The Simple Home

If you're anything like me, you struggle to get everything done in a day and often feel like you can't fit in the important things.

You need a way to find more time in your week!

This week on the Simple Home Podcast I interviewed Jamie Dadant. She's an expert when it comes to finding extra time in your day and setting your priorities so you can feel good about what you've accomplished by the end of each week. She breaks down 5 simple steps you can take each week to find 5 or more extra hours of time.

I learned so much from this episode and was easily able to take her tips and apply them to my life right away. These are my favorite kinds of episodes. (Practical and easy to implement!)

The best part is, Jamie gives you a free PDF worksheet to walk you through the process she outlines in the episode. Make sure to download the worksheet before you listen.

Key Takeaways

• Why ‘busy’ can feel like a badge of honor.
• The mom guilt that comes along with doing less.
• How to get clear about your priorities.
• 5 simple steps you can follow to find 5 or more hours in your week.
• The mindset shift that's essential to living a more intentional life.

Learning how to find more time and use your time with intention will change your life. No longer will you constantly say, "I'm busy", or feel drained at the end of every day.

Learn how to use this 5 step process to plan your week.

Links For This Episode

• Another Episode About Time Management (For you overachievers!)- How To Get More Time In Your Week
• Jamiedadant.com
• Weekly Planning Worksheet
• From Burnout To Balanced Course
• #1000 things challenge
• Time tracking workbook

Find this episode of The Simple Home Podcast and others you’ll love on your favorite podcast player, iTunes, Google Play, Spotify, and TuneIn! Remember to subscribe on your favorite podcast player so you don’t miss an episode.

Have you ever been in the never ending cycle of organizing and reorganizing and putting things in new containers, and moving things to a new room and organizing again? It feels like it never stops, doesn’t it? I know this all too well from my own experience. 

Decluttering and organization can be never ending.

The terms, organization and decluttering, often get confused. Or the decluttering phase gets overlooked completely. 

Organization looks different for everyone. Being organized is about creating spaces and systems that make your life easier, not just prettier. There are a few steps to put into place to ensure your organization systems work so you can get out of that never ending cycle we talked about above. 

In this episode of The Simple Home Podcast, we’ll talk about the difference between organization and decluttering and help you set up a system that works for you.

Key Takeaways

• What happens when you organize and what doesn’t happen.
• The 1st step you must take for successful organization (that often gets skipped).
• How to start with small, attainable steps. 
• My 6 phase approach to make decluttering possible and much simpler.

Links From This Episode

• The Simple Home Declutter Challenge 
• Create And Maintain A Clutter Free Toy Space 
• How To Create A Capsule Wardrobe For Motherhood 
• Clutter Free With Kids- The Importance Of Family Minimalism 
• Morning Routines, Nightly Routines, And Daily Resets For Families

Can I tell you a secret?

I’ve bought way too many toys for my kids. Creating a clutter free toy space has been a challenge for me at times. I’ve purchased toys for them that have never been played with. I’ve had a hard time getting rid of things because I wanted so badly for my kids to love and play with, but never really did. 

If toy clutter is taking over your house, you’ve probably done the same thing.

It’s easy to get overwhelmed quickly with toy clutter, even at the earliest stages of your child’s life. As your child grows, has new interests, receives gifts, and so on, your toy clutter will grow exponentially. However, much of this toy clutter is meaningless to your child and can actually be a detriment to enjoyable, purposeful play.

In this episode you’ll learn how to create a clutter free toy space and set up a system to make it more manageable in the future. 

Key takeaways

• The essential first step when tackling toy clutter.
• How to get started with determining your beliefs about toys and play.
• How to declutter, organize, and create systems around the toys in your house.
• The negative affect toy clutter has on your kids.
• What this process will teach your children and stay with them throughout their life.
• Mom guilt and toy clutter- why they go together.

