Home Should Be Your Sanctuary

My Mom has always said the phrase "home should be your sanctuary" which I took to mean "clean up your mess". She's an incredibly smart person and it took most of my young adulthood to figure out exactly how spot-on this phrase is…

The more complex work became the more time and energy it stole from Family & Friends and personal hobbies / projects outside of work. Over time the changes are subtle and often go unnoticed but slowly they crept into places that should have been better protected. How many times has a late night at the office resulted in missing dinner with family or friends? How many times has putting in extra effort during the day made you too tired on the evenings and weekends to pursue a hobby or other personal interest?

Work is by no means the enemy, in fact it's the most important part to keeping life sustainable. Ultimately you're the only one who can decide where to spend your time and energy…

For many years my home was a place of stress and frustration with how cluttered it had become. After a long day / week at work the time and effort to make things more livable would have exhausted the little energy that remained. This only fueled the frustration even further until the tipping point we decided to start getting rid of as much as possible.

There are tons of goals and rules for when to get rid of something, and this is the one I'm using:

If you haven't touched it, you don't need it…

Clutter accumulates not only in your home but in work, with family, and with the hobbies and personal interests you pursue. Take a quick snapshot of the half-finished projects sitting around and be honest of when they will actually get done. If it takes more than 10 seconds to come up with an answer that project will never get completed. At a certain point the motivation and excitement to take on a new project evolve into a burden as procrastination takes over.

When you feel overrun with clutter one of the most liberating feelings is to start getting rid of as much as possible. We've started on this journey and can honestly say of all the tech gadgets, clothes, and non-essentiallys that have been sold or given away there isn't a single thing we've regretted.

For the first time possibly ever as an adult, home is starting to feel like a sanctuary ;)

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Topher