#107 - Fall, the new New Years? (+ should we buy a camper?)

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Fall, the new New Years?  (and should we buy a camper?!) [One Delightful Podcast #107]

Welcome to the One Delightful Podcast where we are on a journey to simplify life to create space for what matters.  And trust us, if we can do it - anyone can!

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On this week's show, we check in with what's the word (including an adoption update), talk about how it went prioritizing our priorities, have a lively discussion about whether we should buy a camper to renovate, and end with what do you recommend.

Do you really put your priorities into practice?  That's a question we've been asking ourselves a lot lately.  Especially with a new fall beginning.  Fall - a fresh start ... sort of like New' Years. And a new year means lots of goal setting,  but to make real change, we think you've got to make a couple of little changes that you can actually keep throughout the year vs. a Copernican habit revolution.

We took some time to work through our 'How to prioritize your priorities' worksheet (link in the blog post), + even though it took us two and a half weeks to make time for the conversation to happen, it ended up being a really encouraging and helpful conversation.

Here's what we did:

- We brainstormed our priorities in life and then selected three that we wanted to focus on this year.  We just picked three that we felt like we really needed to work on knowing that if we tried to do everything, we'd probably accomplish nothing.  Our three?  Personal Health, Family, + Simplicity.

Next, EACH OF THESE PRIORTIES needs to an action piece - a SMALL goal - to make it part of your REAL LIFE. + each goal needed to be something that went in our calendar.  If it doesn't go in the schedule, it probably won't happen by chance.

So for us:

Personal health: We're going to continue the 'cheat day' diet eating paleo (+wine) and each going to the Y to do a high intensity work out 2x per week.

Simplicity: To continue our progress toward a decluttered life, we're going to declutter 1 small (or large) space in our house 1x per week on Sat. mornings when we are in town.

Family: We have a goal of having no tech on from 330-5pm + 7-9pm ever day and no tech at all on Sundays.  We have a weird schedule where we work hard from early morning to afternoon, have a break, and then have some evening commitments so this is what works for us.

The combo of tech + family reminded us of the idea of a 'Keystone Habit' that Charles Duhigg talks about in his great book, 'The Power of Habit'.  The basic ideas is that there are some habits, that when put into practice, have a cascading effect of other positive changes in your life.  They are powerful habits that affect lots of other things in your life.  If I wake up early in the morning, I am more likely to work out, eat a healthy breakfast, take time for reflection/time with God, and get to work early.  That one, small habit has a positive, cascading effect that helps to implement lots of other positive habits.

We think that no tech in our lives for these small periods throughout the week might be a Keystone Habit.  If I don't get on my phone/email at 3:30, I will probably be more likely to engage with my kids.  If we don't get on tech from 7-9, we'll probably take time to connect with each other that a lot of time gets punted for mindless screen activity.  That's our hypothesis anyway ... we'll see.

We'll keep you updated about how keeping these small goals goes this fall - if we keep them 75% we think that we'll have a good shot of clearing through the clutter of fall to create space for what matters!

How about you - what are your priorities for the fall?  What are some small goals you can set to get you a little further toward getting yourself and your family to the place you want them to be? We'd love to hear from you!