Slow down, unplug, and make time and space for silence.

Welcome to the fourth week on practicing simplicity. Before shifting our focus from internal simplicity to external simplicity, we're going to clear some emotional clutter by slowing down, unplugging, and making time and space for silence. As we move into external simplicity, you will need mental and emotional clarity and some time in your schedule to declutter, minimize, and let go of external distractions. Remember, the discipline of simplicity is an inward reality that results in an outward lifestyle.

We're all busy, yet we have the same 24 hours in a day. Many of us have very similar responsibilities, sleep, work, eat, clean, pay bills, etc. Parents typically have less free time, which means they have to be extra careful with their time commitments. However, just because you don't have kids doesn't mean you're off the hook; you are also in danger of wasting your precious time.

A lot of self-care is reactive; we don't have it built into our schedules. We almost rely on a breaking point before we "take a break" and tend to our emotional clutter. Our emotions are tied to our time commitments. When our external lifestyle doesn't line up with internal values, we experience dissonance and discontent.

So how can we fix this? What practices can aid in our journey of simplicity? The answer is unplugging, and making time and space for silence, all three help a ton.

Our homework and practice for this week has three parts.

Part one: unplug from social media, news, and tv, use this time for silence

Part two: schedule one hour sometime next week and 15 minutes a day for next week to simplify

Part three: keep a record of your daily activities; at the end of the week, rank them.

1= Essential

2= Important but not essential

3= Helpful but not necessary

4= Trivial

"Next, we must ruthlessly eliminate all of the last two categories and 20 percent of the first two. We are too busy only because we want to be too busy. We could cut out a great deal of our activity and not seriously affect our productivity." - Richard Foster

For additional study and resources check out:

Freedom of Simplicity by Richard Foster

Bridgetown’s series on Simplicity

The More of Less by Joshua Becker

Enough by Adam Hamilton

The Minimalist Home by Joshua Becker

Soulful Simplicity by Courtney Carver

Essentialism by Greg Mckeown

Trail Life by Ray Jardine

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