Today, Dion and I celebrate 16 years of marriage.

I can’t believe it either but we were very, very young when we married

And yes, Will and Kate chose a good day to get married!

We didn’t do anything special besides drive back home from our holiday but tomorrow we are going on a proper date while our nanny babysits.

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Yesterday I had the wonderful opportunity to meet a blogger!

I’ve had it on my life list for years and years to meet 10 bloggers in my lifetime. This is number 3.

My first was Ali and then there was Suzanne who met up with me in Scotland and now Laura.

Who will be next?

I travelled all the way to Sabie and Laura travelled all the way from Mozambique.

She told me I officially have the record of her furthest lunch date.

I am strangely pleased by this.

Laura and I had a long, three-hour lunch and we spoke a lot.

I’ve been mulling over something she said yesterday. I’m paraphrasing but basically the internet is making us all lazy.

We read about cooking instead of cooking and baking, read about organising instead of just organising, read about reading instead of picking up a book and doing it, and so on.

It’s really given me pause and I’m challenging myself along with you to actually take action this weekend.

Instead of trawling tens of blogs, pick something actionable to do and just go do it (read, cook, organise, whatever).

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And then last but not least, this little blog was featured among some very good blogs over here

I was very excited when I received the first e-mail for the Simplify Your Live e-course. Reading the summary, I already knew this week would be all about vision: what does a simplified life look like. I was already convinced this would be a very important part of the project, the foundation for the rest of it, and the actual lesson confirmed this.

I have to be honest: when I first read very quickly the pages I had just printed and saw “What is your life purpose?”, I completely freaked out: how was I supposed to answer that question??

Then I thought that Marcia would never give me such a deep question without making me ready to answer it, and I read more throughly.

I was right, the lesson and the article provide great starting points to fuel your thinking. Of course, if you expect one of those “one size fits all” kind of course that will give you answers without you having to reflect and dig a bit deeper, you’ll be disappointed.

I started by reading the documents a couple times during the first two days, and I always had the questions and articles in a small corner of my head, sometimes without noticing it.

Unconsciously, it matured and after a couple days I was ready to grab my pen and start filling the forms. The point was to reflect on why I want to simplify my life and what is the goal, what it’ll look like one the process is complete (if such a process can ever be “complete”!).

To me, “simple” is another word for “peaceful“.

I want my life to be easy, to “flow” smoothly, I want to feel comfortable with the people, the things, the activities that are in my life and how they make me feel. My simplified life would be balanced, with a good mix of lightness, of ease and deep relationships (including with myself).

Some things that are blocking me to get this simple life are mainly some character traits, like my (quite frightening) ability to create drama, my taste for arguing and wanting to always be right, laziness that makes me waste myself (my time, my energy), gossiping, negativity.

To fight against those traits I basically have to be more conscious, more mindful of what I do, what I say, how I think. I must make purposeful goals and remind them to myself often, so that I stay focused on those. Baby steps, daily actions (maintenance is a big issue for me) and visual reminders will be powerful tools, I think.

Pfew, what a novel!! Thanks if you read all along!

Take care!
Chloé

Wow, wow, wow!

What fantastic insights and it’s only week 1!!!!

I’m so, SO proud of you already – so glad you’re really digging in and asking yourself the hard questions.

Do you have any questions for Chloe? Or did any of her insights resonate with you?

So we’re on holiday and the place we’re staying at (a two-bedroom) has ONE bin in the whole place.

I’m finding that I have to gather little piles of rubbish in every room and take it through to the main bin in the kitchen every so often.

It’s frustrating for me and when I mentioned it to my husband he said, “it’s just because you’re on the other end of the extreme!”

“Really?” I said.

I can’t believe that I’m the only one who has a bin in each room of the house.

Am I?

Yes, I have 8 bins in my house.

A bin in each of the two bathrooms, one in the kitchen and entrance way, in each of the two bedrooms and the third bedroom (study/ guest bedroom) has two bins – one for normal rubbish and one for paper.

8.

It’s just SO much more convenient to throw things away in the room than to have to haul them all to the kitchen.

Right?

Tell me I’m not the only one.

How many bins do you have in your house (not counting outside!)?

