Declutter

One of my New Years Resolution this year was to declutter. I have this tendency to say yes to everything or want to get involved in everything because I don't want to feel left out of get left behind. The problem occurs when getting involved in everything causes you to have responsibilities that occupy your every night of the week after work, on Saturdays and even after church on Sundays (my chosen day of rest, relaxation or fun).

I have been doing this to myself for years. I lost out on time to spend with my mom. During the warmer seasons we would come home from church, nap, wake up refreshed, eat dinner then go for a nice walk at Jamaica Pond and just talk. This was a great time for my mom and I to catch up and debrief about our week and talk about plans for the next week.  Weekends were also my chance to plan for the week, what needed to be done, prep food for the week, gym sessions for the week, iron for the week. This allowed my days to run smoothly and even allowed room for unexpected situations.

When I lost my weekends I lost the ability to plan so my eating became awful most of the time, always running to grab something from a fast food place. I had to take time every morning to figure out what I was wearing and iron which in turn caused me to run later. I was exhausted waking up every morning because I was consumed doing things after work every night so I rarely made time for quite time. I would pray say a quick prayer in the shower and I would read my Bible en route to work (I mean it's great that I still read it but it would have been ideal for me to be able to read and meditate on the Word to get more out of it). I felt out of touch with my mom and I missed her even though we live in the same house because I was always on the run.

I don't know if my life as it was sounds like what yours is like on a daily basis but I encourage you to join me in doing some decluttering. What is it that God wants you to do in life an on a day to day basis? A lot of us, like me, end up getting involved in things that might be great but God didn't tell you to do that. Did you ask Him? I want everything I do to glorify His name and draw me closer to Him, not farther way because I'm to tired to pray or read His Word because I'm doing all these other things.

Here are a few pointers:

1) Prayerfully do an inventory of everything that you are currently doing or involved in and evaluate if it's something you really need to be doing or something God really wants you to do. If it's not or if it's just a space filler kindly remove yourself and free up some time.

       **Note: sometimes there are things that we are supposed to be doing that we aren't because we

           don't have the time as a direct result of us already doing something that is taking up our time

           that we don't need to be doing. Whew! That was a mouthful In those cases get rid of the

           unnecessary task and add the necessary task. This may not free up your time but it allows

          your time to be better spent   

 
 2) Organize. Once you have a good handle on the different tasks in life do a quick triage (I clearly watch too much Grey's Anatomy) of what's most important and and what steps need to be done in order to get those tasks done. I like to call these "action items" Sometimes we spend too much time on tasks that are not as important as others and the more important tasks don't get done as a result.

3) Schedule. I love schedules! This may sound boring or stupid but you'd be surprised how much you can get done by just creating a schedule for yourself and sticking to it! When we don't schedule we move along our days and weeks as if we have all the time in the world and time tends to slip away from us to the point where we start to race to do what needs to be done. You can either create schedule's for yourself on a daily basis or a weekly basis. I prefer weekly schedules as they give me more wiggle room. I schedule things such as quite time and "me" time and I even leave room for unexpected situations. This allows me to stay on task and have extremely productive days and weeks.

Now the point here is to DECLUTTER, not ELIMINATE everything. There are things that God is calling you to do or want to use you in certain ways.  Don't go quitting your job now (unless God tells you which is an entirely different blog), or start to sit round doing nothing.

I'm excited for this journey that I am about to start. I've already let go of something that took a lot of hours of my week ( I blogged about the decision process in my blog from last week "Stepping Out in Faith") and I'm already working on removing some non necessary things.

Have fun decluttering!

                                                            Hanging with a friend in New York

xo
Tasha