Welcome to ProjectSimplify365.com™!

I thought I’d be able to make it the whole year before throwing in the towel, but going through the motions for the next six weeks just so that I can write what is already on my heart right now seems disingenuous.

And the truth is that I am not quitting this project, just my self-inflicted obligation to post about it every day.

The purpose of this blog–public accountability–has been served.  For 11 months it has motivated me to make important changes in my life, to take the necessary steps towards a simpler life focused on the things that really matter.  I’m not there yet, but I am well on my way, and I have realized I am at the point where writing this blog is counter productive; my goal is to simplify and it only makes things more complicated.

In January I started this website based on the idea that consciously doing one small thing each day towards creating a simpler life can ultimately add up to a big change.

I felt oppressed by the excesses in my life.  There was too much stuff, too many distractions, too many things to do & too many places to go.  My kids had become caught up in a world of constant distraction, where every time we turned around there was a new activity to participate in or something shinier to buy.  I began to realize they could hardly sit still for 5 minutes without becoming bored.   And as a family, we had become so busy trying to manage it all that we lost the ability to enjoy the simple pleasures in life and simply focus on the things that truly matter: honoring God, spending time with family & friends, & giving to others.

These were my goals:

• Put God first and spend time each day in prayer
• Spend more quality time with family and friends
• Start homeschooling my kids
• Cook more healthy, well balanced, non-prepackaged meals (at least most of the time)
• Nurture my own creativity and that of my children
• Give to others & teach my children what it means to give
• Purge my home of excess stuff

My prayer was that God would change my heart, grant me contentedness no matter my circumstances, and He has.  Our life is not yet the calm picture of serenity I have imagined, but we have come a long way in the past year.  My faith has only grown stronger as I have experienced firsthand the power of prayer and felt the presence of God in my life.   We’ve made a greater effort to spend time with friends and each other, and in June we started homeschooling.  Somehow over the course of the year my girls went from hating vegetables with a passion to embracing them, even requesting them.  Not every meal is a nutritionist’s dream, but my girls are healthy and happy and growing strong.

Over the past year, and especially in the last few months, as I sold my 2 most time-consuming websites and we went on a 2 month spending freeze,  I have found more time for creative projects.  The girls love helping and we will all happily lose ourselves for hours in a craft.  We have become more intentional with our giving, I started volunteering with the children at church, and we are also working hard to teach a spirit of compassion to our girls.

And we have gotten rid of SO much stuff!  Load after load after load of stuff has been given away or sold.  We can finally park our car in the garage and most of our closets, drawers, & cupboards are reasonably organized.  It’s not perfect.  We are by no means minimalists and we still have a lot of work to do, but it is much improved.

I think the most important change, however, is that these life goals are permanently engrained in my psyche.  I don’t have to consciously do “one thing each day” because I am already unconsciously working towards them all the time.

And so I quit.  Because I don’t need more things to do, I need fewer.  One blog is more than enough.

Thank you for sharing this journey with me.

xoxo, Ruth

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