The first thing I have done to simplify my life is the beginning of the purge. I made a deal with my older son that if we went through all his toys and got rid of anything he didn’t use he would get a prize. In the end we came up with 3 bags full of toys to take to the charity shop.

Starting this week I haven’t bought any unnecessary items into the home. I am endeavoring to use everything up in my fridge before it goes bad by making my lunches and creating meals out of the contents of my fridge.

Emails, wow do I have a lot of them. Just checked my emails and there are 1250 emails that I haven’t deleted or sorted yet. I have begun the process and the way I will do this is to do it every time I get a few minutes during the day. Whilst doing this I am unsubscribing to the mail I don’t want to receive.

I started to de-clutter the area I need to the most, the front door. Here I have simplified my life by creating an area where there is a place for everything. I labeled the shoe rack with everyone’s name so that each of us has a place to put our shoes.

From Shoe and Bag Chaos

To organised launch pad clearly labeled

Looking forward to my next e-mail on how to simplify my life.

WOW, Samantha – I can’t believe the transformation – you are doing a great job. Well done!

Don’t you love Samantha’s front door organising makeover? What’s the last thing you organised in your home?

First off, Happy Easter!

Hope you had a great day celebrating that He is Risen

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It’s time for another inspiring space.

I was blog-surfing and gasped (!) when I saw this.

Do you know how happy this picture makes me?

This is Erin’s shoe organisation in her garage.

It is so cute and so beautifully organised, like with like, and I love it.

She mentioned in her post that she brought more of her daughters’ shoes to the garage to make room in their closet.

I love that idea – fantastic job, Erin.

My favourite part of this space is the rain boots – love that bit of happy.

How do you organise your shoes?

(feel free to link to your posts in the comments)

My babies don’t go to daycare; we have a nanny who comes in every day to take care of them.

She is fabulous at caring and loving our children but her standards for keeping my place tidy is not the same as mine.

So every Sunday I do a bit here and a bit there to “restore the order” but I’ve been itching to get properly stuck in for weeks now.

I didn’t even consciously plan it but yesterday and today I went through each of my kitchen cupboards, the fridge and freezer, the laundry and a miscellaneous dresser.

I decluttered a bit (when you do it regularly as I try to, it’s not as bad) but mainly re-organised.

Where things weren’t working, I tweaked and tried some new systems.

I must add… it really wasn’t my intention to do all of that – there were two cupboards in particular that were driving me nuts. This was one of them…

However, once I started, I got in the zone and I believe if you’re in the flow, go with it.

And I did.

The point is that momentum always moves you forward and makes the rest of the task seem easier.

The whole thing didn’t take that long – probably an hour on each of the two days.

Have you been in the zone lately? What was your latest organising project?

If you blog, please feel free to share the URL to your organising project in the comments

PS I know I missed posting yesterday but I really wanted to unplug on Good Friday so I’ll make it up on 1 May

PPS And now, I hope the zone stays with me as I need to start packing for our holiday!

Hi everyone,

My name is Chloé and I’m so happy to be one of Marcia’s guest bloggers for her “Simplify Your Life” series.

I’m 31, I live in France with my boyfriend of soon-to-be 10 years Guy and our pets. We don’t have kids yet because of some infertility issues but we’re going through an IVF procedure, so hopefully this will change soon!

I work full time for the small town we live in, I’m in charge of the communication: the town magazine, the website, the press, the events’ organisation, the mayor’s speeches, etc. It’s a very stressful job but incredibly interesting. I’m also a digi-scrapper and an amateur photographer.

I’m pretty disorganized because I’ve never been taught, but I’ve realised how annoying it is and I’m trying to improve that.

I’m really aspiring for a peaceful environment and a simple life, but I didn’t know how to get it… until now!

I couldn’t pass the chance to guest blog for Marcia, first because I love her vision of organization and because her advices always work great for me, and second because of the e-course itself. I can’t wait to get started and share this journey with you.

Doesn’t Chloe have a great job? I think it’s awesome!

Leave your questions for her in the comments or otherwise just welcome her to the blog.

P.S. I personally can’t wait to follow along with the two ladies’ journeys.

If you’ve ever been for a job interview (and who hasn’t?!), you’ll be well aware of that awful question: what are your strengths and weaknesses?

At that point you want to position yourself in the best possible light so you frantically scramble and try to think of a weakness that’s not too bad.

