BTS Week 12: Finals

Donna Joy

We did it!!!!

For the last 12 weeks, we’ve worked our way through our homes and spaces with the goal of heading into the holiday season with more calm, noticing what works, subtracting what doesn’t, and adding tiny habits that make our lives feel gentler. No perfect-home goals here. Just small steps toward calmer spaces and truer reflections of who we are.

As we move into a season that can feel loud and fast, I hope you are heading into it with a little more space to breathe.

So…how are you doing?

I’ll go first: I was doing okay. I was doing the things. Not all the things, not all the time. But I was doing the things.  And then I decided to add one more thing.

Then another.

Then another. 

and before I knew it I had like 57 big giant things on my calendar over the next month. Why do I do this???

It’s easy to feel like a failure and let things slip. But last night I had a bit of a revelation.

Yesterday I saw a contractor my husband had scheduled arrive on our security camera and felt a spike of panic. I didn’t know they were coming. I hadn’t “gotten the house ready.”

Then I realized: the house was fine.

They could walk in and get to what they needed. Yes, a few things had to be moved where they were working, but there was space to move them. There wasn’t an avalanche of shoes at the front door. 

Even in this very busy season, I can feel the difference. I may be exhausted heading to bed, but my clothes are (usually) set out and tomorrow’s coffee is pre-measured. Less last-minute scramble. Less searching. 

Over the last three months we’ve tackled making our beds, setting out our clothes, simplifying mornings, doing the dishes, streamlining pantries, smoothing our entrances and exits, and making space for creativity.

We’re ready for finals.

The Final Exam

For our final exam, we have two images to compare/contrast and two questions to think about. That’s it. Oh, and it’s an open book exam – feel free to look back at any of our notes from this past semester. 

Image One:

(Where’s Waldo crowd scene)

Remember these books? “Where’s Waldo” has entertained thousands simply by hiding one striped character in a chaos of distractions.

Before you get too distracted trying to find Waldo, let’s move on to image two:

Image Two:

(Social distancing Waldo cartoon by Clay Bennett for the Chattanooga Times Free Press)

Now for our questions:
Which Waldo was easier to find?
What made it easier?

Here’s what I’m learning:

So often in life we create that first, harder version for ourselves, because we think the solution to not being able to find something is to add more. We want to find “Waldo” but end up burying him in a crowd.

Some examples that may or may not be personal testimonies:

  • I can’t find matching socks. So I buy a dozen more pairs of socks so I never lose a matched pair of socks again. Then the next time I need a pair of socks, I have to dig through a sock drawer version of “Where’s Waldo” looking for what I want.
  • My kids can’t find a snack they like in the pantry. So I buy 3 kinds of bars, 4 boxes of fruit strips and a Costco variety box of snacks. Now my kids have to swim through a life size Where’s Waldo page to find anything and the fruit expires before they can eat it all.
  • “I want more rest, more creativity, more joy.” So I buy the latest gadgets, tools, and systems promising to make my life easier. Instead, they add to the sea of tiny red-and-white imposters crowding out Waldo.

Adding more didn’t help me find anything. It just made more places to lose stuff.

The key to finding Waldo was never in just adding more.

It’s in less.

Like the socially distanced cartoon of Waldo above, when we simplify and remove the excess, what we are looking for is so much easier to find. 

Rest and creativity aren’t found by piling on more.

They show up when we remove the distractions and create space for them.  

That’s what these last twelve weeks together have been about: bedrooms and pantries, doorways and nightly resets, minimizing and giving tiny gifts to your future self:

Simplify, subtract, create space…and what matters slowly becomes easier to find.

Peace, calm, and joy don’t arrive because we do or buy more.
They show up when we make room.

This is the work  –  and the gift we’ve been giving ourselves for twelve weeks.

Let’s keep going.

BTS Week 11 Creativity (minus clutter)

Donna Joy

As the days get shorter and the dark gets deeper, it’s all the more important to care for our bodies, our minds, and our souls, and one of the most powerful ways we care for our souls is to create.

