The Simplified Life (July)

Whew! It's been a month. I don't know if it's the summer heat, or what, but the past few weeks have felt like a slog. Nonetheless, we keep pressing on.

I have felt particularly decision-fatigued this month, and have sought to routinize some of the decisions I make regularly. For example, since I now hold the "weekend plan" card for our household, I came up with a basic structure for the four weeks of the month: a craft, a social event, going out to eat, and hanging out at home. The specific weeks we do each activity vary, but now I do not need to reinvent the wheel for date night. I just choose from my "menu" of options.

Fair Play (2020) is not exactly simplifying life, but it is helping us communicate more clearly about household duties. It also helps us track them. That is simplifying in a way.

After reading the book Don't Overthink It by Anne Bogel (2020), I have thought a lot about "completing the cycle." I do not always do this, but I am trying to focus on one thing at a time. Sometimes that bites me in that I get hyperfocused on a task and get stuck in it, which has negative consequences. (For example, my body hurt terribly after I sat too long at my computer working in a project.) Focusing on one thing at a time does help me simplify the things in my brain. It also helps me feel less frazzled.

Single tasking supposedly increases enjoyment of activities, too. [I read about this in a Greater Good article (Suttie, 2024)]. I am not good at single tasking, especially at night, but maybe that is an area for future simplification and growth.

All in all, simplification, for me, has come to represent prioritization and deciding what is meaningful to me. That changes with the seasons. What it means next month might be different than this one. We shall see.

Reference:

Bogel, A. (2020). Don't overthink it: Make easier decisions, stop second-guessing, and bring more joy to your life. Baker Books.

Rodsky, E. (2020). The fair play deck: A couple's conversation deck for prioritizing what's important. Clarkson Potter.

Suttie, J. (2024, July 9). How being distracted by lead to overindulgence. Greater Good.  https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/how_being_distracted_may_lead_you_to_overindulge