by Emily Ley
Rinse.
Repeat.
Each time this would happen, I’d rework a few things in our lives, tinker with schedules and routines, and inevitably get back to rushing, hoping my solutions would permanently fix the problem.
I’m considered an expert on simplifying—I’ve even written books on the topic. But what I’ve noticed, with more years under my belt of strategizing techniques to automate, simplify, and organize the busyness of life, is that a deeper problem is at play in our frenetic, fever-pitched pace each day. A societal “way of life” has slowly crept in and become the norm. We can keep pausing the hamster wheel we’re on to catch our breaths, but eventually we’re going to have to step off.
While the tactics of simplifying daily life and organizing our time are incredibly valuable and life-changing, this insidious underlying epidemic bubbling just beneath the surface of our lives has caused them to fall out of sync and has bred burnout, stress, and emptiness.
So . . . what if we said enough is enough? What if we decided to live life our own way? What if we stopped racing toward this imaginary finish line? Could we walk instead? Could we settle in to where we are right now, acknowledge that “right now” is pretty good, and savor all we have to be grateful for? Even more important, could we proclaim that constantly pushing for “great” might not be worth the price we pay? What if, individually, we decided to take our lives back?
And what if we changed everything?
Our lives are so full, and yet many of us feel so empty. This paradox has confused me. If my life is full of good things, shouldn’t I also feel full, whole, and joyful? Could it be that our lives are actually just too full? And that everything needs to be questioned? That perhaps there’s a better or different way to live?
I began to wonder if less of everything might be the key. Maybe the world was wrong; maybe I could approach the rush and frenzy of our lives with the same tactics I used to organize and simplify spaces and schedules. When organizing a kitchen drawer, for example, you first declutter—by handling each item, evaluating it, and keeping only the best, favorite, and necessary. Then, once you’ve pared down to the essentials (the keepers), you add organization to it, such as a drawer divider or a system for sorting.
Life is the same way. We must first unpack our commitments, evaluate each one, and make a decision: keep the nonnegotiables and that which matters most, and then toss the excess. Only then, when our lives are clean slates and our commitments are what absolutely must and should remain, do we begin to institute rhythms and routines to help things run smoothly.
I know how to simplify my schedule, and I can organize a pantry like nobody’s business, but this was new, deeper territory. What would it look like to reject modern social norms of living a constantly connected, overfull life and adopt a life that was a little less . . . and yet more? Could we turn down the noise a little? (I asked myself these questions as if I needed permission!) Could we slow our breathing a bit? What if we just sat still for a few minutes? Was it possible to settle into life in a way that was good, not grand? Could we intentionally seek out less? And was it okay to want that?
I began to have this conversation quietly with friends, as if it were an idea so outlandish that it should be whispered, for fear that someone might overhear and I’d be labeled as an extremist, or worse, boring. But what I realized as I talked to more and more people is that I wasn’t crazy. I was saying out loud what others were having a hard time expressing. They were tired, plain and simple. They were overwhelmed. And they weren’t happy. Everyone was trying to figure out how to take a breath. Life felt overly busy, fast, loud, and packed too full.
What would it look like to reject modern
social norms of living a constantly
connected, overfull life and adopt a life
that was a little LESS . . . and yet MORE?
The more I talked to people, the more I became convinced that this type of life isn’t working for any of us anymore. But what would work? The opposite? Quitting every optional thing in our lives? Clearing our calendars completely? Perhaps. Or maybe the answer lay in some gray area in between. Whatever the solution to this overwhelm was, I set out to find it.
QUESTION EVERYTHING
My first realization was enormous and foundational: our lives were not meant to include so much. The contemporary world has inserted so many additional and new things into our lives (puffs into our balloons), which we have passively accepted as perks of modern life. Many of these advantages didn’t exist even a few years ago (social media, the internet, endless apps that can do anything and everything, to name a few), yet as humans, we still operate on the same level. We haven’t adapted or evolved for this kind of massive shift. Sounds and colors and notifications and information come at us from every angle at all hours of the day. No wonder we’re tired.
Add overwhelm and worry regarding daily activities—both of which are constantly running in the background, silently draining our personal batteries—and it’s a recipe for disaster on both an individual and societal level.
I decided I would begin by questioning everything:
Can we have good friends without attending every party thrown?
Can we raise children of character without nudging them into every sport or hobby they show an interest in?
Can we listen to stories on the way to school or work, instead of the news, and still be informed?
Can we disconnect from our phones and social media and still be connected?