Creating gives us space to process our world and ourselves.

“Practice any art, music, singing, dancing, acting, drawing, painting, sculpting, poetry, fiction, essays, reportage, no matter how well or badly, not to get money and fame, but to experience becoming, to find out what’s inside you, to make your soul grow.”

— Kurt Vonnegut

Creating reminds us of meaning, assigns meaning and helps us express meaning.

Creating leaves space for the unsolved, the wonder, the mystery.

This week we are creating space for creativity.

Take a moment and think about what you create. 

Don’t think you are creative?

There are countless ways we create.

Some are more obvious, creating items we can see and touch.: Painters, sculptors, paper artists, repurposers, woodworkers.

Some people create experiences that exist for a moment (or sometimes captured for longer): Singers, dancers, musicians, speakers.

And there are hundreds of other ways we create:

Creating a meal for ourselves/our families

Creating a safe space for conversations with a friend

Creating solutions for problems

Each of those creations need space – mentally, emotionally, and often spatially –  for creation to take place.

This week we are creating room for our art.

This will look a little different for everyone.

Perhaps creating space looks like adding an “create” block to your calendar and telling yourself and others, “I am booked from 9-11 on Saturday.”

Or maybe it means gathering your supplies in one place. You may not have a designated writing desk or craft table, but could you collect your essentials in one basket/drawer/tote?

To make space to create (like most things in life), we need to make choices. We have to acknowledge we can’t do everything at once.

I LOVE making crocheted pumpkins in fall. I keep a basket of yarn, needles, and stuffing by the couch so I can have everything I need to make  pumpkins from start to finish as I sit and stare out the window.

I’m planning a gallery show in a few weeks, showcasing some of my repurposed and upcycled art. In order to prepare for that show, I had to take some time this week to say goodbye to pumpkin season. My tools, stuffing, yarn, etc got packed back up into their suitcase in the basement, contained and tucked away for next season. Now the basket by the couch can be reassigned for my repurposed art in progress. As I switched out my projects for the season, I also came across a few supplies for a project I would LOVE to learn or or get better at. But I know I do not have the capacity in this season, and so keeping them just means they whisper to me every time I walk by them, like a non-stop audible to-do list; and they make it harder for me to clear things out of the way to create the art I’m able to do in this season. 

As you think about your space to create, take a moment to acknowledge – We can’t do ALL the things. What is your creative focus in THIS season? Not “what did I have time for before I had this job/kids, etc”, not “what do I want to do when I ‘have a little more time?’”

What one thing can you make space to focus on now?

Let’s get creative with our weekly homework assignments:

101: Choose your one thing for this season of your life. Is it writing? Dancing? Stop motion videos of felted from and toad doing gentle homemaking tasks? (man, I miss seeing that Instagram account. Does it still exist?) 

Once you’ve chosen your “thing,” dedicate space for it:

  • A table near an outlet for your laptop and notebook.
  • A few hours on your calendar to focus on your craft.
  • A basket by the couch for wool and a felting needle to make your frog a tiny hat.

201: Each day, clear away something that doesn’t serve your current creative outlet:

  • An unfinished project that whispers shame every time you move it.
  • A pile of materials that belong to a past season.
  • An hour of doomscrolling that doesn’t actually calm your spirit.

Extra Credit Reflection:  When I look at things I’ve kept (unfinished projects, bins of materials, bookmarked ideas, calendar appointments)  What stories are they telling?
Are the supplies and ideas for who I am now? Or who I was? Or who I wish I were? What would it look like to honor the season I’m actually in, instead of waiting for a “better” one?
Can I release something that belongs to a different version of me, so the current me has room to breathe, process, and create?

Weekly "Homework" typed on notebook style paper

Week 10: Thresholds and Doorways – Part Two (Addition)

Donna Joy

Welcome to week 10, where we’re doing the hokey pokey, turning ourselves around, and heading back out the door.

Last week we talked about thresholds and the “doorway effect” – how walking through a doorway sends a signal to our brains to leave behind what’s on the other side. This often means forgetting why we walked into a room, buuuut, we can also use that effect to our advantage, letting go of the stress of the workday, the grocery store, or the commute and leaving it on the other side of the door.

