Latest / The Christian Homemaking Podcast: Simply Convivial with Mystie Winckler / 3 Boring Habits That Quietly Rebuilt My Life

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3 Boring Habits That Quietly Rebuilt My Life · The Christian Homemaking Podcast: Simply Convivial with Mystie Winckler

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Looking at our home and family, no one else would have thought
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that everything was falling apart.
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Maybe it wasn't really falling apart.
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The meals were being made.
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We ate dinner together.
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We were not late to church.
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We attended every week.
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The kids were doing great.
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The laundry mostly got done.
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Everyone learned to read.
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But I felt like I was drowning
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I was always scrambling, taking care of the next emergency, and I did not
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feel like I had anything under control
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I spent all kinds of time and money trying to figure it out, trying all kinds of
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overhaul solutions that were temporary Band-Aids that never actually stayed on
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or did anything in the long run except to make me feel more like a failure.
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Maybe you can relate
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However, I did finally install three habits that appeared at first
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to be so boring, so little, so insignificant that they would not help
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my internal or external chaos at all.
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But they actually changed everything
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Hi, I'm Misty Winkler, and you have found the Christian homemaking
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podcast, Simply Convivial.
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I'm a homeschooling mom of five, although three of my children are now adults and I
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only have two high schoolers left at home
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and two grandbabies in town.
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I'm author of the book Simplified Organization: Learn to Love What
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Must Be Done, and I want to help you become an engaged, competent,
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cheerful Christian homemaker.
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Because the work that we do as moms in our homes matters matters immensely
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And that's why we need to have these three boring habits so that we can bring
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our full selves to our work every day.
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So grab a basket of laundry to fold and let's dig in
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So when I had five kids under 10, I felt like I was always scrambling
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and taking care of emergencies, putting out fires, never getting
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ahead, not making any progress.
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The harder I worked, the more behind I felt like I was.
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And whether or not that was true in reality, it's how I felt.
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And then that's the story that kept being reinforced in my mind.
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Everywhere I looked, I only saw things that I did not do,
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that I was not getting to.
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And that led me to feeling overwhelmed, like I was drowning,
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and I knew it was not okay.
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I knew it didn't have to be that way.
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I came close a few times to just giving up
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But I knew that that wasn't really an option because God had called me to this
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role as mom and homemaker, and so it was my duty and responsibility to do it well.
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And I knew that God wouldn't give me a calling or responsibility
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that I could not do for His glory.
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And the way that I was approaching my life was not giving glory to God
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So I read every Christian homemaking book out there,
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I purchased schedules.
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I purchased cleaning schedules from online.
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I even tried checklists that were printed in magazines at the time because this
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was before YouTube and before Pinterest and when magazines were a real thing
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And nothing really made a difference.
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Nothing stuck.
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Nothing really seemed to fit my life.
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I would get all set up for a big life overhaul, home makeover, self-habit
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makeover, and it just didn't go anywhere
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After trying promised solution after promised solution, I finally attempted
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a few recommendations that I kept seeing pop up time after time, but they
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just seemed irrelevant, insignificant, that those were not going to be
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good enough to fix my big problem.
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But none of the big answers or solutions were fixing my big problem,
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so I finally tried the little baby step, insignificant steps
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And that's when things seemed to fall into place.
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So if you are on an internet hunt for the final system, the final solution, the
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final planner, checklist, routine That will finally make it all make sense and
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stop the overwhelm and stop the internal chaos that's happening in your head, Then
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you've landed in the right spot because I have what's actually going to work, and
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it's not any of those major overhauls.
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These three habits that I finally attempted sincerely were making my bed.
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I know, I know.
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Making my bed
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Writing a top three to-do list for each and every day and looking
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at my calendar every day I didn't think this would be enough.
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But these small habits changed how I approached my life and
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also how I thought about myself.
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So let's talk about how each one makes a significant difference about the internal
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story that we're telling ourselves.
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These are habits that we can use as hooks to change our attitudes,
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which is the real problem.
