All Genius is Simple

I've been wondering for months now how some women do this - take care of their kids (usually 3 or more!), homeschool, keep their homes clean and organized, stay in shape (find time to exercise), cook fresh meals for the whole family... let alone manage their own small business, write books, blog and do a bunch of other creative and crazy stuff. As far as I'm concerned, it takes a superwoman moving at super-speeds to do all that. Well, not really. Turns out, I'm not the only one struggling with staying on top of things. Every mom faces these challenges and the way out is not becoming a superwoman. It's much simpler than that. 

A while ago a friend on Facebook shared a link to an post from SimpleMom blog which I found very interesting. That was how I discovered Simple Living Media blogs. These are a great resource with posts on most of the things that are important and interesting to me as a stay at home mom. I was very excited to find that there are so many moms out there that hold to same standards as myself. All those authors seemed like a bunch of wonder-women to me. That was until I began listening to the podcast of the interviews with the ladies that make these wonderful blogs happen. They all talked about their struggles, regular lives. All of them do what they do step by step, one thing at a time. They get support from their spouses, and help with home and kids when they must focus on work. In other words, far from the superwoman that I imagined it took.

I was encouraged and inspired. It got me thinking. Maybe I don't have to do so many things in one day? What if I stop over-scheduling my days and just go with the flow sometimes? 

After all, looking back into the history of humanity, many smart people lived according to the principle 'less is more'. Leonardo da Vinci always said that simplicity is the highest form of sophistication. Maybe he was up to something there. He was a very smart man. 

With that in mind I decided to change my attitude about planning my days allowing myself more room to go with the flow. That is not to say that there should be no planning! It's a must for busy moms. I just mean a lighter load of things that absolutely must be done. Instead of doing all laundry in one day plus cleaning the house plus cooking on top of watching a wiggly ten-month-old I just plan for cooking some food, enough for the next day so then I can focus on cleaning the house. Then the next day is a load of laundry and grocery shopping, the next day some more cooking, and so on. This way I still get to play with my daughter and enjoy her. And in the evening when she's in bed I get to crochet or to blog or to read.

Well, that sounds like a good plan. I will have to write a follow up post on how this works for me.