When our entryways are piled with shoes, bags, and a box of cement (just me?), that transition can feel more like a continuation of traffic jam stress than a clean slate.

Last week’s focus was subtraction – clearing out a little clutter each day and noticing how people in your household move through the entryway space.

This week, we’re shifting to addition.

What do we take with us when we leave home?

Sometimes it’s stress – a frantic search for missing keys or that feeling of already being behind.
This week I want to take some small steps to make it something better: the calm of knowing where things are, small confidences of feeling prepared.

I love thinking of that prepared feeling as giving myself a little gift for the future.
When I put my keys in their designated home, it’s a tiny gift to future me.
And the next morning, I get to unwrap that gift – walking out the door just a little more calm, a little more ready.

I love that feeling.
And I want to take more of it with me as I step out each day.

This week: addition through intention

Let’s talk about what we can add this week to give ourselves that confident, prepared feeling as we leave our homes.

When I observed our entryway last week, I noticed that shoes are our main culprit. They’re almost always scattered around, in the way. Since the front door is literally in my dining room, it means that clutter is not just clogging up the entrance to our home,  it’s an uninvited guest at mealtimes and throughout the day, too. My instinct was to fix it immediately. But I know when I jump to solving as soon as I see a problem, it usually involves a “click, add to cart” solution. I want to slow down this week, and see what I can rearrange thoughtfully, with what we already have, instead of rushing to what Amazon tells me will solve all my problems.

Addition doesn’t have to mean more stuff.
It can mean adding thoughtfulness, intention, or a sense of peace to a space.

This week’s assignments:

101: Add one thing that will be a gift to you tomorrow.

  • Designate a spot to hang your keys and practice hanging them there every day.
  • Place a small token, like a photo, or post-it note near your door that reminds you to take a breath and embrace peace, presence, courage, or patience.
  • Maybe it’s simply adjusting something small so your space works better for you. Can you add a basket just for mail, with a recycling bin right below it, so as you bring the mail in the door you can immediately trash the junk? Or add the habit of walking over to an existing garbage/recycling bin with your mail as you walk in the door?

Whatever it is, let it be something that makes leaving your home, and arriving back, feel like a smoother, kinder threshold to cross.

201: Pick one thing to add to your daily routine to make your going out and coming home a little easier. Can you set something out the night before? Or create a small ritual for arrival, like turning on a lamp, lighting a candle, or putting on music?

Reflection:

Instead of getting down on ourselves for things undone, or clutter left out, what would it look like to give yourself gifts for the future? Getting my lunch ready to go the night before is one less thing off the mental to do list playing on repeat in my brain when I try to go to sleep, and having it ready to go each morning means I’m not just feeling more prepared, I’m also more likely to eat a little healthier than grabbing a bar on the way out the door. Which helps create an upward spiral through my day.

Consider this your invitation to do the hokey pokey – turn around, take a deep breath, and step into (or out of) your day with intention.

This week's assignment pad

Week 9: Thresholds & Doorways (Part 1: Subtraction)

Donna Joy

We are stepping into week 9 – literally!! This week we’re crossing thresholds and doorways, entering and exiting our homes.

If you’ve ever walked into a room and immediately forgotten why you went there, you’ve experienced what researchers call the doorway effect. Crossing a threshold sends a signal to our brains that we’re entering a new space, and it often causes us to “drop” what we were just thinking about.

In my day job, I often work with people who have memory deficits, and the doorway effect can be frustrating – compounding existing memory problems, but in our houses, the doorway effect can actually be a gift.

Every time we walk through the doorway to our home, we have a chance to reset. It’s a chance to decide what we leave behind and what we carry forward.

When you walk through your front door, what comes with you?
The mental list from work? The grocery store chaos? The stress of your commute?

An entryway cluttered with shoes, bags, mail, and everything piled in a tangle can continue the “traffic jam” feeling. We walk through the doorway and stay stuck in the outside mindset, instead of shifting into the calm of home.

