It’s a scene that repeats itself countless times: I stand in my overflowing closet and woefully conclude that there’s simply nothing to wear. The situation doesn’t get any better even after trying on a dozen outfits and to make matters worse, the room then looks like someone broke in to look for the Queen’s royal diamonds.
I returned to Canada from boarding school with all of my belongings packed in two suitcases conforming to airline baggage restrictions. There wasn’t all that much that fit into two 50lb bags, but they held everything important that I wanted to keep. Living on the move for the better part of my teenage years, most of the things I kept were of sentimental value. Once I moved into my own place in university, I was able to let loose and keep more material possessions. Over the years, my collecting compounded and Emily now sometimes refers to me, ever so endearingly, as a packrat.
Since the kid came along, we’ve been relying on him to be our alarm clock. Lately he’s been waking up close to 8 AM. After months of waking up really early (5 AM) and playing with toy cars first thing in the morning, you’d think getting more shut-eye is awesome, but it also means having to rush to get to work, or worse, realizing there is a morning meeting I need to get to in less than an hour. Mornings are stressful and chaotic in our household. It’s a mad scramble to make breakfast, get ready for the day, and leave the house.
With simplifying our life as the overarching vision for the year, we hereby announce Project UrbanSimplify: a 12 month challenge to help remove clutter, whether that be abstract or material.
