It’s easy now to stay connected to work on your vacation. More and more people work when they are on vacation. It’s the anxiety, that if they don’t check in they will be overwhelmed by the time they get home. Or they will miss something.

What would it take for you to take a vacation and leave work at work?

It’s great to have a list of current projects and where you are at with them. Any documents or any other person that knows about the documents can be out so you don’t have to be called.

Let key people know you are going to be on vacation ahead of time so you can do imperative things before you leave. And keep reminding them you will be gone.

Ask your boss what is most important for you to get done before you leave for vacation.

In your email vacation autoresponder share who else they can email while you are gone. Set that person up before you leave.

Make sure work knows to call you only in an emergency. Don’t give your cell phone to everyone.

Have a list of what you need to do when you get back that you make before your vacation.

If you can, leave the laptop at home. If you aren’t there yet with your electronic addiction, set 15 minutes in the evening to check your email. Don’t play with it on and off during the day. That makes it difficult to relax. Same with your phone. Return calls only at a certain time in the day.

Then relax and have fun in your vacation!

Welcome to this week’s issue of Weekly Simplicity Tips.

Just got back from a beautiful motorcyle ride – it finally cooled down here in Michigan. I walked the beach earlier on cool sand.

I’m doing a free call on Simple and Fun Self-Care Wed, July 24th. You can sign up here.

Also, Midway Simplicity has a new workbook for a 30 minute life purpose method. Since I was away on vacation, he gave me a special coupon that expires this Tuesday at midnight. Use the coupon code: 20OFFBETH at the P.A.S. Technique 2.0.

1. Are you clear on what you want and expect? Or do you need to spend time thinking about it?
2. What three challenges are you dealing with?
3. Write down at least one way to make each challenge simpler and/or easier.
4. Reflect on what you learned and experienced this past week.
5. When you are thinking about solutions to problems in your life, try using a different part of yourself. What does your intution, creative side, devil’s advocate, or logical side say about it?
6. 2 simple snacks: Avacado on toast with lime juice and apples with peanut butter plus trail mix stuck on the peanut butter.
7. Relax to some soothing harp music. (I heard Anne play in person and it was lovely.)

Habits and Rhythms 4-week class

Starts Monday August 5

I asked my readers what class they would like and they said one that combines what they’ve learned in the time, finance, declutter and self-care classes to help create habits and rhythms.

It’s time to put it all together.

Even if you haven’t taken the other classes, this will be a great class to create those habits you have wanted to create.

Format: Weekly chat sessions at 8pm ET Mondays (transcript is sent if you can’t attend)

Then we can check in as much as you would like for accountability in the private facebook group. This will be where you really make the changes. If you have been wanting to make habits stick, but they don’t seem to stick on your own, the support may be what you need.

As this is a pilot program (I don’t even have a graphic yet for it 🙂 the class will only be $17. So if you have been wanting to try one of my classes this is a great one to start with.

Buy Now

Every Sunday evening I hop on my computer with music going and a drink of water to do my weekly planning.

For me, weekly planning isn’t about planning to get all your to do’s done. Instead weekly planning is to make conscious decisions about your time and life. Rather than just do the to dos that life throws you, you are deciding what is important for you.

I like to get quiet before my weekly planning. I pray, but you can center yourself however you choose. The pausing gets you out of flight or fight mode where many live most of the time.

Once I am calm,  I think of my top 3 things that are most important to do or think about this week – usually gleaned from monthly planning and what my accountability partner Marcia and I talked about at our Thursday Skype chat. These I schedule into my Google calendar so I make time for them.

While I am in the calendar I look over the week to see if there is anything I need to prepare. Then I peek at the next few weeks as well.

Health is important to me so I write out my exercise schedule. Last week it was:

Sunday – swim at the beach
Monday – weights and yoga
Tuesday – walk with a friend
Wednesday – Zumba DVD
Thursday – off
Friday – weights and yoga
Saturday – Groove dance class

Then I plan my menu if I didn’t do a monthly plan. I include snacks which tends to be my downfall in healthy eating.

People are important to me as well so I plan time with my family and a friend or two. (An extrovert might need more social time.) Or I plan if I am invited to an event. Do I need a present? What will I wear? How do I get there?

And finally to keep myself wanting to get out of bed in the morning I make sure I have at least one thing to look forward to every day (some are from earlier planning).

Sunday – church, take pictures of the sunset at the beach
Monday – out to eat with my husband
Tuesday – morning walk with a friend, evening reading time
Wednesday – play the piano
Thursday – see the Street Performers or concert in the park with a friend
Friday – play with my visual journal
Saturday – farmer’s market with my daughter

If I am not having any fun or not taking care of myself or neglecting my relationships, it’s because I am not planning. What will your week be like?