I’ll confess that years ago when I used to go for job interviews I used to answer that my strength and weakness was that I was a perfectionist.

Nowadays, I would bite my tongue before admitting that.

Yes, I’m a recovering perfectionist but it’s definitely not something I’m in the least bit proud of.

You see, I think perfectionism robs you of living a full and happy life.

Are you a perfectionist?

“Perfectionism is not a quest for the best. It is a pursuit of the worst in ourselves, the part that tells us that nothing we do will ever be good enough – that we should try again.”

Julia Cameron

You may be a perfectionist if:

1. you think you’re the only person who can do something exactly right
2. you don’t even bother to do something unless you can do it 100% perfectly
3. you never ask for help as you see it as a sign of weakness
4. you can’t stand doing anything badly or failing at anything
5. you tend to notice others’ mistakes

Do you see what I mean?

If you’re constantly striving for the elusive perfection, you’re never going to be happy to just be.

Your relationships will suffer and so will your productivity.

Perfectionism has also been related to illnesses such as eating disorders, anxiety, depression and a host of relationship and emotional problems.

As I said, I used to be a fully-fledged perfectionist until I wised up.

I had to learn to let go a little, lower my impossible standards and change my language.

Next time I’ll give you some more tips on overcoming perfectionism.

But for now, tell me:

Are you a perfectionist? Is it something you’re proud of or have you already started seeing the limitations thereof?

If you’d like one-on-one help from a recovering perfectionist, be brave and contact me today.

Hello, my name is Samantha.

I have been blogging for a while now.  I am trying to declutter my home bit by bit and get on top of everything.  My blog is called I love organising.

(notice she spells organising with an s too – I love it )

I am trying to look after my home, the kids and my husband’s business.  I feel like I always have a million things on my plate each day.

I believe I bring too much stuff into the house I don’t need.  I have an obsession with books, but sometimes I buy them and never read them.  I don’t know what I have in my house before I bring new stuff in, so often I will find that I already have the same item.   I want to control my habit of buying stuff I don’t use.

I want to simplify my life so that my life is managed and I feel in control.  I do believe I can’t do this on my own and I need the help and guidance of the professionals. I want to do everything I can to organise and simplify my life as much as possible.  I’m looking forward to partaking in this course.

I’ve kept all my stories and letters I used to write along with a lot of folders.

I’m not one of those people who has to have the latest gadget.

I try to be intentional about my life and as such, really question

a) whether I need it

b) if I want to pay what they are asking for it

c) whether my current solution is as good as the new thing

d) whether I will actually use the new thing

So….

I am a reader, a BIG reader. I read tons of books and have actively created time in my day, every day, to spend reading.

I’m also a very tactile person.

Long-time readers will remember that I’ve bought notebooks or bags, sometimes purely based on how lovely they feel to my touch.

(I’m not even ashamed to say this but recently in a stationery store I hauled out my daily planner and told a fellow shopper to “just feel it – it’s gorgeous”)

Anyway, back to reading.

I love the feel of a book in my hand, the smell of new pages and the experience of turning pages and using a bookmark, etc.

It’s all part of the experience for me.

Like holding a hot mug of tea is just as part of the experience of actually drinking the tea.

But….

I have been opening up my mind to the possibility of getting a Kindle.

My friend over at se7en told me that there are books you buy on a Kindle and then there are books you still need to buy to see and feel the gorgeous, glossy pages.

That sparked something in my mind.

I knew what she meant.

For me, this means the books I would typically sell to a second-hand bookshop or donate to charity are Kindle books and ones like the Pioneer Woman’s cookbook is something I would still buy a physical copy of.

So the other day in the office a colleague mentioned that her hubby was in the US and had just texted her about the Kindle he was getting for her.

Apparently I’d done all the processing I needed to because I piped up, “oh, can he please get one for me too?”

A few days later I am the proud owner of a beautiful white Kindle.

I have bought and downloaded tons of books already (they make it sooooo easy with the one-click) and can’t wait to go on holiday next week with the Kindle, instead of my usual stash of 4 – 5 books.

Imagine the space I’ll be saving!

If you have a Kindle, what is its name? Mine is a boring Marcia’s Kindle

Are you totally e-reading? Or do you also have books you must touch?