January has brought around this desire deep within me to ORGANIZE and SIMPLIFY the fundamental aspects of my life. I needed to bring my ability to get things in order to every part of my life. If I could simplify the daily things that have to be taken care of, my mind would be clear to make other more important decisions. A good friend of mine (successful, organized, smart) once told me, “The experts (whoever they are) say the secret to success is reducing decision making as much as possible.” This “clicked” in my mind. It labeled exactly what I was trying to achieve and brought clarity to my endeavor for January. It was an AH-HA moment. Thank you Shelley Frost Groh!

I need to reduce my decision making throughout all aspects of my life. This will help reduce anxiety, alleviate some stress and hopefully create an environment conducive to helping my children see how the basics are done. Bringing some clarity into their playtime and decision making will benefit them in the same ways and help them later in life. Right?

Here are some of the things I resolved to clean up, declutter, solve, organize, bring clarity to in my everyday life. Separately, they don’t seem like a big deal. But the sum of all put together should, in theory, help reduce decision making in our household, with my business and within my personal life.

1. Daily struggle with my diet and exercise. No more. Decision is made. No excuses, no going back and forth in my mind. The human brain is super powerful and will come up with a million excuses NOT to workout and reasons it’s okay to eat crappy. I just simplified my life and took out the decision making.

I set forth a plan. I am going to the gym everyday. I am going to work hard when I am there. I will feel better about myself, my health will improve, I will set personal goals, sign up for a race and my clothes will fit better. My husband will be proud of my hard work, my children will learn it’s not an option but a requirement like eating and going to school. I will not diet. I will make good healthy choices and I will not follow fad diets. I will partake in social activities and eat chocolate and special coffees and have wine as I please in moderation. I have resolved to take command over my diet and exercise. Decision made. I will not always be motivated to attain this lifestyle but I WILL be dedicated to make it a habit.

2. Weekly Menu Planning drives me nuts. And it actually gives me anxiety. I get stressed out when my husband asks me what we are having for dinners for the week. Why haven’t I addressed this the same way I would an issue with a client at work? I decided to write down what bothers me so much. It was simple. I want to eat healthy, I have two 4 year olds, a 5 year old and a husband that likes pizza and beer. This doesn’t make planning a meal easy.

But what I CAN DO is menu plan based on this knowledge! I went to Pinterest, I asked my friends, I looked through cookbooks. I gathered recipes. I wrote one week of recipes for dinner at a time. Made a shopping list for that week. Printed the recipes. Printed the week menu and put it in a folder. I am doing this for one entire month. I am making things the kids and husband will like and substituting riced cauliflower or a side salad for pasta and potatoes for myself.

I am going to have a menu for one month complete and then I can pick and choose what we will have from that month of meals in subsequent months. Shopping lists are complete. Menu is complete. I will tweak and add to it when I hear of a new recipe. This takes the decision making out of the process. The part that drove me nuts. This will take a while to perfect and I intend to use the rest of this winter to do just that.

3. Cooking Dinner. Anyone see a trend here? By the end of every long and tiring day, the last thing I want to do is spend time chopping onions, prepping meat while the kids are jumping off the couch and or at my feet tired and hungry. I don’t have time for it. But everyone has to eat, right? I can’t just say cereal or chicken nuggets for dinner. (Well, once in a while I will). But for real, I needed to address this too. It was a daily annoyance I would make worse. By 5pm I am itching to get to my computer to begin editing.

Related to number two here, cooking dinner is all about THE PREP WORK. Hand-in-hand, directly following menu and meal planning is meal prep for the week. When the shopping is complete on Sunday, I won’t put things away. I will immediately begin the food prep for the week. Wash the lettuce and chop it. Chop all veggies I need for recipes that week. Prep the meat. Hang the menu for the week. Everything is then pull and cook for the week. Husband knows what to expect, I don’t panic about preparing dinner. Problem solved. Decision making reduced drastically daily.

4. The toy room DISASTER. Who’s with me? Anyone relate? Oh the countless hours I have spent picking up the same Hot Wheels, the same American Doll clothes, the same plastic food and blocks. I could just scream. It literally drives me crazy. So how can I reduce the amount of time I spend cleaning their toy room mess?

