Week 1: Laying out clothes

Last Saturday I decided to make a change to my routine to make it easier, and over the week I mulled over this topic, ending up not with hot spiced wine but with a more developed challenge to myself - to make one change a week to simplify my home and my life, focusing particularly on those aspects of the simple life  philosophy which I find difficult, such as routine, organisation, decluttering and time management.

I'm calling this challenge the Simples challenge. For week one, I decided to lay out my clothes each evening for the following day. I've tried it before, but always left it too late into the evening. Now I am doing this as soon as I get home from work, when I get changed into jeans and a t-shirt (or civvies, as we used to call them at school).

My work clothes are laid out over the arm on the left, and my running kit on the seat.

So far, this is working marvelously! It makes very little difference to my evening, but it makes a huge difference to my morning. I check the clothes as I lay them out, so I won't go into work in dirty, smelly or damaged clothes. This also means I keep the chair in the bedroom tidy - I don't want to accidentally pick up yesterday's tomato-splattered t-shirt, so it goes straight into the laundry basket. This also means that there is less chance of me doing the laundry and then finding more dirty clothes, which happens very frequently.

It particularly helps with early mornings - today I left the house at 6.45, and having all my clothes neatly laid over one arm of the chair meant I could get dressed quickly and silently in the dark, minimising the disturbance to my sleeping boyfriend.

The European Parliament before dawn

This first change is working extremely well for me! I hope the rest of the changes will be as easily to stick to.