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Now, every self-help type book out there will either assume you're
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already making your bed or will tell you you need to be making your bed.
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And I was one of those kids who refused to make my bed on principle because it
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was just going to be slept in, and like it seemed like the definition of unimportant,
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meaningless, repetitive work It seemed pointless to me as a child, and my opinion
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did not change as I became an adult.
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It was a principle that I had adopted that making my bed was a waste of time.
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I did not wanna waste time, so I was not going to make my bed.
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And because everyone out there says, "Make your bed," and it's on every
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cleaning checklist or every set of routines out there, when I would try
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those life overhaul systems, when I would be trying to use a pre-printed
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planner that told me what to do every day or a cleaning checklist that told
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me what to do every day, I would make my bed when I was following those lists.
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But while I was making my bed, I would tell myself, " This is dumb.
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I can't believe I'm doing this.
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What a waste of time.
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This does not even matter."
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And so I really should not have been surprised that that
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never stuck as a habit, because
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How we talk to ourselves matters.
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So finally, after I was fed up with all the overhauls And I think that
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someone mentioned making the bed, and it was like the last straw.
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I'm like, "I have tried.
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It has never worked."
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And I don't know, something in me just said, "Do it one more time."
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And that's when I really heard the dialogue that I was telling myself because
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I wasn't trying to do a whole long list.
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It was just one thing.
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I made my bed, and even though I didn't fully believe it, I chose not to believe
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my feelings but to believe pretty much everyone else in the world who was a
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productive human being who made their bed and said other people should, too.
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I said, "I'm gonna believe this preponderance of evidence even
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though it contradicts my feelings."
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And so I would make my bed, and then pause and look at it and say, "My
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bedroom looks so much better now.
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I'm the kind of person that makes my bed.
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I bring order out of chaos."
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And ever since I started doing that, I have been making my bed almost every day.
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Because now making my bed is me telling myself that I'm the kind of
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person that brings order out of chaos.
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In this little personal corner of my room, this is a declaration of what I'm going
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to be doing today, how I approach life.
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Making my bed isn't really just about making the bed.
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The aesthetics of the thing are not of primary importance to me.
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But what does matter is what I tell myself about my day and myself.
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And so my bed is making a statement about the kind of person
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that I am choosing to be today
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I am a responsible person.
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Responsible people make their bed, so I'm going to make my bed It's boring,
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but it works, and it's totally worth the two minutes that it takes Try it.
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So the second habit that totally changed everything for me was using
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an index card to make a daily top three list I had tried planners
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I had made myself many, many planner pages and templates and checklists and
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spent more time making them and thinking them through than actually using them
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I wanted to think through every contingency, everything that needed to
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be done, fit it all into a plan that fit on one or two pages that would be
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the mastermind, and all I would have to do is work that system that I had
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figured out, that I'd engineered and put together on a working template.
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And then once I got that figured out, everything would be amazing.
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I never got to that point.
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Turns out I was not very good at predicting the way each
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and every day was gonna go.
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That's just life with small children is just not predictable, so my systems
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always fell apart within one or two days So instead of attempting to figure it
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all out and get something that would take all my responsibilities and work
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them out evenly across my week, I took to just writing the three most important
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things for that one day that I was in.
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This made me pay attention to right now, to today.
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And so instead of thinking about all the ways that I had failed in the past
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or thinking about how everything could work out perfectly in the future, the
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daily top three card trained me to notice today and what actually mattered today
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I think I had four children when I started.
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And then by the time my fifth came around, I had been doing it
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off and on for a couple years.
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And then during that postpartum time, paying attention to today, I
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realized I was telling myself, "I should be getting everything done.
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How can I try to fit everything that I used to do every day into
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my day while caring for a baby, while being postpartum, while being
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sleep deprived, while nursing?"
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And it dawned on me, because I was making that top three list for the day
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and actually thinking about the day I was in instead of grand plans I wasn't
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supposed to fit everything in each day.