Simplifying without knowing your purpose and passions, means you may be simplifying the wrong things. You don’t want to streamline all your meals if one of your loves is cooking. A short gym workout may not be as enjoyable as a long hike if you are a nature lover.

Most of the purpose finding processes are long, so when Mohamed of Midway Simplicity sent me his 30 minute P.A.S. 2.0 method I was excited. (And a little leery. 30 minutes, really?)

But he does a great job, as usual, of distilling the best of ‘how to find your purpose’ into a simple, simple process.

I am interested in many different things and his process made it easy to find the few most important to me. And he helped me find my advantage – how I can be of most use.

If you are looking for your next step or what you want to be when you grow up, Mohamed’s P.A.S. method is a fast way to get on your right path.

(Click to read more about the workbook)

How you see the world affects how much you are able to simplify. We also see things with certain filters on, thinking we are seeing truth.

If you see the world has you will never have enough and full of scarcity, you may claw, overwork or manipulate people to get your fair share.

If you see yourself as never enough, you will always need to do more to make you feel worthy.

If you see your family as unsupportive and never willing to help you, your brain will give you plenty of reasons why that point of view is valid. But, if you decide that you are supported, you can see the different ways you are supported.

Our mind automatically goes to what is wrong. A very important survival tool. To decide to look at things from a different way take conscious choosing. You have to deliberately focus on a different, more positive point of view.

In order to change your life, you are going to have to change how you see your life and the people in it.

***

Picture by Ebelien

I went on a retreat last weekend and it was so renewing. I meditated, wrote, prayed, read & wandered in nature. I hadn’t even realized how much in productive mode I have been until I stopped.

A retreat is renewing self care, whether at home or away. Too often we get in the cycle of working too hard then flopping into some passive entertainment like our phones, TV or internet.  Then instead of renewed we feel like we lost time and are still jangly.

Real renewal helps you feel calmly energized. And this can be different for everyone.

What renews you? Can you do that this weekend?

—–

If you want to retreat, but don’t know how, I have a retreat kit with ideas from many years of retreating.

Welcome to this week’s issue of Weekly Simplicity Tips.

This week Brea and I went strawberry picking. Michigan strawberries right after they’ve been picked are the best. (Of course, they are all I’ve ever picked so I may be biased.)

A reminder for you:

Another reminder – the Simple Self Care class starts this evening. If you are feeling tired, run-down and want more energy & to get your sparkle back without a lot of time committment, this is for you.

This is the start of the last half of the year. How are your goals coming? If you want a jump start, check out this report and video:

100 Day Challenge free report and video series

1. Put in your schedule I time to be on retreat. I was so renewed from my past weekend.
2. How can you make your work life more fulfillng?
3. So something kind for yourself today.
4. Your past is not wasted, everything can be used to help build you.
5. “Beware the barrenness of a busy life.” ~Socrates
6. If your to do list is not being used lately, try turning it into a game with points.
7. Organize your materials and how you will do the work before you start.

Simple Self-Care Class

Starts June 24th

Lives get chaotic, when they don’t get maintained. For each person, thing, body, activity you have in your life it needs to be maintained.

I like to start my day with a daily quiet time to maintain my spiritual life and center.

I usually have a morning smoothie for a burst of health right away. Before I drink my smoothie, I wash the blender because I know how hard it is to clean if it’s not washed immediately.

I get dressed from clothes I have laid out the night before. A load of laundry goes in most mornings so I don’t have to spend all day on laundry.

To maintain my body with exercise, I have a standing walking appointment with a friend, take a class or two a week depending on the time of year and make sure I have DVDs for when I don’t want to leave the house. At the beginning of the week I write down my proposed exercise plan, but allow myself to change depending on what my body is saying.  I slacked off this wet and gloomy spring, so now I check in with some friends online to keep me accountable.

When I come home, I get everything out of the car and put it all away. Keys and purse get put away in their spots otherwise I have to search for them because I threw them someplace.

If I menu plan, I already know what is for dinner and can cook when my husband gets home from work. If not, we end up having pizza or sandwiches too often.

My daughter needs new pants so we go to the store. When we get home, the tags are cut off and the clothes are brought to the basement. Then pants that no longer fit get put in a goodwill bag.

My husband makes sure he does maintenance on the cars before something major goes wrong. And does the yard work weekly to keep things looking nice.

All this takes less time than getting sick, locating things before work, or repairing a car whose oil didn’t get changed. If you are finding you don’t have time to maintain what you have, it may be time to let go of some things or projects or activities. Or maybe, you can add in some helpful habits to make things easier to maintain like the ones above.

I know my life goes smoother when I remember the maintenance. Yours can, too.