a total mess!
• I can’t say that I agree with all of those…but I think they represent some actual perceptions about organized people.
• So I kinda wanted to explore that further and thought, what if you asked that question to an actual organizer? Let’s say…ME! Here’s what I would say: An organized person is NOT:
  • perfect,
  • anal-retentive (well…not with everything)
  • Martha Stewart
  • boring
  • a know-it-all
  • a magician
  • completely stress-free, or
  • completely fearless
• And the reason I mention this is because I think we give too much credit to being organized.  I know that sounds like heresy coming from me, but I think this idea of being organized is somehow linked to being perfect…or too boring…or too difficult to achieve…it can be such an inhibitor.
• I’ve actually witnessed this with clients:
  • One woman desperately needed some help but thought that being organized would be too orderly and inhibit her creativity and flow!
  • Another feared that having too many routines might be too militant for her kids.
  • One thought the answer was buying a bunch of plastic bins to organizing everything…only to give up realizing it was going to be more work.
  • And yet another client wanted me to organize an area that was already organized…but she didn’t think it was perfect-enough.
• So you can see how these false perceptions of organized being boring, too strict or perfect can be intimidating. But the reality is, that while being organized is definitely a good thing, we need to have a better understanding of what it is and is not.  Lets start with what it’s not…
  • It’s not the answer to all your problems.
  • It’s not going to make everything in your life easier…we all struggle in different areas of our lives.
  • It’s not an easy process and can’t be achieved overnight.
  • It doesn’t mean boring or predictable.
  • It’s doesn’t automatically equate to simple.
  • It isn’t just a bunch of gadgets apps and bins:
    • An organized calendar doesn’t mean you’ll be on time to every event
    • An organized To-Do list doesn’t mean it’ll all get done.
    • And even the most organized homes, there’s often still too much stuff to manage and care for.
• So what is being organized? It’s definitely more than a bunch of labeled bins and color coded digital calendars.  Instead of looking at the stuff, I think we should look at being organized as more of a tool for leading a simpler and potentially less stressed life. To me being organized is more of a of a feeling….as opposed to a picture perfect image of a space or person.  It creates a feeling of:
  • less stress
  • control
  • awareness
  • confidence
  • empowerment
  • and being able to problem solve

Take Away: My point here is that being organized is definitely great, but that we should have a realistic idea and appreciation of what being organized is.  It’s not perfection, it’s not always easy, and it’s not the answer to everything, but it can be greatly beneficial to helping you live a simpler life.

Question:

So, what random tips do have to share as you contemplate life? We always love hearing your feedback and ideas.  Please feel free to share your thoughts with us in the comments below.

Thing Segment:

Dan’s Thing: Enjoying my kids realizing the benefit of their hard work! Sunshine rode her bike without training wheels for the first time, and The Boy and his high school marching band kicked butt in a statewide competition. One on the judges was absolutely blown away! You can hear his excitement on this audio clip. I’m so proud of those kids!

Vanessa’s Thing: Looks can be deceiving! We found a new diner/dive just 1 mile from the house. It looks a little sketchy from the outside, but the chow was great!

Announcements:

None this week!

Shownotes:

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

Resources and Links:

As always, you can help support SimpleLifeTogether.com by using our Amazon Affiliate Link for any purchases you must make. Thanks!

Photo Courtesy of dullhunk

If you haven’t already, please be sure to go to iTunes to subscribe to the show. Don’t forget to leave us a rating & review! Thanks!

The post SLT046: The Random Show appeared first on Simple Life Together.

As we went through this exercise it really challenged us and realized that by spending some time thinking about your most important things…those top 5 things that you would grab out of your burning home, it greases your mental gears to:

• Identify the your most important things. Things that mean the most to you and why.

• Contemplate whether you’re giving those things the attention they deserve day to day.

• Identify ways to keep those things safe now and ready to carry out if necessary.

• Condition yourself to more easily part with things that didn’t make the list.

• Get you thinking about being prepared in case of an emergency.

Read more…

Main Topic:

Your House Is On Fire, You Can Save 5 Things…What Are They?

The first time Dan thought about this was over 10 years ago when a colleague of his lost all her possessions when her apartment caught fire. She was devastated when she got the news and came home to find everything gone.

He’s been saying for a while now that we need to sit down and talk about what we’d do in an emergency. What would we take with us if we had the opportunity? What are our most important things?