What if your entryway became a true threshold?
A gentle cue to your brain and body: You’re here. You’re home. You can exhale now.

And just as importantly: what if your doorway also worked in the other direction?

What if, as you step out each morning, you carried with you something from home: a sense of peace, preparedness, or calm that travels with you through the day?

This week we’ll look at how we come in to our homes, and what we may need to subtract to find more space for calm as we enter our spaces. Next week we’ll consider how we can carry that peace with us as we leave.

Time for our homework assignments!: Choose what level(s) you’d like to try out and spend some time with it each day this week:

101: Simply Observe

Spend this week paying attention to how you (and others in your household) actually move through your entryway.

Ask yourself:

  • How do we transition into this space?
  • Is there a home for the things we consistently bring in? (think: shoes, bookbags, grocery bags, keys, sunglasses, etc)
  • What has a permanent, functional resting spot?
  • Are we using it consistently?

Our house is open concept. From the second you walk in the front door, you can see most of our main living space. We’ve created a few systems that do work for us:

  • A drawer to drop our keys, so we always know where they are.
  • A simple over-the-door hanging system I dubbed Lunchbox Lane, where our lunchbags go after they’re emptied.

And then there are the systems with good intentions but inconsistent follow-through, like the bin for mail that sometimes gets sorted, sometimes gets ignored, and sometimes just becomes a mountain of circulars and junk.

And finally, a few systems that might as well not exist. Like the shoe trays at the front door that, in theory, keep things tidy…but in reality look like someone dropped a box of shoes from the ceiling and walked away.

This week, notice where you and your family naturally move, drop, and pause when coming home.

102: Two-minute clutter rescue.

Set a timer for two minutes each day and clear what doesn’t belong.
No new storage systems, no full-blown coat closet overhaul, no complaints about anyone else’s stuff.

Just take out what you can control that doesn’t need to live in this space.
The goal is to work towards a small, daily exhale – a clear threshold to step into.

Reflection: What do you want to feel when you enter your home?

Pause for a moment as you walk through your door this week. What feeling greets you?
Do you want this space to feel lively and energizing? calm and resetting?

What’s standing in the way of that feeling?
And how can you use the doorway effect to your advantage? How can letting the act of stepping through your door become a mental cue to leave the outside world behind and enter into peace?

Let this week be about subtraction: noticing, removing, releasing.
Next week, we’ll explore the addition side of thresholds: how to add small cues and touches that help us transition with intention and bring more peace into and out of our homes.

This Week's assignment sheet

BTS Week 8: Pantry + Fridge Reset

Donna Joy

Welcome to Week 8! We’re staying in the kitchen for one more week and stepping into one of the most deceptively tricky spaces in the house –  the kitchen pantry and fridge.

At first glance, it’s just food storage. But for many of us, these spaces hold a whole lot more: good intentions, half-finished projects, and a few mysterious jars posing as petri dishes.

Sometimes we get tired of the dinner rut and decide it’s time to shake things up. So we dive into a new recipe, buy all the ingredients (and maybe a shiny new gadget or two), and pretend we’re a person who can create a 17 ingredient meal on a random Tuesday night.

And maybe we are. But then life happens.

We don’t want to be wasteful, so we save the leftovers and shove them in the fridge, pushing the other leftovers we meant to eat to the back of the fridge. The specialty mustard gets tucked behind the ketchup, and suddenly our gourmet meal supplies get repurposed into pieces for a game of fridge Tetris.

When our fridge or pantry gets too full, it has the opposite effect of what we were going for. The chaos makes it harder to see what we actually have, it’s way harder to get inspired, and so much easier to just order pizza.

So this week, we’re creating space. Not just for food, but for calm, clarity, and those small sparks of inspiration that come from being able to see what’s in front of us and have available the tools and ingredients that line up with our capacity in this season.

Here’s this week’s assignments:

101: Toss the expired food.

Start simple. Each time you open the fridge or pantry, check for something you can remove. Let go of anything past its prime (or long past). No guilt, just observations: Are there items you used to buy in bulk that nobody is eating much of anymore?

