One Little Word – 2017

As we all know, January is traditionally a time of reflection and goal setting, but this year instead of making specific resolutions, my family has decided to choose one word to focus on for the year. This was inspired by Ali Edwards One Little Word scrapbooking course and has evolved into something that we do as a family, rather than just personally. It gives us a more general idea of what we want to focus on for the year, and is something we see reflected in all aspects of our life.

This year, the word SIMPLIFY has spoken to us, and so we adopted this as our 2017 focus word.

sim·pli·fy
ˈsimpləˌfī/
verb

make (something) simpler or easier to do or understand.
make simple/simpler, make easy/easier to understand, make plainer, clarify, make more comprehensible/intelligible;

I expect this word to manifest itself in many different ways, but particularly, we are hoping to “simplify” our lives in the following ways:

MORE intentional time spent with family and friends

LESS mindless scrolling

MORE outside, unplugged weekend time

LESS over-booking ourselves

MORE spontaneous adventures

LESS waste & MORE recycling

LESS clutter (get all the clutter out of my house)

MORE fresh, local food (specifically from our own back yard)

Moving to the country over a year ago was the start of our shift to a more simple life, and this is the year we really make simplifying work for our family, including being more intentional with our time. With Will’s new job at Roots, we don’t have a ton of family time throughout the week, which really makes us value the time we do have on nights and weekends. For this reason, we are simplifying our schedule: planning nothing on weeknights and only minimal things on weekends.

By clearing our over-scheduled weekends, we are already finding ourselves more open to spontaneous adventures that we would have otherwise turned down if we had previous engagements. And it’s so. much. fun. I am really excited with where this one word will take us this year, and I can’t wait to share updates on it throughout 2017.