In the military we use lots of different techniques to teach lessons….like Attention to Detail…a skill that could be transferred and applied to other things. We also talk about planning. To use our own corollary to Dwight Eisenhower’s quote: “Plans are worthless, planning is priceless.” It’s in going through the exercise thoughtfully that will give you the most value. The Plan isn’t as important as the ability to narrow down what’s important to you and why. That is priceless, and something we should do on a continual basis.

Sure, the exercise was all about discerning those 5 things that are really important to us, but the real benefit of the exercise comes from following the natural course of things and asking some follow on questions like:

• Am I giving this the attention it deserves right now?
• What are some ways to keep this safe now and ready in case of an emergency?
• Am I better prepared to part with things that didn’t make the Top 5 list of your most important things?
• Am I better prepared for an emergency? And will I feel less stress if an emergency did occur?

Conducting the Exercise:

• Assumptions: Obviously in a real-world situation, you and your family’s safety is the first priority.  But in order to alleviate a lot of  “what if” scenarios, we thought it best to establish some basic “assumptions”:
  • You, your kids, your loved ones (including beloved pets) are safe, sound and out of the house.
  • Following the “fire” all your basic survival needs will be met (food, shelter, etc…).
  • You can choose 5 things that you can carry out of the house (not a couch, bed or pool table).

• List your Top 5 things and ask the following questions: 
  • What is the Thing and Why?
  • Am I giving this the attention it deserves right now?
  • What are some ways to keep this safe now and ready in case of an emergency?

• And then ask 2 final questions:
  • How has going through this exercise helped condition you to more easily part with things that didn’t make the list?
  • Do you feel better prepared or better able to plan for  emergencies? Do you think that by doing this you might possibly feel less stress if an emergency did occur?

Our Top 5 things in reverse order…just in case you’re interested:

(Note: for a detailed explanation of why we picked these items, feel free to listen in on the podcast)

• Item #5
  • Vanessa: 2 gallon baggie with keepsake notes from her sister, letters from her mother and father and some of her childhood art and memorabilia
  • Dan: Grandpa’s shaving mug

• Item #4
  • Vanessa: Daughter’s baby book
  • Dan: Cross from my Grandfather

• Item #3
  • Vanessa: Jordanian calligraphy artpiece/wedding gift from Dan
  • Dan: External hard drive

• Item #2
  • Vanessa: Purse with wallet, key’s and iPad (because it would make life so much easier having credit cards and IDs!)
  • Dan: Notes from kids and Vanessa in Box of military docs

• Item #1
  • Vanessa: iPhone…her mini-command center
  • Dan: The Guidon…our teardrop camper trailer because we could live out of it as a home!

Our own observations:

• Going through the exercise was tougher than we thought, especially since we’ve downsized so much already, and what we have left is all somewhat important and useful stuff for us.
• That being said, as we worked through the exercise, we came to the ultimate conclusion that we would be OK if ALL of it were lost. Our most important things weren’t all that important after all.
• We acknowledged that downsizing our possessions and being organized will make it a less stressful situation if we were ever in the situation to have  to grab a few things and go.
• We both picked pragmatic/practical items as well as a few sentimental ones. And interestingly, the sentimental items were things that were for the most part, irreplaceable or told a story of our past…all the other gadgets and high-priced stuff didn’t compare!

Question:

So, are you ready to conduct this exercise and figure out what your most important things are? Would you be able to grab them and leave safely in an emergency? After making your list are you better prepared to let go of things that didn’t make your list? We’d love to hear what works for you.  You can leave comments below.

Thing Segment:

Dan’s Thing: Some of Apple’s iOS7 update for iPhone…especially the Audible App. The new iOS lets you still control many functions of the audio player in the Audible App even after the screen has locked and that when using the multitask function. Also, the ability to simply swipe upwards from the bottom of the screen to reveal the player’s controls is pretty cool!

Vanessa’s Thing: Bose Soundlink Mini: It’s only 7″w x 2″h x 2″d, is portable, versatile, bluetooth enabled, lasts for hours on its battery, and has beautiful sound.  It’s not cheap but was a cheaper substitute for what we were going to have installed in our teardrop camper.