201: Do a mini pantry or fridge reset.

You know the drill, we are NOT emptying the entire contents of our kitchen onto the dining room table! Set a timer and group things you reach for most often where you can see them and grab them easily. Don’t overthink it. We’re not going for an Instagram photo shoot, it’s a “let’s make it less of a scavenger hunt” goal. And less of a “I bought flour today cause I thought I was running low on flour, but when I went to put it away I realized I had 3 bags of flour already” thing. (Just me?) 

As you group your items together, be realistic about what you can and like to use. Out with the “maybe I’ll use it someday” items, in with the space to see what you have.

Extra Credit Reflection: Enough for This Season

Just because you are an amazing baker, doesn’t mean you need a whole shelf of specialty flours, powdered meringue and every piping tip ever made right now. Maybe this isn’t your Baking Wars season. Maybe it’s your “three go-to dinners that don’t make me cry at 6 p.m.” season – and that’s fabulous.

Reflect for a few minutes on what kind of nourishment and rhythm your current life can hold:

  • What do we actually cook or eat in a typical week?
  • What ingredients or gadgets am I holding onto for a previous or someday version of me?
  • What would “enough” look like for this season?

Decluttering your pantry or fridge isn’t about waste – it’s about making room for what feeds you now.

You don’t have to be the person who bakes, preps, or cans to be a person who’s caring well for yourself and your people. 

In fact, clearing out often helps us be MORE creative and MORE budget friendly!

Let your kitchen reflect your real, current life, not your aspirational one. Creativity and nourishment grow best when there’s room to breathe (and when you can actually find the mustard).

weekly assignment printed on notebook paper.

BTS Week 7: Kitchen Counters

Donna Joy

We’re staying in the kitchen this week, shifting focus from the sink and dishes to our counters. We talked a couple weeks ago about the “Alice’s Restaurant” principle – how when there’s a mess somewhere, it just seems easier to add to the existing mess, rather than clean up the new mess and the old mess. And so the piles grow…

So today we’re going to take a fresh look at old stuff. I don’t know about you, but if something hangs out in a space for a while I tend to forget it’s there. My eyes roll right past it without registering. Until something jars me out of my blurry vision:

Like not noticing the pile of shoes by the front door until a guest walks into the house, or not noticing the amount of things on my counters until I try to wipe the counters down.

Take a moment and think about this scene with me:

Imagine someone handing you something to hold. You take it in one hand. Then they give you something more. You put it in your other hand. As they keep handing you items, your hands and arms get fuller and you’re jostling to hold it all together without letting something fall. It’s constantly moving and a little chaotic.

Now imagine someone taking all those items out of your hands. 

Imagine the relief. The exhale.

That’s what we’re going to work to give ourselves with this week’s task.

An exhale.

Each day we’re going to wipe down our counters. You don’t need to move every single thing on them, but let the daily wipe down help you notice any items you stopped registering when you looked around the space.

Maybe not everything on your counter has to stay there.

Maybe it can find a home elsewhere, or is just not even needed.

We’re not dumping everything on the floor, and creating a huge project. (sometimes I have to repeat this thought like a mantra as I clean!)

Just each day, as you wipe down your counters, notice what you’re annoyed by having to move out of the way.

This Week’s Steps

101: Do a daily counter wipe-down.
After meals or at the end of the day, wipe down however much of your counters you can reach without doing stuff-shifting gymnastics. Start with the counters right next to your sink, and add more each day if doing all your counters day one is a little overwhelming. Try blasting “Closing Time” and dance your way through a closing time routine for your kitchen.

201: Declutter one item a day from your counters.
Maybe there’s a gadget that seemed like a real time saver, but you lost interest after a while.  Maybe a piece of mail that’s easy to deal with (like “2 minutes or less” easy to deal with), or a décor item your eyes pass over whenever you look at this space that can find a new space in your home to be appreciated elsewhere, or is just ready to leave your house.  Each small subtraction makes tomorrow’s wipe-down easier.

