When I read the prompt (Simplify) late Thursday night, I just filed it in the back of my mind, to mull over as I slept. Friday, I decided to go ahead and get the graphic made while I had a minute and get it uploaded so it was ready to go when I write the post to go with it. Funny thing that. When I made the graphic, it said Simplicity. Today (Saturday), when I sat down to write and grab the correct links at the bottom of the post, I realized my error and had to go back and Simplify the word on the graphic. I got a good laugh out of my mistake and figured I now had a direction for my post.

How many times do we make something simple into something complicated when there is no reason to do so? This is the perfect time of the year to take a closer look at our lives and simplify. Are you overcommitted? Look at your calendar and make a list of the activities you regularly participate in. Are there too many? Could you take a minute to number the list in order of importance? Not importance to others, but which are most important to YOU? Could you cut the list down by just ten percent? That would simplify your calendar a bit. The next step might be to learn to say “No.” unless you are really ecstatic about a new opportunity that has been presented to you.

Now, how about household tasks? Do you find yourself perpetually behind on tasks like dishes and laundry? Have you considered the idea that you just might have too many clothes and dishes? Consider what you pack for a week or ten-day trip. If you have just ten days worth of clothes, even if all the laundry is dirty it won’t take that long to get it caught up. If you have enough clothes to last for weeks or months and you let it all get dirty before you wash it, you have a much bigger mound of laundry to tackle, don’t you? I bet you see where I am going with this. If you simplify your wardrobe even by just ten to twenty percent, you can simplify your laundry chores too. I can’t take credit for this idea, but there are famous people who basically wear the same “uniform” every day. If all your clothes were black, like the late Johnny Cash, laundry sorting would no longer taker up precious moments of your life. I use a multi-hamper system where the clothing gets sorted as it is taken off so I can always grab a load when it is getting full. This is how I simplify the task of laundry.

If you have a house full of kids and they are constantly grabbing a clean glass out of the cabinet with each drink they pour, consider getting each kid a different color of the same style of glass, then having them rinse it after each use and put in the dish drainer until they need it again. When you get ready to run the dishwasher, grab them all and load them in. If one turns up missing you know exactly which kid to speak to about it, which again simplifies the task of tracking down the missing dish. It will also cut down on the number of dishes you need to wash by hand or the frequency you need to run the dishwasher.

The more stuff you have, the more time you will spend taking care of your stuff or working/walking around your stuff. More is not always better. You can simplify your life by decluttering your excess possessions.

This post is part of the weekly Five Minute Friday link-up!
The prompt this week is: Simplify
The assignment: Write for five minutes on the word of the week. This is meant to be a free write, which means: no editing, no over-thinking, no worrying about perfect grammar or punctuation. Just write.