I began to examine how many toys we owned and the types of play I was introducing to my children. I looked at the setup of our home. Did it encourage our family to relax and connect, or was it too perfectly picked up and uninviting? I began questioning chemicals in cleaning products, fillers in children’s snacks, and extra noise in our home. Digging deep into this topic became exhausting, so I created a manifesto for our family as a starting point. These statements would serve as guidelines for the decisions we make for ourselves, our home, and our children. As a place where we could begin to unwind and unravel years of adherence to what the world told us was right. In short, I wanted our family to live a life that was whole, good, and rich with meaning. And I was convinced that less of certain things would ultimately lead to more of what we all really want for our lives and our families: the slow, simple, and good moments worth cherishing and celebrating.
When we choose a value or an object, we unknowingly are declining its opposite—even though the opposite may be the very thing we should be investing in or would lead to the outcome we most desire.
Less rush, more rhythm
Less liking, more loving
Less noise, more colm
Less distraction, more connection
Less frenzy, more soul rest
Less fake, more real
Less fear, more community
Less great, more good
Less chasing, more cherishing
Less stuff, more treasures
For instance, when we select a toy that lights up and makes sounds and entertains, we are essentially not choosing a toy that is basic and more play-based that would stir our children’s imaginations. When we default to another night of dinner eaten on the run, we are saying no to a meal at home, however meager or simple it might be. When we spend hours scrolling through photos and updates from friends on social media, we are forgoing the undistracted time with our thoughts and with our people that would happen if we just put our phones down.
We can say yes to a slower, simpler, quieter pace.
We can choose to say no to constantly rushing. We can say yes to a slower, simpler, quieter pace. When we opt for no radio in the car, we open the door for real conversation. When we say no to a second extracurricular activity, we pave the way for quality time with our kids, for rest, for refreshment.
YOU CAN SAY NO
The reality is that the world has changed and become more intense and fast-paced. We have allowed certain new complexities into our lives, fu
rther inflating our balloons. We have chosen to say yes to these things by not saying no. That’s scary if you really think about it. But this realization can also be liberating! We get to choose what we say yes to. And we get to choose what we say no to. We have the ability to make these choices based on our values, mindfully adding and subtracting to achieve the outcomes we most desire. While we can’t opt out of some responsibilities in our lives (going to work, parenting, paying our bills, etc.), there are some items on our plate we can say no to if we so choose. This realization excited me, and before I knew it, I was on a roll, questioning everything. The freedom that came with each small choice was infectious. And slowly, I felt the grip of overwhelm begin to loosen. Take a deep breath and walk through some examples with me:
You do not need a Facebook or Instagram account.
Oh, but I do, Emily. I need it so I can keep in touch with friends who live far away. But I use it for my business. I use it to share photos of our children for our extended family so they can watch them grow.
But do you really need to be on social media? Obviously, this choice isn’t black and white. But what if there’s a way to manage it differently that turns down the noise of social media just a bit? Options abound, such as scheduling business posts once a week or month, responding to questions and comments once a day, and limiting yourself to weekdays only.
You do not have to accept that social media is a three- to four-hour-a-day activity (or distraction) in your life. If your day is a pie chart, you get to decide how large of a slice social media takes up. Sometimes distractions (like social media) actually make our days feel more rushed than they really are because our attention is being constantly drawn away from what’s happening right in front of us. It doesn’t have to be this way.
Your kids do not need to be in dozens of extracurricular activities.
Oh, but they do. My children are interested in so many things. I don’t want to stifle them. And you never know what interest might be “the one.”
But do they? Which activity do your kids love most? What would happen if their focus was no longer on several different activities but solely on school, on one extracurricular, and on family? Could you introduce your children to other activities at home? With more margin and focus to dedicate, would their imaginations blossom? Would their creativity skyrocket?
In our home we’ve introduced “intentional boredom” (a very fancy term for taking away all the technology and shepherding our children into imaginative play). Embracing boredom in our home now paves the way for our kids to get creative: building forts out of pillows, crafting stuffed-animal homes out of cardboard boxes, or finding a sunny spot to read a book. This has decreased the rush of our week (with three kids, we now have three extracurricular activities per season) and increased imaginative play.
You do not need to be “that girl” who is always too busy for a coffee date with a special friend.
Oh, but I am that girl! I have so much going on. My circumstances are what they are. I just have to keep going like I am. Work, kids, house, laundry, meetings, repeat.
Trust me, I get it. But do you? Really? Are there ways you could add more rhythm and routine to the things on your plate you cannot remove? I’d venture to say that if you stopped and evaluated the hundreds of microcommitments surrounding your biggest commitments, you’d actually find quite a few things on your plate that you could adjust or say no to altogether.
Adding rhythm to your life is actually a simple task. We decide the cadence at which we live. We can add milestones or markers to our weekly and daily schedules to set the cadence for ourselves and our families. Implementing a morning or evening routine, for example, gives children (especially) and adults a sense of safety and belonging. They know what will happen next . . . and then it does.
