Simplifying Family Life
By Tracy Liebmann

When looking for ways to simplify our family life we often run into titles like Get More Done and 100 Things To Do: To Simplify Your Life. I don’t know about you, but I really don’t want to be told I need to get more done or MORE things TO DO! What I desire is to do less, to me that is simplifying life! So, if you’re looking for an article that helps you get more done in less time or how to organize I suggest doing a google search and you will find plenty of books and articles that will help you feel worse not better. OK, a little sarcasm there…please forgive me.

My thoughts on simplifying life are more about streamlining our lives, eliminating what we can and enjoying what we do. I will make a list of suggestions; not orders or rules to follow, just ideas.

· Journal about what you really want your family life to look like.
· Analyze what you wrote; look for hints of the life you desire.
· Look for troublesome areas and things you can eliminate.
· What parts of your day really works well for you and your family?
· Why are they working?
· What parts of your day are not working well?
· Why are they not working?

So, when you look at this writing what do you see? The mornings are crazy because we are all to hurried. OK, what can change and if these changes involve others I highly recommend bringing them into the conversation. Look for unlikely solutions, not the simple ones like getting up earlier, unless everyone likes that idea. Look at what’s working and why; after school or work things run smoothly for about an hour. Why is that, because everyone is just unwinding, doing the things they like to do? So how can we make the morning more about doing the things we like to do. I know this might sound absurd to some really busy families and I challenge the people who fit into that category to do an inventory of what’s really important. What can stay and what can go?

When you look at your day and you see more “have to” and “should”, than “want to” and “could”, I ask that you look at that and ask why. I look at it this way, I really don’t have to do anything, and I make choices. When I look at things and say “I choose” to drive my daughter to cross country practice it feels a lot better than saying “I have” to drive her. If driving her to practice doesn’t work for me, then we would look for a creative solution that would work for both of us. This time of year life gets really busy and I suggest staying very aware of the “could of, would of, should of’s” if you hear that in your head it’s time to regroup. Remind yourself you have choices and you can choose what to do and where to go… joyfully! Transform your holidays!