Extra Credit (Reflection):

When we add things slowly, we don’t always notice they’re there. Like the proverbial frog in a pot, we simmer our spaces and our lives, juggling all the things and holding our breath in a frantic dance to try to manage it all.

We can reverse the process too. Slowly let go of an item at a time, letting the feeling come back into our limbs and breathing a little exhale. 

weekly assignments typed on a school notepaper background

BTS Week 6: Midterms!

Donna Joy

Today marks the halfway point of our Back To School Challenge!
And halfway through a semester means…

it’s time for Midterms!

No essays, scantrons, or Quizlet prep here –  just a little time to check in and see what’s working and what’s not.

Whether you’ve been steadily adding a new routine each week, just peeking at the posts every few weeks, or somewhere in between, this week is your chance to notice what’s working, what never stuck, and what you want to bring forward as we move into the second half of our challenge.

A quick reminder: small habits stack into big change – but they don’t always (don’t usually?) stick by themselves. Most habits need a reminder, a trigger, or a simpler version to get going and, more importantly, stay going..
This week, we’ll reflect and make one small plan to recapture a routine that matters to you.

Blue ink text on a notepaper background

This Week’s Steps

What’s working?
Below are our weekly assignments from the first five weeks.
What have you tried? What’s still going strong?
Is there a routine you never quite reached consistency with that you’d like to focus on this week?

  1. Pick one assignment to make your focus this week.
  2. Commit to doing it every day.
  3. Plan ahead a specific time to do it, and tie it to something you already do.

Instead of “I’ll do it sometime before bed,” try:

  • “I’ll do it while the coffee brews.”

or

  • “I’ll do it right after brushing my teeth.”

Attaching a new habit to something you already do makes it sticky and far more likely to last!

If you’ve been following through on each routine, take a few minutes to think about why it’s working.
Are you stacking the habits with something else?
Are you focused on following through on the commitments you’ve made to yourself?
What’s been working well and how can you use that insight to keep moving forward?

Reflections for Everyone

Take a few minutes this week to reflect and actually write down your answers.
It might help you see how your motivation works and where it doesn’t.

  • Which routines (if any) stuck? What felt motivating to keep those going?
  • Which routines (if any) fell away? What got in the way?
  • What single tiny change could make a routine easier to keep this week?
    (a smaller step, a different cue, different timing?)

One essential thought before you dive in:

I have never met a person who is legitimately motivated by shame.

As you reflect on your “whys” and “why nots”, it can be easy to shame spiral into:

“Because I’m lazy.”
“Because I’m a sloppy person.”

There is no room for that kind of talk here, beautiful human!

We all move through seasons where we’re capable of different things – sometimes day by day or even hour by hour.
Different things pull on our attention, our energy, and our time. We have different capacity in different seasons of life.

The routines we talk about here are designed to ease you toward a calmer life, but they do take investment, and sometimes, we just don’t have the capital to invest in new habits.

Let this reflection time encourage you to notice where you’re showing up  and where you might need a little grace for yourself.

You got this!!! (And I got you.) 💛

Homework Assignment
Homework Assignments for Week One: Homeroom
This week's homework assignments
This week’s homework assignments.
Weekly assignments typed on lined school paper
Week 4 Homework Assignments
This week's homework assignments typed on a loose leaf page background.
Week 5 Assignment Page

BTS Week 5: Kitchen

Donna Joy

Welcome to Week 5!

A little note as we move past the bedroom and bathroom and take a few steps into the kitchen this week: Each week we’re committing to a small routine to make our days a little smoother, our homes a little more welcoming to us and whoever else enters, and our hearts, minds, and bodies a little calmer.

If you’re stuck in survival mode and haven’t made it past Week One’s challenge to make your bed every day, keep on encouraging yourself there! Embrace that in this season of life you are just going to make your bed – even if that just means pulling the blankets towards the front of the bed and calling it a day. 