The rest of the world may be frenzied and hurried, but inside the walls of our home, we follow a certain beat at night: dinner, cleanup, bath time, stories, prayers, bedtime. No evening routine is ever perfect, but this is the general goal. In the mornings we brush our teeth, get dressed, eat breakfast, clean up, and go to school. Our weeks are marked by fun, simple traditions like Taco Tuesdays and Pizza Party Fridays, as well as systems like chores, family values (posted for all to see), and rules for behavior understood by all.
These may seem like simple and obvious cornerstones of family life, but even as I write this, I can think of a few routines that could use either additional flexibility or structure in our own home. These ordinary routines and everyday occurrences are the good stuff of family life. And I can say firsthand that they are the first to be lost or sacrificed when the pace of life becomes too quick.
YOU CAN DO IT ALL . . . BUT SHOULD YOU?
We have a finite amount of focus and a finite amount of space in our brains. Neither of these is unlimited. This has been the single most revolutionary realization for me. You and the woman who existed a hundred years ago—before television and computers and the internet and smartphones and T-ball leagues and iCal—have the same mental capacity in your head. Her core focuses were different than yours are now, but she had a much smaller pile of things that required her daily thoughts and attention. You have hundreds, if not thousands, more.
That space in your head and heart is sacred. Protect it as holy, and allow in only what’s truly significant. This is where you must be brave. This is where it’s easy to get stuck. We can believe the lie that we must do things the way we always have. We can believe we are powerless in our circumstances and therefore powerless against a future as burned-out women.
Protect the space
in your head and heart
as HOLY, and allow
only what’s truly
and specifically
SIGNIFICANT in.
Or we can believe that God made us for more.
We can make choices that allow us to be women who have inner calm and outward joy. You were not created to be constantly overwhelmed. You were not created to function at max capacity day after day. You have not been forgotten. You are a daughter of the King, and you have the power to make choices about the way you live your life. You are precious and special and significant. You can opt for a life of less. You can say no to the world constantly telling you to be, do, and have more. You, like sweet Caroline, are capable of being a bright yellow balloon adequately full of goodness and joy whether you are four, fourteen, forty, or ninety-four. Destiny is a decision. So much in the world is out of control. But even if just a little we can manage what happens within the walls of our hearts and homes. This is holy work.
Destiny
is a
decision
2
TECHNOLOGY
Less Liking, More Loving
It was my husband who first pointed out the ways technology was both helping and hindering my life. Like me, he is an early adopter of fresh ways to automate and simplify. I’m usually what I like to call a “high-achieving multitasker” (which is a great thing, right?), but one evening, in late 2016, he found me crumpled on our bed. This was the evening of my pivotal crash and burn. This was the day “all the things” hit the fan.
No tragic event or anything terrible had pushed me over the edge, just a bad, full day. It was one of those days when, from the start, everything seemed to go sideways. The complications mounted and mounted until, finally, I crumbled under the weight of all I was trying to do.
Literally. I was in the fetal position.
Bryan’s good at pep talks. He works in sales (and is really good at it) and is great at encouraging me, reminding me of my strengths, and kindly urging me to keep going. But that night? He flat-out told me to get up. It was time for some tough love.
“At any given moment, Emily,” he said, “you have six group text messages going. You answer emails while cooking dinner. You voice-type messages while taking a bath. You even listen to audio books while blow-drying your hair.”
“You have to look at this with fresh eyes.”
This was t
rue. I would put in wireless headphones while I dried my hair.
“Why are you so plugged in? No one needs to hear from you that badly.”
I was immediately offended. Deeply offended. Sure, if I were being honest, I could see the truth in what he was saying. But I wasn’t ready to give in.
“When would you like me to answer my emails, Bryan? When I’m driving the kids to school? How about while I’m folding the laundry? Or maybe I should answer emails when I’m taking a shower.”
My feathers were ruffled. And it wasn’t that he was wrong. It was just that my balloon was overfull. The last thing I wanted to hear was that I should take something off my plate that I felt couldn’t be removed. My life was a well-oiled machine with a thousand meticulously moving parts. If one tiny piece began to malfunction, the entire thing would fall apart. Or at least that’s what I had told myself. This is how I accomplished so much. How I ran a big company and raised three kids and wrote books. My days were carefully broken into fifteen-minute increments. I knew that if I needed to take a conference call, I could take it at 11:24 a.m.—as long as it was no longer than six minutes. Because that’s how long it took to drive to preschool to pick up the twins.
Yes, my life was that full.
Bryan sat down with me after my angry reply. (It’s a good thing no items were loose on the bed, or I would have thrown them at him.) “You have to look at this with fresh eyes,” he said. “You have to stop something. Something has to change. We can change our lifestyle. Do you sell the company and get a different job? Do we send the kids to day care? These are all options. Everything is an option. How do we get back to you being you? To the happy mom your kids love?”