being intentional

Ah, New Years resolutions.

Sometimes I make one, sometimes I don’t. Last year it was to become a morning exerciser and to stay on top of the laundry. I didn’t manage to do either for very long.

The year before it was more abstract—I wanted to “simplify.” So I read a few books, I purged the play room and my clothes, and then I just sort of moved on with my normal way of living.

This year is the start of a new decade and I’ve thought a lot about what it will bring. In past years I’ve faced a lot of unknowns and life changes.

Would that be the year I’d move to a new city? The year I got engaged? Married? The year I’d start a new job? Buy a house? Have a baby? Another baby? Another?

Going into 2020, I feel a little more settled. Maybe it was Henry completing our family this year. Of course there are always unknowns, but I can only hope that this year is a simple one. A simple life is something I find I am seeking more and more these days.

What I want most is to enjoy my family and to utilize my time better so that I can do just that. I even want to, on occasion, “have it all together”.

But having it all together catches a lot of flak these days.

It’s much trendier to talk about how hard life is. Whether it’s hard to stay home with your kids, work and have kids, or even have kids at all… Often times it’s just people arguing about which way is the hardest.

(This is not me saying it’s easy–Just an observation that it’s ever popular to talk/complain about the hard things in life.)

It’s okay to have a messy house, they say, your children are making memories. And just wait until they leave the house, they say, you’ll miss the toothpaste all over the bathroom and the actual mountains of
laundry.

So we throw in the towel and often times it makes me feel worse, not better, to just concede that it’s normal to feel behind or overwhelmed. I definitely don’t disagree with those sweet ways of making us feel better, but my personality often craves that feeling of being “with it”.

I want out of the mindset of “hard”.

So I’ve decided I need to be mindful of how I’m spending my hours.

That’s my New Year’s Resolution. To be more intentional with my time.

Have you ever sat on your couch around 8:00 after a long day thinking you’d get up in 10 minutes to do some household task? You’ll empty the dishwasher, work out, shower, have a grown up conversation …something.

And then it’s like BAM it’s 10:00 at night and you have done nothing but flip through some channels or stare at your phone. So you begin the next day feeling behind and the cycle continues.

Going into 2020 I don’t want to put off tomorrow what I could do today. I want to do my best to instill good simple habits that make life easier.

This resolution is more of a mindset change than a call to action.
Finding little pockets of time in a busy day and using that time to my advantage is not just a good habit, it also feels great and frees up down time to spend with family.

When you don’t need to spend 5 hours on Sunday to catch up on 2 weeks of cleaning, you can play outside with the kids! When you aren’t behind on laundry and everyone has clean socks on Monday morning, the day starts out smoothly!

When you leave the TV off, you have time for an at-home date night or conversation with your spouse! When you pry yourself off the couch to get to bed on time you set yourself up for a great morning.

And that’s the cycle and mindset I want to perpetuate.

I know there are enough hours in the day. Because if I can’t get by in a world with dishwashers, clothes driers, vacuum robots, microwaves, and a spray that releases wrinkles…then what in the world were they doing a hundred years ago?

Ironing bed sheets after waiting for them to line dry? Sewing their kids clothes? Speaking of kids they had more like 8 of them to feed, bathe, and generally keep alive. They cooked everything from scratch and never dreamed of a world were groceries would be delivered to their door.

It was all the hard way. By hand, homemade, from scratch.

From this perspective, I guess people were more intentional with their time. They just got up and got it done!

There was no getting sucked into a Netflix binge or scrolling on Facebook absolutely aimlessly. There was no over-scheduling your life to the point of having your kids on multiple traveling teams. There was no trying to be connected to a thousand people all from the palm of your hand.

My iPhone screen time feature tells me I spend three to four HOURS a day on average on my phone. Look yours up if you dare!

What a wake up call that is.

I do have the time. There is enough time. Not to be perfect or wear myself out. There is enough time for some hard work and some down time. As long as I’m not trying to do both at once, I think that makes for a happy simple life.

So here’s to a year of being intentional!

Intentionally spending uninterrupted time with my kids. Intentionally putting my phone down and turning the TV off. Intentionally planning a date night. Intentionally getting up in time to exercise. Intentionally knocking out household chores so they don’t pile up and get in the way of a good day. Intentionally taking time for myself.

Here’s to starting over the next day if I need to.

Here’s to a simple, intentional, happy 2020!