Project: Simplify Week 1

It’s no secret that I am busy. I feel like I say that with every post, but it’s true! Life seems to be racing by at blistering speeds and I am just trying to keep up. It can leave me in a bit of a panic sometimes. I really hate that feeling. The past few weeks have been more stressful than normal with traveling and such. I am really trying to go into each week with a better frame of mind. Rather than face the week with panic, I’m going to go in with a plan and a mindset of peace. One of my biggest mental hurdles is feeling constantly surrounded by chaos and clutter. I realize if I have things around the house organized I am less likely to feel stressed an panicked. Also, the sheer amount of “stuff” that we have accumulated over the last 4 years is unreal. and unnecessary. I’m sure you have somethings around the house that you could stand to part with, right? Well I figure we should take this journey together!

Project: Simplify is going to be an ongoing feature here on Journey of a Dreamer. I hope you’ll join in and find ways to simplify your life and hopefully make it less stressful. I spent a lot of time on Pinterest looking for inspiration (Do you follow me on Pinterest?) After a lot of searching I decided to start in the kitchen, since it really is the heart of my home. I spend a lot of time there! I have a really spacious kitchen but have not been utilizing the space effectively. The most frustrating thing is the amount of supplements we have… they took over a whole shelf on our pantry and still end up on the island. We also had a whole medicine cabinet, but somehow bottles of supplements ended up all over the counter. So I set out to get rid of the ones we don’t use and organize the ones that we do use so they are easier to access without crowding up my counter.

Tada! I realize I didn’t get the counter in my “after” shot – but there is NOTHING on it but the toaster. And I love it. So, here’s what I did (it was SO easy)

1. Pull everything out of the cabinet.  Yes- it is a pain… but it is a good way to sort through things you don’t want/need anymore.
2. Buy some baskets and/or a lazy susan. I think the lazy susan was like $5 at target. The baskets from target as well, only like $2 a piece or something.
3. Organize! I put what we use regularly on the lazy susan and bottom shelf for easy access. The middle shelf has a basket filled with other random supplements that we have but don’t use regularly. The top shelf has all our medicine like allergy pills, cough syrup, etc.

It took me maybe 15 minutes to from the time I pulled everything out to being totally done. Small effort, big results. I love it! Makes life so much simpler.

Want to join me on Project: Simplify?
Any Ideas on what we should tackle next?