Announcements:

• If you’re looking for more great content to help you simplify your life, check out our Recommendations Page at the top of our website here.
• You’ll find links to a bunch of great blogs, website, podcasts, and even a couple of books that we recommend.
• Many of these bloggers or podcasters have been on the show or their folks we know and follow. So pass it on!
• Special thanks also go out to our friend Brooks Duncan, for the great post he did on us for DocumentSnap.com. You can read it at documentsnap.com/simple-life-together and check out all his great tips about going digital to make your life simpler there, too.

Shownotes:

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

Resources and Links:

SLT 003: Digital Back-Up

SLT 016: Making Decisions Like a Fighter Pilot (OODA Loop)

SLT 017/018: Evernote Simplified Part 1 and Part 2

SLT: 027 Organizing Important Documents

Bose Soundlink Mini

Photo Courtesy of Kevin Gebhardt

The post SLT045: Your House Is On Fire, You Can Save 5 Things. What Are They? appeared first on Simple Life Together.

But, you don’t have to be in a high-stress, dangerous job to tap into all the benefits of simple communication. Matter of fact, you might be causing some stressful situations yourself. Have you ever tried to replay a conversation in your head or share it with someone else only to fumble through it because you couldn’t remember the details or what was said?  Or have you said “yes dear” or “sure”, or uh-uh” after your significant other asked you to do something but you didn’t hear a word they said because you were thumbing through your Facebook feed?  Read more…

Or have you had your spouse raise an eyebrow with that “are you kidding me look…because this is the 10th time I told you”?  I’m sure you can relate.

What about if you are the one that wants to be heard?  Have you ever felt like no one is really listening to you?  It seems like people are either so self-absorbed and busy with themselves, or too distracted by all the buzz going on around them  and in their head that they’ve forgotten to be present and listen.

Main Topic:

“What We Got Here…Is A Failure to Communicate!” How To Become A Better Listener

We spend close to 50% of our time listening, but there are A LOT of barriers to effective communication. Part of the reason we have so many barriers to effective communication is because of a lack of understanding of:

• WHAT listening actually is…

• WHY it’s so important, and…

• HOW to become a better listener…all to make communication more simple.

WHAT listening actually is:

• Hearing: is simply the receiving of sound.

• Listening: is an active process of receiving and constructing meaning from spoken and nonverbal messages and can involve 2 types of attention:

•  Automatic attention: which is instinctive attention…such as responding to a stimuli like a sudden sound or movement.

• Selective attention: where you are focused on something because it’s important or interesting to you.

• And this is where it gets difficult, because often times the two of these compete and conflict with one another. For example: when you are engaged in a great conversation or lecture but your attention gets diverted to the sound of the “ding” on a phone.

WHY being a good listener is important:

• It’s how we cooperate and get things done…as humans!

• It’s how we build a better understanding of problems that we face as individuals or members of a team or as a family.

• Helps us to be more productive…and not waste time figuring things out or having to re-explain things.

• Helps us to have better interpersonal relationships…by showing genuine concern for those who are trying to communicate with you.

• Helps us gain knowledge which in turn can help us influence, persuade or negotiate with others on things that we are passionate about or believe to be really important matters.

• Prevents stress, anxiety, resentment and potentially dangerous situations.

HOW to become a better listener:

• As we were doing our research, we came across a lot of great articles about barriers to communication and how to become an effective listener.

• There was one article written on Poynter.org by Jill Geisler, who is a Senior Faculty member of Leadership and Management at the Poynter Institute that really stood out to us.

• The article is titled “10 Lousy Listeners And What We Can Learn From Them.” She basically describes 10 types of lousy listeners…all of whom we could totally relate to!

• So, we think she nailed it and listed the most popular offenders when it comes to listening. We discussed each of Ms. Geisler’s 10 examples on the show to see who we (and likely you) could recognize in each type. We’ll list her 10 Types of Lousy Listeners below, and you can click above to listen in as we discuss each type:

Note:  These 10 examples are directly from the Jill Geisler’s article. The article is her work, not ours. We simply enjoyed it so much we thought it was worthy of discussion and wanted to pass it along!  Again, you can find it here.

1. The Multi-Tasker – “Sure I’m listening. While I type. While I scan my computer screen. While I take just this one call. While I open this letter and page through these message slips. Now what were you saying?”

2. The Party Animal – “Do I have a minute? Sure. Come on in and tell me what’s on your mind. I know you’ve been trying to get in to see me. Go ahead, shoot. Hey, someone else is at the door. Come on in. We’re just chatting. Always room for one more!”

