We had the kids purge some of their things this weekend. “Oh, it’s my FAVORITE thingamabob!” Of course, they didn’t know the junk had been missing it until they found it. And then the nostalgia starts, “We can’t throw away my favorite dog-chewed purple plastic toy spoon…” I’m ruthless when it comes to purging, and I’m paired up with a family of sentimentalists.

Part of living a simple life is that we endeavor to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary can speak. This means that we focus our energy on people and not things. Part of managing to do that better is by ordering our lives so that inconsequential things don’t preside over the things that matter: God, relationships, and more time with them both. Consider simplifying your life by asking these questions posed by mother of soon-to-be five, Michelle Call:

Get rid of unnecessary things and tasks. Do you change your sheets too often? Do you wash clothes after each wearing? Do you and your children have so many clothes that you can wash less often, but end up with too much work…I think it’s easier to own less clothes and wash them more, because the laundry never gets out of control. How about toys…what if you attempted to get rid of half of the toys in the house?

While everyone was racking up the credit cards on Black Friday, we were hauling stuff out. Boy, that felt good.