And if the bed is just.not.going.to.happen? That’s okay too. Maybe you share it with a partner who gets up later. Maybe the laundry pile on top feels too daunting right now. Then maybe decluttering one item a day is the season of life you’re in and you’re gonna rock that step all semester long. 

On the other hand, maybe incorporating each weekly challenge isn’t very far off from what you already do, and the little tweaks and reminders are helping you keep momentum.

Wherever you are, jump in there. Know that anything you do today is a gift to Future You and you’re doing great!

Back to our weekly challenge:

We’re stepping into the kitchen this week. Nothing attracts dirty dishes in the kitchen sink more than… dirty dishes already in the sink.

Mess breeds mess.

There’s a line in Arlo Guthrie’s song Alice’s Restaurant:

“At the bottom of the cliff there was another pile of garbage. And we decided that one big pile is better than two little piles, and rather than bring that one up we decided to throw ours down.”

That line gets quoted a lot in my house, because it’s amazing how often the “Alice’s Restaurant Principle” plays out. One pair of shoes by the front door? My brain says, “Better one pile than two,” and I kick off my shoes and add them to the pile. Before you know it, one pair turns into a mountain. And so it grows.

So for this week’s challenge we’re pushing back against the Alice’s Restaurant Principle and removing the first pile of mess, instead of adding a second (and third, and…..).
For our first week in the kitchen that means:
We’re going to do the dishes. Every day. Give yourself the gift of a clean sink every time you go to bed.

This Week’s Homework:

101: Go to bed with an empty sink. Run the dishwasher if you have one, hand-wash the last glass, wipe down the sink, and give tomorrow’s you a fresh start.

(a note for if you have other people in your home who may also contribute to the dirty dish piles: For now, we’re only worrying about us. We’re not asking anyone else to do anything different, we’re not stamping our feet if we wake up and there’s a dirty dish in our clean sink. We don’t even have to tell anyone our new habit. Our focus this week is building our own routine, emptying the sink before we go to bed. 

201: Timer Challenge! If your dishes are under control, can you add a 2 minute timer after the dishes are done?  Can you wipe down the counter next to the sink? 

Extra Credit: How can you reverse the Alice’s Restaurant principle in your life? Instead of one dirty dish inviting more, let an empty sink train your brain to protect the clear space.

Notice where else in life this applies – does one small calm area of life inspire you to keep more calm?

This week's homework assignments typed on a loose leaf page background.

BTS Week 4: Bathroom Addition and Subtraction

Donna Joy

Week 4 marks a third of the way through our Fall Back to School Series! How you doing? What routines are you keeping going? Where do you need a little tweak or support?

For me, adding those simple tasks last week has made such.a.difference in my bathroom. Sometimes I just need a little kick to stop overthinking and do something instead of spinning in the “perfect plan.”

But like most things in life, there’s only so many things you can add, sometimes you need to make room by subtracting.

As we go through these 12 weeks together,  we will often add steps to our routines, which can seem a little overwhelming. But when you look at the bigger picture, it’s more like a riddle:

When is adding actually subtracting?

Adding a daily routine of wiping down the counter subtracts time scrubbing my bathroom this weekend.

Adding a week of daily decluttering in my bedroom subtracts time wasted digging for the socks I actually like.

Last week, we practiced “subtracting through adding” with our quick bathroom wipe.
This week, we flip it around: adding through subtraction.

The Challenge

Each day, subtract one thing from your bathroom. No big drawer-dumps or cabinet-emptying projects. Just notice as you go about your routine:

Nearly empty shampoo/soap bottles

Lipstick that’s just not the right shade

Maybe there’s one decorative item you keep moving out of the way every time you wipe the counter. Maybe there’s a shampoo you didn’t love but feel guilty tossing because it was pricey. (If you can’t bring yourself to just toss it, can you use the last bits to clean your toilet, then let the bottle go?!)

We’re adding (space and time) through subtraction (decluttering) this week! Let’s go!

Assignments:

101: One a Day.  Without dumping out any drawers or cabinets, as you do your routines, choose one thing every day you can let go of.