Simplify and organize the room. Buy clear boxes. Label everything with photos of what belongs in the clear boxes. Throw away meaningless plastic giveaway toys, put stuffed animals in their rooms. Giveaway well-worn toys, sell toys they’ve outgrown. Spend a day showing them everything has a place. Discuss cleaning up. If it’s done all day long, it shouldn’t take longer than five minutes to clean at the end of the day. Then MAKE THEM DO IT. Hold them accountable and watch how happy it makes them to accomplish this on their own and how thrilled they will be to be able to find something because they know where to look!

I don’t know what was likely more frustrating for them - to spend a bunch of time looking for toys they wanted to play with but never finding them in the pull out drawers or being told to put their mess away but not understanding where things were to go? It frustrates me I didn’t think about this process sooner.

Once again, it took me thinking about the problem (what annoyed me) to begin looking for solutions. That very week I made this decision, I volunteered at my twin’s preschool and saw all of the kids cleaning up when they were finished playing. Boom. It hit me. They know where everything goes because there are photos of the toys that belong in the boxes. Then I saw on Pinterest to use see through plastic boxes. And my cousin Michele shared a photo of how she organizes her play room and it was much the same. Then I thought about how Maxton especially enjoys getting out puzzles and blocks at the library. I re-thought the entire play room. Decision making complete. Problem solved.

5. Messy Linen Closets. All of it makes my head spin. I can’t organize them for the life of me. And it showed! One linen closet, for example, had towels and wash cloths, hand towels, cleaning supplies, kids medicine, humidifiers, curling irons, bed sheets, beach towels, diapers that no longer fit, First Aid supplies, spare toothbrushes, baby wipes, baby ointments, shampoo and conditioner, body wash, toothpaste, deodorant, curlers, winter gloves and scarves all in one linen closet. Why? Because it is big and all of it fit.

But what an eye sore to open and see! And when guests come over, it makes me cringe to think they had to look to find more toilet paper, (the toilet paper still in the plastic bag on the floor), towels thrown in with wash cloths, bed sheets toppling over. Just annoying and dreadful as an overwhelmed mom. And when more was bought at the store, it was thrown in without removing any of the old. I would spend so much time refolding towels and trying to organize. But something was missing.

Messy linen closets.

I decided to look at what was bothering me about each closet. I looked up organizing linen closets and there it was. I was missing my “system.”

Whether it’s the Elfa organizing over the door wire system from The Container Store or baskets from TJ Maxx or clear plastic boxes from Target, it was a system for putting things away in a neat and organized manner. Giving everything it’s place. Hiding the mess of things that can’t look “normal” or tidy sitting on a shelf. Wow what a difference this made. I also did the same thing to underneath our sinks in the bathroom. It doesn’t overwhelm me to put things away now. It actually makes me happy to open the linen closet doors.

6. The kids art and school work mess is my next project. I thought it through and made a process I can keep up with. They are sent home a huge amount of paperwork and art projects everyday. I want to capture some of these early learnings for my kids. Their emerging art work and writing is precious. But I have to prioritize this. It’s not something I have time to do daily. And piles of their papers and art end up on the island, on the kitchen table, stacked in my office.

So I am going to dedicate a drawer to each of my three kids art work and school work. Then monthly, I am going to go through it and dedicate time to get rid of a lot of it and to store the other and/or take a photo of it and toss the original. We can’t keep it all but I want to be mindful of what I am keeping and do it with a monthly purge and a practical saving method.

How does this relate to my photography business?

I feel like organizing areas of my life that create stress or anxiety that isn’t needed is important. This opens my mind and home to more space for creativity. Removing clutter and giving everything a home feels really good. Knowing I am helping my children by growing up in an environment a bit more conducive to less needless decision making is really important (they won’t go through this process, it will be a habit!) I will have more time to concentrate on my beautiful little family and really spend time shooting and editing, creating the images that fill our hearts and homes.

Does any of this resonate? Do you feel like you have something that has helped you to organize or recapture your home? I would love to hear from you. I am looking forward to February.

Up next, a timeless capture of a family this fall…