You and your kids are likely feeling stress from your toy clutter, whether you realize it or not. Creating a space with the right toys will encourage creativity, communication, innovation, and emotional growth. Getting rid of toy clutter is time well spent. 

Links from this episode

• 2-Hour LIVE Workshop- Learn How To Use Your Fancy Pants Camera
• How To Curate Your Toys And Create The Perfect Play Space
• Clutter Free With Kids- Why Family Minimalism Is So Important (Interview With Joshua Becker)
• The Simple Home Decluttering Challenge
• Everyday Routines For Moms That Will Simplify Your Life
• Morning Routines, Nightly Routines, And Daily Resets For Families

Find this episode of The Simple Home Podcast and others you’ll love on your favorite podcast player, iTunes, Google Play, Spotify, and TuneIn! Remember to subscribe on your favorite podcast player so you don’t miss an episode.

Ever feel like you can't possibly do everything you need to do in one day and still have time for the things that really matter? 

We're all busy and it's becoming more and more common for parents to constantly be rushing from one thing to the next. In this episode of the Simple Home Podcast, you'll learn how to break your busy habit so you can live with intention. 

Being chronically busy has a negative impact on your whole family. You're less likely to eat meals together which means less opportunity to foster healthy eating habits and conversation. Busy families have less time for unstructured play which encourages creativity, conflict resolution, and so much more, I could go on and on, but I'm sure you've felt the impact busyness can have on your family. 

In this episode you'll learn:

• How busyness can be avoided
• 10 things to start doing today
• 10 things to stop doing today
• The 2 phases you need to take out of your vocabulary

Learning to slow down and create downtime in your schedule will enhance your life in so many ways. When you learn to break your ‘busy’ habit, you'll feel less stressed and have more patience with your kids. And, beyond all that, you'll have the time you need to do the things that really matter to you.

Links From This Episode

• 3 Easy Steps To Simple Living 
• Morning Routines, Nightly Routines, And Daily Resets For Families
• Everyday Routines For Moms That Will Simplify Your Life
• How To Take The Stress Out Of Family Meal Planning

Find this episode of The Simple Home Podcast and others you’ll love on your favorite podcast player, iTunes, Google Play, Spotify, and TuneIn! Remember to subscribe on your favorite podcast player so you don’t miss an episode.

Living with debt is stressful and exhausting. According to CNBC, the average American has $38,000 in personal debt. Not including a mortgage. Getting out of debt takes intention and hard work. No matter where you're starting, living debt free is possible. 

In this episode of The Simple Home podcast  I'm going to tell you our debt free story.

I'll start at the beginning, tell you how we had to change our mindset around spending and where we are now. 

Here's a peek at what we'll talk about:

• How I used to think about money
• Our struggle with stuff
• What happened when we had kids
• How we started our journey to debt free living
• Why we sold our house
• The 3 small changes that made the biggest impact on our savings.

This episode is meant to inspire you to start your own debt free journey so you can live with less financial stress. You don't need to follow our steps exactly to be successful. In fact, everyone's story will look much different than ours. But if you make the commitment to start now you'll be on your way to debt free living. Small changes will create a big impact and a year from now you'll be so glad you started today.

This post contains affiliate links. if you purchase something through one of my links, I may receive a small commission.

Links From This Episode:

• How To Set A Budget, Stick To It, And Avoid Common Mistakes
• The Simple Home Decluttering Challenge
• Post: 44 Easy Ways To Save
• How To Get Started With Decluttering
• Easy Ways To Save Money Every Month
• How To Change Your Mindset About Money And Your Spending Habits
• Latte Factor By David Bach

Creating a capsule wardrobe

Clothes can add an unnecessary stress to your life. They take up a lot of your time, a lot of your space, and a lot of your money. Your wardrobe plays a big part in your life. Maybe a larger part than you realize. Learning how to minimize your wardrobe, create a capsule wardrobe, and simplify your closet can save you time, money, and energy.

