Education
Abe Lincoln said, "The best way to predict your future is to create it." When living simply, taking action now can help you shape the life you want to live. Back in Episode 38, we talked about the concept of preparation meets opportunity. You may recall a few lines from that show that went like this: “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,