 3. The Sentence Finisher — “Stop right there, I know exactly where you are going. No need for you to finish that thought, I will. Am I smart, or what? Don’t you appreciate a boss who is this efficient and supportive? Go ahead, tell me – I’ll finish that sentence for you, too.”

 4. The Debater – “Whatever you’re saying, I’ll challenge. I’m only playing devil’s advocate, of course. I might be doing this to help you. But then again, I might not. How do you know? I do this to everyone, all the time. Keeps people on their toes.”

 5. The Ann Landers – “Say no more. Here’s my advice. Take it. You may not have asked for my advice. You might just have wanted me to listen to you and let you vent. You might have wanted to figure things out yourself. But how can I prove I’m a leader if I don’t jump in with a ready answer? You’re welcome.”

 6. The Great Philosopher – “Now, let me tell you what you really mean, but on a much broader, deeper, and meaningful level because it comes from me. I knew all this, by the way, without ever having asked you any follow-up questions about your thoughts or feelings. Why would that be important?”

 7. The Autobiographer — “Ah, the story you just started brings something very important to mind: me. I’ve been there. I’ve done that. I will now tell you all about my experience, since it will be so valuable to you.”

 8. The Clock Watcher – “I’m very good at face-to-face meetings. I look at your face, then the face of my watch, your face, watch face … I also fidget extremely effectively.”

 9. The Speeder – “You want to talk? I’m really busy so can we make it fast? I’m on my way to a meeting. Walk along with me. Can you just send me an e-mail?”

 10. The Dropper – “Thanks for sharing your thoughts with me. I will keep them in mind. Unfortunately, I will forget to follow up with you promptly, or perhaps ever, leaving you wondering if you have dropped off my radar.”

Question:

So, how many of these listener types do you know? Better yet, which one of these lousy listeners can you relate to? And what do you think you need to do to start working on to become a better listener? We’d love to hear from you!

Thing Segment:

Dan’s Thing: Creating our new Sunday routine of making homemade sausage, jerky and dried fruit in our our dehydrator.

Vanessa’s Thing: Simplifying our daughter’s birthday by using a Google Drive Form (that she learned from Dan’s tutorial) and focusing on the experience rather than the stuff by getting our daughter involved in the decorating and not asking for gifts.

Announcements:

Podcast Awards: Please nominate us for the Podcast Awards!

• If you’d like to help us out….just go to PodcastAwards.com and nominate Simple Life Together for the People’s Choice Award and in the Education Category.
• In the Podcast Name block, just type in Simple Life Together
• In the Podcast URL block, type in SimpleLifeTogether.com. Don’t worry about the “http://” part is already in there so you don’t have to worry about that.
• There’s also an orange pop out banner at the top of the site, too. You can click there to vote as well. While you’re there you can vote for other shows in other categories, too. It a great way to show your appreciation for podcasters who provide you with great, free content.

Shownotes:

You can download the full PDF of our show prep, too.

Resources and Links:

Article by Jill Geisler: 10 Lousy Listeners and What We Can Learn From Them

Podcast Awards

Episode 10, Military Communication Techniques

Pomodoro Technique

Leo Babauta’s Focus Manifesto

The post SLT044: What We Got Here Is Failure To Communicate! appeared first on Simple Life Together.

Well, that’s exactly what we want to touch on today. We want to go over some of our recent travel experiences from our summer trip to highlight 3 specific takeaways for us, and hopefully, you too! Specifically, we’d like to share some perspective in 3 areas. How:

• Sharing your story is important to help you & others grow

• The simple things in life are the most satisfying

• Capturing “lessons learned” sparks continuous improvement

Read more…

Main Topic:

Hayes Family Adventures and Tapping Into Lessons Learned

When we picked up our  rental camper and before we headed out, we were given specific instructions to share our stories in a journal (a journal that belonged with the rental camper). Specifically, we were not allowed to write about how awesome the camper was.  Instead, we were asked to share our adventures!

As we reflected on our adventures, it got us to thinking about how humans have been telling their stories and experiences for thousands of years and it’s the experiences we have…not the stuff that matters.  And it’s through our experiences…where we learn life lessons.

So…we wrote!  Below are some excerpts of the  journal entries we made on our 3-week camping trip along with some lessons we learned:

1. All Hooked Up And Ready To Go….Or Maybe Not