There are a lot of reasons we buy clothes and why we hold onto them. In this episode we dive deep into several of these reasons so you can start making mindset shifts around buying clothes and understand why you keep the clothes you have. 

Once you understand this, we will talk about what clothes you need and want in your closet right now. We'll go through questions you can ask yourself to find your perfect wardrobe. 

By the end of this episode of the Simple Home Podcast, you'll know how to shift your mindset around clothes, how to minimize your wardrobe, and how to create a capsule wardrobe that's perfect for you and your life right now. 

Links

Declutter challenge
How To Get Started With Decluttering

Getting healthy meals on the table is hard enough.

But getting your children to actually eat it is even tougher. Some nights it feels impossible. I’ve had my share of frustration around how to feed my picky eater. 

• There’s been nights when my kids didn’t eat anything, 
• nights when we battled over every bite, 
• tears and outbursts (from adults and kids!). 

Over the past few years I’ve learned to let go of the struggle and found simpler ways to feed my family and instill good eating habits in my kids. Much was learned through trial and error, but I owe much of my mealtime sanity to a few experts I’ve learned from. In everything with parenting, I’m constantly learning. And I hope you are too. It’s okay to seek out answers for what you don’t already know. 

In today’s episode of The Simple Home Podcast, I share applicable tips from a few of my favorite experts on the topic of feeding your picky eater. 

I talk about everything from 

• setting the right foundation to 
• developing healthy habits to 
• setting up your kitchen for success. 

If you’ve ever felt that mealtimes are a struggle and you dream of family mealtimes with less fuss and more laughs than this episode is for you. Know that you aren’t the only mom who gets reluctance when you feed your kids anything other than mac and cheese. 

But it’s possible to change the way your family eats together and the eating preferences your child has established. 

Links From This Episode

• Simple Families- Denaye Barahona PhD- expert on developing good eating habits from the early years. Author of Simple, Happy, Parenting
• Ellyn Sattar Institute- The Division of Responsibility
• The Faux Martha- The Minimalist Kitchen
• Dr. Dina Rose- It’s Not About Nutrition and It’s Not About The Broccoli

Do you ever feel like motherhood is just one big ground hog day experience? There are so many tasks you have to complete day in and day out, sometimes multiple times, just to keep the house running and the kids (and husband) alive. 

In order to thrive in motherhood, rather than feel buried or burdened by it, you need to set up morning routines, night routines, and daily resets.

Starting your day off right and keeping the flow running smoothly is only possible if you have routines and rhythms in place to help you manage all the to-dos.

Imagine if you woke up to a clean kitchen, had space to breathe, and went to sleep feeling recharged for the next day. It wouldn't be realistic to promise you a perfect day everyday, (especially if you have little running around), but I can promise that having routines in place will simplify your life and lighten your load. 

This week on the Simple Home Podcast I teach you:

• what a daily reset is, 
• how to set them up to make your day run smoother, 
• and how you can use them to keep your house feeling tiny and clean. 

We also talk about starting and ending your days with simple routines so you feel ready and relaxed. 

• I'll tell you what I do during these times 
• and what I recommend as you develop your own routines. 

This post contains affiliate links. If you purchase something through one of my links I might receive a small commission.

Links from this episode

• The Uncluttered Course by Joshua Becker
• Miracle Morning by Hal Elrod- Make sure to check out the special copy for parents and kids as well!
• Episode 19- Living Clutter Free with Kids, an Interview with Joshua Becker
• Manual Mode Made Simple- free course to help you learn to use your camera settings and start taking better pictures of your kids
• Episode 4- how to get started with decluttering
• The Simple Home Decluttering Challenge

Find this episode of The Simple Home Podcast and others you’ll love on your favorite podcast player, iTunes, Google Play, Spotify, and TuneIn! Remember to subscribe on your favorite podcast player so you don’t miss an episode.

If you've ever felt like living clutter free with kids is impossible, this episode of The Simple Home Podcast is for you. 

