I’m excited to be blogging through the online course called Simplified Organization by Mystie Winckler. I shared a lot about this course here on this post. Not only is this course designed to help you figure out how to organize your life {and home!} but also how to change the thoughts we have about our work and vocation. So much good stuff in this! Some of us have decided to share with you HOW we are using this in our homes in a monthly blog post that YOU can also link-up to as well!
Have you purchased the online course yet? The $30 savings code ends TUESDAY, so snatch it up and then come back to this post.
How To Organize Your Life
There are 6 modules to this online, self paced course and today I’m going to be sharing a few tools that Mystie suggested from module 1, which is called Decide. The aspect of this first module that applied the most to me was deciding to change my attitude about our home. Taking charge of my thought life applies to so many areas of my life, but I had never really thought about it in conjunction with my home.
The attitude portion of this module really hit home for me. Read this quote:
“How you think about – what you believe about – your life and your work matters immensely. We need to take charge of our thoughts if we desire to love what must be done. Our affections – what we love – and our attitudes – how we feel and respond – are within our ability to control if we are willing. We can grow and develop in these things if we open ourselves to them and intentionally align our beliefs, thoughts, and actions.” Mystie Winckler, from Simplified Organization.
Taking Every Thought Captive
I have always struggled with taking my thoughts captive to Christ, with just controlling the negative thought patterns in my own head. Honestly, that has been one of the hardest things I’ve tried to get a grasp on as an adult! It plays into my struggle with depression, how I keep my home, my parenting, and really all aspects of my life! I won’t say that I have overcome this pattern in my life, but by the grace of God, I’m learning new tools and praying and keeping on keeping on. One of those tools in my spiritual life is praying the Scriptures, specifically the Psalms. {Download your free guide to 30 Days of Praying the Psalms to see how God has used this in my own life.}
For me personally this is just as much a spiritual battle as physical and mental. So, that said, I know I must implement new practical tips in my own home to help me not only get organized but maintain an attitude of joy about these seemingly mundane things that creep up in a mother’s life. As you know, if you’ve read my blog for long, an attitude of gratitude for every.little.thing ~ big or small, good or bad ~ has given me a huge paradigm shift. It started when I read Ann Voskamp’s book, One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are
My Brain Dump Notebook
There are several things I’m doing in my own home, at Mystie’s recommendation, that I think are really going to bless not only my attitude, but our entire household.
One of Mystie’s suggestions in module 1 is having a place to do a “brain dump” at all times. When I saw this suggestion I thought, “well duh! I have done this before WHY do I not keep it up??” I immediately found a pretty notebook, YES, it needs to be pretty, and started my list. This one suggestion is HUGE for me. Y’all. Somewhere between 3 kids in 3 years and my struggle with depression and anti-depressants my brain has turned to mush. I kid you not. A big, black hole, I tell you! I will have brilliant ideas and then ZAP they are gone!! (This is the reason no one else ever knows I have good ideas! ha! I kid.) But, my brain seriously is mush.
There are many areas that I need to be using this tool, and I’m going to maintain ONE notebook for ALL of those aspects at this time. I will let you know if I try something different or if this doesn’t work. Mystie also gives other options besides pen and paper, if you are electronic she has suggestions and even links to help figure out what tool will work best for YOUR family!
First of all, for me personally, this blog had a HUGE need for a brain dump location. I have ideas for posts quite often, but I will think about it, forget about it and it could be months before that idea comes back into the big black hole that is my brain! So, I have started an actual LIST of post topics! Already, this has helped me have more peace and less anxiousness when it comes to sitting down to write for the blog!
The other area of my life that needs a brain dump is my KITCHEN. I have frozen meals, meal ideas, books I’m looking through and my own recipe collection. I jot down grocery lists here and there, try to keep in my mind what is for dinner and what I have available in the freezer. Ugh. You can see where this is going! So, after the blog brain dump, the next one I will focus on is the kitchen and menu planning!
Our Family Calendar
Another tool that Mystie recommends is the calendar. Now, I’m a calendar girl…but Mystie takes the calendar to the next level! She includes a video on how she uses Google calendar included in the course. We have several calendars in our home, you just have to find what works for your family in this season!
In this season, with our kids attending school for the first time ever, I felt the need to add in a FAMILY calendar that the kids COULD SEE. So, I added a dry erase magnetic calendar to our fridge. So far it is working very well! In addition to this calendar on the fridge, my husband and I use the calendars on our phones to add things that both of us can always see. This has been a HUGE help to us! He can add a meeting and it won’t matter if he forgets to tell me about it. 🙂
I think what I love most about this calendar on the fridge is that it has cut down on all.the.questions about what is happening today or tomorrow or next week. All of my kids are already looking on the fridge instead of asking me when we are going to such and such and what day they are off school! Yay!
Join Us With Simplified Organization
I’m so excited to be working through this course. If you decide to go for it, please join us on the Google+ group that you will get a link to after purchasing! I hope to share monthly on this link-up how these modules are working in my own home as well. As you can see from the wordiness of this post, I’m already reaping the benefits…as is my home and my family!! What a blessing!
I realized the other day that this e-course was PERFECT timing for me in many ways. First of all, I had almost forgotten that my word for this year is PURPOSEFUL. Well, there ya go! Also, with all these changes in our family’s life, I’m finding that I need new routines, new tools and new ways of looking at things. What a gift that this came along at just the right time for me.
If you haven’t purchased the course yet, go here to do so! If you want to write a blog post and link up with us, go here! And, finally, if you have a friend struggling to get organized in this busy season of life, I would love for you to share this post with her!
The Google calendar video was superb! I was so excited to set up my calendar right away! My husband mentioned that he’s been telling me for ages to set up my google calendar. I told him he should have made me a video:) Mystie made it so easy!
I’m so glad it’s been helpful, Candace! The brain dump notebook has been a real life-saver for me, especially during transition times and times of big changes like you’re in now.
I am intrigued by the Brain Dump book, but I’m unclear about something. Are you suggesting that we write random lists in the book, or are there sections? I’m thinking that if one page is blogging ideas, the next is kitchen ideas, the next is a to do list, shopping list, another blogging list ideas, bedroom ideas, goal list, bucket list, etc. that it may start getting difficult to find later on. Also, do you have any suggestions for when you are on the go? I have random ideas and questions that I want find out answers to later, but I won’t have my brain dump book all the time. I too suffer from brain mush. I have ADHD, depression, and anxiety and sometimes I forget something important before I can grab a pen. It’s like living in a nightmare. Any suggestions? Thanks! ☺
For finding random lists in the Brain Dump notebook, the key is to have an index. Do a Google search for ”Bullet journal index ” or you may like marking the page edges (search for ”Japan notebook Hack ” or ”bullet journal index alternatives ”). Good luck!