Right size your life

Downsizing is a term that most of us associate with getting older.  A concept that crosses across all ages is rightsizing. What is rightsizing? Rightsizing is a process in which your priorities in life align with where you live and how you spend your day to day life. As I work with my organizing clients, rightsizing has become a core of our process. 

Coordination: This process involves all areas of your life. You can start by asking yourself a few simple questions.

1. What are my priorities in life?
2. Is my day to day life in line with my priorities?
3. What do I need to remove/add from my life to be right sized in my thoughts, actions and living space?

I would add that taking the time to honestly sit with these questions is the secret to finding your right sized life. I highly recommend taking the time to pray with these questions and answers to get the best answer!

It might surprise you to know the answers you have today may not be the same in 5 years! I would venture to guess depending on the season you are in, the answers may change even more frequently. It’s good to do this exercise periodically. 

Once you’ve come up with your answers to questions 1-3, it becomes easier to see what decisions to make. This really adds intention to all that you do and from there you are in a more harmonious state. There will still be struggles, you are just better equipped to deal with them. 

Let’s look at an example:

Helen is a busy mom of 4 who stays at home while her husband works. (Right sizing decision made to stay home rather than both parents work)They have decided to move to a bigger home after the birth of the 4th child (Right sized their living space)  Helen is struggling with self-worth so she begins to volunteer. The other thing Helen is struggling with is managing her home. The house is big and the children mess it up as fast as she cleans it up! Once the school realized how helpful Helen could be they continued to ask her for more volunteer hours. This was good because her neighbor could watch the younger children as Helen would do for her. This went on for a couple of years and soon Helen was volunteering and attending meetings 3-4 evenings/month in addition to the weekly work.There was never a thought of turning down a chance to volunteer! This was on top of being a mom to 4! There was no time with her husband and not really any quality time with her children. The house was a disorganized mess because everyone was in survival mode! Helen reached a breaking point and realized something had to give. After sitting down and praying, it occurred to her that she was completely out of balance. We simply started to prioritize her mission and built everything around that. This is what it looked like:

1. Being a loving and attentive mom/wife were the greatest priority.

( Now, we have the foundation in which to build daily life/goals)

2.   Taking things off the volunteer plate one at a time allowed for more time with her children. Decreased the amount of activities the children were involved with by determining church was top priority. This left for each of the 2 older children children to participate in one sport or musical activity but not both. This made the evening life so much better with less rushing around and time to eat dinner as a family.  ( Until balance was restored, Helen did not volunteer!)
3.   Creating a system for managing a large, busy household gave Helen the structure she did not know she needed.  We started with a calendar, plugging in the 3 most important tasks Helen would complete each day.  One of the interesting things we found was for Helen to do a load of laundry daily was actually relaxing for her. We didn’t even write that one on the list because it was second nature to her. For Helen, the three most important included one for just her and two for the house.  Once the three most important tasks were done and if there was time, Helen could choose to do another task or just take the time with her family. Helen’s mind shift went from surviving to thriving, she was able to work with her children on giving them chores to help her around the house based on the age of the child. Big houses are lovely but they can be a lot of work! In this case, the house was like having another couple of children. By understanding what led to the chaos we were able to target specific actions that would enable Helen to keep her home right sized. This is how to live an organized life. 

As Helen goes through each season of life, she will need to revisit this process and add/remove that which is in line with creating a right sized life for her. 

Alright, it’s your turn to sit down and right size your life with the three questions above. I can’t wait to see what you decide. Please feel free to reach out to me by email.  ([email protected])

Darlene Illig, Professional Organizer

www.organizeyouinsideandout.com