Minimalism with a family is possible and as we learn during this interview with Joshua Becker, it may even make the other parts of parenting a bit more enjoyable. 

Being a minimalist isn't about owning a certain amount of items or living in a perfectly clean house. 

Minimalism is about owning the possessions that bring you life and getting rid of the excess. It's about letting go of the things on your schedule that don't fulfill you. Decluttering and living simpler with your family allows you to make room for what matters most. 

In this episode of the simple home podcast, I interview Joshua Becker from becoming minimalist. He and his wife have been on this journey with their two kids for several years and his advice is invaluable. I left this conversation ready to continue simplifying and feeling more at peace with where I am right now. 

For me, letting go of the excess stuff in our lives has opened up a new level of calm. 

I'm not a perfect mom, 

• I still get frustrated and have days when being a mom feels REALLY hard. 
• My house is still messy most of the time. 
• I still end up bringing extra items into my house I wish I wouldn't have. 
• I still feel guilty when I say no to my kids about a toy they think they can't live without. 

This has been my favorite podcast episode yet. You don't want to miss it!

What we talk about in this episode

• Joshua tells us how he got started with minimalism. His story really hit home with me and I think it will you too.
• Why minimalism might be even more important for families than anyone else.
• How you can handle the ‘envy’ your kids may experience when they see all the things other kids have. And how to say no without feeling bad about it.
• Joshua’s best advice for moms looking for a simpler life. The one thing he tells us to do will literally change the way you start everyday.
• So many nuggets of wisdom I can't list them all here!

Links for this episode

• Becoming Minimalist
• The Uncluttered Course
• The Declutter Challenge
• Clutter Free With Kids
• The Minimalist Home
• The More of Less
• Simplify

Find this episode of The Simple Home Podcast and others you’ll love on your favorite podcast player, iTunes, Google Play, Spotify, and TuneIn! Remember to subscribe on your favorite podcast player so you don’t miss an episode.

Where did the phrase, "sleep like a baby” come from? 

I'm not sure I've ever met a parent who looked or felt well rested. 

It can feel exhausting to try and figure out how to get your child to sleep better so you can get the sleep you need too.

Baby's don't just come out of the womb sleeping on our schedule and they seem to grow and change so rapidly it's hard to get a good rhythm and routine for family sleep. 

Just like all parenting topics, theres so much information out there about child sleep needs, it can be overwhelming to figure out what works best for your child at each stage. That's why I invited Lindsey from Sleep Little Lamb on the Simple Home Podcast podcast this week. 

Lindsey's a professional sleep consultant and has so much wisdom for parents at every stage, from prenatal to preschool, on how to get your child to sleep better. 

I have three kids, 7, 5, and 3, and I thought I was past needing advice from a sleep consultant. But I've got to tell you, Lindsey has nuggets of wisdom for all of us. In this episode she gives us practical advice that we can put into practice today and see results. 

I'm a huge advocate for getting good sleep (although I have to be honest, I struggle to make sure I do much of the time). 

Adequate sleep is just as important for us as it is for our children and getting your child to sleep well will allow for you to get the rest that you need as well. When you don't have enough sleep your fuse is shorter, just like that of a toddler running on little sleep and we all know what kind of behavior erupts when we're in this cycle. 

If you've ever felt frustrated with your child's sleep patterns or just completely exhausted, wishing you could get your family on a better sleep schedule, you've got to listen to this episode. Make sure to also check out Sleep Little Lamb where you can get lots of resources for every stage of your child's sleep and find out how Lindsey might be able to help you.

Key Takeaways

• Practical tips for each sleeping stage
• How to know when your child is ready for a new schedule.
• What to do if you have more than one child who’s struggling to sleep well.
• How to know when it's time to go from two naps to one or one nap to no naps.
• What a sleep consultant can do for you and your family.

Links from this episode

• Sleep little lamb
• How To Train Yourself To Get A Good Night Sleep
• "Document Your Life- Take Photos You Love Of The People You Love"- Ebook