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I was supposed to nurse my baby and use that nursing time to think, maybe to read,
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depending on how much sleep I'd had, and to connect with my other children through
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soft, nurturing, loving communication.
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I was connecting with my baby, and my children needed more attention during
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this time of transition for the family.
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And here I had this time where I was stuck in a chair.
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And so instead of fighting this feeling of being stuck-
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I recognized it for the gift that it was, and that realization happened because
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I'd built this habit of recognizing what was important day by day.
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So the daily top three card changed my attitude about my day, changed how I
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thought about my to-do list, and I have many episodes on the daily top three card.
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If you've watched my channel for any amount of time
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Then you've heard about my daily card habit.
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But if you want the full scoop, then check out my new free training called
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From Overwhelm to Organized: The One Practice That Changes Everything.
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In this, I do a deep dive on my daily card habit so that you can
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figure out how to make it work for you in your current season.
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You can register for free for this on-demand, available
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anytime, right away workshop.
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Go to simplyconvivial.com/organized
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or find the link in the episode description
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All right, the third habit was one that I was not anticipating.
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I didn't even count it as a habit.
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Even when I realized I needed this habit, it still didn't
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seem like it was significant.
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But I have since realized that it's not a planner or a cleaning
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checklist that matters most.
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The most important organizational tool that we have in our arsenal is an
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up-to-date, accurate master calendar that we then look at 'cause it won't do
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you any good if you don't look at it.
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So we have to have a single calendar that has every time-bound obligation on it.
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We update it right away.
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There's never any appointment or commitment just lingering in our brain
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that we'll put on the calendar later.
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Put it on the calendar right away, and then look at the calendar every day.
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It took me many mistakes to figure this out.
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I have missed appointments, shown up on the wrong day to an appointment
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remembered that I was going to take a meal to someone an hour before
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I was supposed to do it, an hour before I was supposed to deliver it
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And so finally, the pain of missing my commitments drove me
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to really commit to my calendar
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And that has been a lifeline through many seasons.
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I don't have to worry or overthink about the future because I know
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that I put things on the calendar and I look at the calendar.
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So I don't need to keep them in my head.
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If I have any questions about what's coming up or about our commitments,
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I can look at the calendar.
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At this point with teenagers, I don't answer questions about
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our calendar or our schedule.
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I say, "Look at the calendar."
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It gives so much peace of mind to be able to see the week and
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know where we are going to be
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And be able to think ahead for how can I be prepared for that?
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And as I really committed to my calendar, I recognized that I
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have to look at it every day.
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Looking at it at the beginning of the week is not enough to keep me
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up to date the whole week, even if nothing changes on the calendar.
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I need to look at it for that particular day, for the next day, and
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for the rest of the week every day.
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When I do that, I do not feel scattered.
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I feel on top of our commitments and like we are handling everything.
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There are definitely weeks, especially now, where my calendar is overwhelming and
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I feel like, "Ah, how is this gonna work?"
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But I can see that time.
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I can make plans to make it work
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And I'm not holding those reminders in my head.
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I'm looking at them objectively on a color-coded Google Calendar
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And so I know we can make it work
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So now my brain does not have to remind me of anything, and I don't
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have to worry about missing anything because I know that it's on my calendar
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if I need to be reminded of it, and I know that I will look at that
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calendar because writing it down does you no good if you don't look at it
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So these habits are super basic.
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They're boring even, but they make all the difference in our approach to our
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life, in our attitude about ourselves and about our work, and they allow us to stop
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feeling scattered and out of control.
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Because the most important kind of control you're supposed to have is not
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control of the outcome, not control of your circumstances, not control
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of other people it's self-control that we are all supposed to have.
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And making my bed, writing my daily top card, and looking at my calendar
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every day are three boring but super meaningful self-control habits that
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build lasting progress and lasting change
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Because it changes my perspective about myself and my life and my home.
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And it'll do the same for you
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So remember, repent, rejoice, repeat