201: Timer Challenge. Pick your time limit: 2 minutes? 5? maybe even 10?? Hit start, grab a bag, and see how much clutter you can toss before the buzzer.

Extra Credit: Subtract to Add. Where can letting something go create more room for what you really want? Subtracting one commitment might add a free evening. Subtracting a paper pile might add to your sense of calm when you walk into the room. Could the answer to some of your stress be less instead of more?

Notice during the week where these principles pop up in your everyday life. Sometimes the smallest add or subtract unlocks the biggest ripple effect.

Weekly assignments typed on lined school paper

BTS Week 3: Bathroom

Donna Joy

Hello week three!

So many people I’ve talked to have said this past week was at least three years long.

How are you doing? Have you been setting out your clothes and/or removing items from your closet? How is it going? Our little steps, like setting my clothes out (almost) every day, and coming home to a made bed really helped me feel more ready to face each day of this extremely.very.long.week. 

For Week Three, we’re heading into the bathroom – don’t worry, we’re keeping it light. Think quick swipes, not deep scrubs. Like weeks one and two, we’re going for the simple, maintainable routines. The goal here is to make it “a little better.” 

Bathrooms are hard for me. Our house typically stays mostly under control. We (usually) do the dishes every night.  Things may get left out, but they generally have a home and can be put away fairly quickly. 

But bathrooms. oof. For some reason, in my current house, bathrooms have been overwhelming me.

My current daily bathroom cleaning routine goes something like this:

“I should wipe the sink and counters down. A little lysol wipe or paper towel would be easy. But I don’t want to be wasteful with something disposable.… what washable rags could I use to wipe it down? Maybe I should buy a set of those ‘un’paper towels I had at my last house. hmm… They’re basically cut up flannel, I could just buy some flannel. oh, but my favorite craft store closed. Well, I don’t have to buy new! I can go to the thrift store and find a flannel blanket to cut up – or go on Buy Nothing and ask for old flannel shirts. Then I could cut them up and put them..Wait, where would I keep them? I could put them in a little bowl on the counter. But I’m trying to cut down on counter clutter. And where would I put them once they’re dirty? Maybe I could find a little divided basket, and make a label for one side that says “clean” and one for the other side that says “dirty.” but definitely something a little more clever than that……..” 

And so I end up spending all my energy on “planning” and my toothpaste splatters live to see another day. 

This week isn’t about the perfect bathroom routine. It’s about good enough. Perfection loves to distract us with murmors of the perfect tool, the perfect method, the perfect result. And while we listen, the toothpaste spatters grow into a Jackson Pollack-inspired art piece.

This week we’re committing to the daily wipe down. I’m personally committing to not buying anything to make this work. Thanks to last week’s assignment, I have a little stash of ankle socks decluttered from my sock drawer and ready to be counter scrubbers. I also have enough glass spray bottles. (Thank you Grove subscription service circa 2021 –  anyone else?) But honestly, I think I’ll do this mission with some lysol wipes to get the habit in my brain, and not get derailed thinking about “the perfect” way to store and wash my sock rags. 

So here we go: Week three assignments and reflections. Let’s go!

Just like every week, there is homework (101 level or 201 level, with a bonus extra credit assignment, if you’re ready). Each assignment will take you just minutes a day, and every day you complete the simple task, you are building your muscles and casting a vote for the person you want to be. You’re moving yourself one steady step closer to calm.

101: Pick your tool and swipe once a day.
Choose your bathroom “MVP tool” and keep it handy. A little tub of rags, a container of wipes – whatever you already have that you can put to use for this task. Each day, grab your tool and swipe the counter or grab your toilet brush and give the toilet bowl a swish.  Done. No overthinking, no gross buildup, no guilt.

201: Create your 2-minute reset.
Try a daily 2-minute bathroom reset: a quick wipe of the counter, a swipe of the sink/mirror, and a swish of the toilet – break out that timer again and see what you can do in 2 minutes.

Reflection:  Extra Credit Reflection:

Where has your hunt for the perfect solution kept you from doing the better-than-before one? Can “good enough” be what lets you feel more at peace this week?