Day 23 - Clutter Free Schedule

Welcome back to Day 23 of the 31 Days to a Clutter Free Home series.

Just like last Sunday, I'm talking a little more about having a clutter free schedule...since that ultimately leads to a clutter free home (since you have more time and energy to maintain your home and less stuff coming into your home because you're involved in fewer activities, etc.)

Friday over on Nesting Place I followed the link to The Nester's post on (in)courage. She absolutely put into words the thoughts I've been having lately as I work to balance building this blog, offering design services, teaching piano lessons, raising our 1 year old son, keeping the house clean for showings, cooking meals, getting parts for my husband's mechanic side work, preparing to move, etc, etc. I often find myself volunteering to do things because I "have the time" since I'm a "stay-at-home mom." But then I find myself completely overwhelmed and nearly paralyzed not knowing what to do first and what my priorities are.

This is how The Nester put it in her post:

"Over the past few years I’ve become weirdly, fiercely sensitive to how I spend my time....  My boys go to a University style school so they are in class 3 days a week and my husband and I home school them two days.  That means right now in this season of my life, I have 12 days a month, from 8-2:30 to do with what I will. ...No one else will protect your dream, your art, your calling.  Are you devoting your time to something good…. or the best thing for you and your family right now?"

So, today, spend some time thinking about what your priorities really are as a family. What is your family's purpose? There are plenty of "good" things we can do to fill our time. But rather, we need to focus on the "best" things for our families - the things that will help us achieve our priorities.

Day 16 - Clutter Free Lives - Create Some Margin

Dave & I have participated in a video series by Andy Stanley entitled Take it to the Limit two different times now.

We've also listened to a CD of a Focus on the Family recording by Richard Swenson on Margin.  If you've not heard of these books/CDs, I highly recommend them.

These two gentlemen touch on some of the same topics and it is nearly impossible for me to differentiate who said what by memory. Still, the main idea is that we need to create margin in our lives - whether it be in our finances, our belongings, our time and schedules, our morals, our careers, our emotions, or our physical bodies. By creating this margin, then we have time to serve and to spend time with our families and with the Lord. When life is so hectic, the things that matter in life are put on the back burner.

Through the teachings of these two gentlemen, we have worked hard to create margin in all those areas. But we have not arrived, by any means. We are constantly re-visiting these lessons and earnestly working to create margin in our lives. We strive to carve more time out of our schedules to spend as a family and more margin in our finances so we're not living on the brink of overdrawing our checking account. We're constantly evaluating our decisions to be sure we are living out our moral convictions and not compromising and becoming more like the world. I, at least, am forever working on my diet and exercise program to carve out more margin in my pants, etc.

On this Lord's day I ask that you take a good look at your life and see what areas you're lacking margin in. I truly feel like this falls right in with our clutter free home series. Just like creating a clutter free home gives your family a space to hang out, creating a clutter free schedule will also help your family flourish.