Are you drowning in the chaos of complexity? If so, you’re definitely not alone.

On this week’s podcast, we’re going to dive deep into the transformative magic of simplification.

You’ll discover how decluttering your space, your mind and your schedule truly unlocks a world of opportunities and will help you turbocharge your journey to success.

I’m sharing 5 secrets to help you embrace simplicity in a world that’s constantly pulling you in every direction.

It’s time to simplify, amplify, and thrive!

I’ll see you inside! xo, Janeen

>> WATCH on YouTube

TRANSCRIPT:

[00:00:00] Janeen: Hey there you guys, before we dive into the juicy content of the podcast today, I want to just ask you a question. Do you feel like you are drowning in the chaos of complexity in your life? So that is what we are going to be talking about today. We’re going to take a deep dive into the transformational magic of simplification and discover how decluttering your space and your mind and your schedule, of course, truly unlocks a world of opportunities and can help you really turbocharge your journey to success. When we embrace simplicity in a world that’s constantly pulling us in every direction it helps us to simplify and to amplify and to truly thrive. So welcome back to the podcast. I am Janeen Alley.

[00:00:49] You are listening to the becoming the CEO of your life podcast. And in today’s episode, we’re talking about how in this fast paced world Women in particular [00:01:00] can often find themselves juggling multiple roles and responsibilities that leaves us feeling kind of like we’re just drowning or that we’re floundering around.

[00:01:09] This leaves us little time for clarity of thought or being peacefully productive in our lives, which is something that I love to talk about, and it leaves us, of course, little time for ourselves or even just basically feeling like we are caught up and on top of things. Right, which is what we want. We all want to feel that way.

[00:01:26] So today on the show, I want to help you to see that when we’re embracing these principles of simplification and elimination, we’re able to really reclaim our time and to create a more empowered, relaxed and a more balanced life. Today I really wanted to explore some tactical strategies and some mindset shifts that can help you simplify your life and eliminate unnecessary stressors and truly prioritize yourself.

[00:01:53] Okay. So I want to start off with a little bit of a story here. This is a story that I heard from one of my [00:02:00] coaches, Ryan Levesque, a long time ago when I was working with him and this kind of helped me to see how to run my business in a more strategic way. And like I said, this is a journey I’m going to be sharing a little bit about how I was reminded of this lesson just this last week and the pivots that I made

[00:02:19] in my life at that point. So back in the day when Ryan was talking about this story, he’s like, you want to be thinking about building your business. And I want to just offer to you that I’m talking mostly about building your life, because that’s really what we’re doing when we’re becoming the CEOs of our life, right?

[00:02:33] We’re thinking about kind of this 30, 000 foot view of what it’s like to be us. And as we’re building our lives, or these castles of our lives, we’re laying down each brick, brick by brick by brick, and these stones that create the outer walls and the inner walls of our life, the structure that we have on a day to day or weekly basis.

[00:02:56] Now, what happens over time is we’re creating these walls and [00:03:00] things start to creep into our lives. Oftentimes this comes up in conversations with my clients when they say, but things just come up in my life. I don’t know how to not be so burned out because things just come up. So these things that come up.

[00:03:14] Are like the black ooze of our lives. You think about this black ooze that’s starting to infiltrate your castle by seeping in between the rocks and the crevices and the nooks and crannies. And this black ooze is potent. Everything that it touches, it sticks to and it’s kind of tarry and it’s black and it stinks and it just gets into everything if we’re not aware of it.

[00:03:41] And this black ooze, of course, is not just things that come up or even the stuff that we have are in our lives. Overall, it’s complexity. We have a tendency to make things a lot more complicated than they need to be. And [00:04:00] honestly, take it from me. I feel like I can, if unaware and unhindered, I can be the queen of complexity.

[00:04:09] I want to make things pretty complicated, but over time, as I’ve been more intentional and I’m learning and I’m applying, I feel like truly the sweet spot is when we are seeking simplification. And we do this in multiple ways and today I know in the past I’ve really talked about how much I love elimination, but today I’m really talking specifically about simplifying your life and yes, that does include elimination, which I love to do, but I’m also going to be talking about simplification, which is different

[00:04:43] from eliminating. It’s not just getting rid of something, but it’s actually taking the time to break something down to the bare bones or to the minimal pieces that we need in order to make something work or function. And there’s a lot of different ways that we can do this. But today I’m touching on [00:05:00] five.

[00:05:00] So the first thing that I want to talk about today is streamlining your daily routines. When we are intentional about the way that we show up, and the habits and the routines that we are incorporating into our lives, it can actually save us time. And energy like a ton of time and a ton of energy, actually, because otherwise what happens is we get worn out with decision fatigue.

[00:05:26] When we make things really complicated, we have to make a lot of decisions and that, over time, just starts to wear us out. So let me give you an example of this. When you’re thinking about planning your menu, you don’t want to start every single week from scratch. And I’ve done this actually. And so one of the ways that I have created more of a routine or a system with my menu planning is I have certain themes on different days of the week

[00:05:55] that apply to the dinners that I’m making for my family. So for example, and I’m just throwing [00:06:00] this out here because most of the time I am eating vegetarian or vegan meals, but this can be an example. You can have a seafood Sunday night. You can have a meatless Monday, vegetarian food, right? There’s so many different things that you can have in there, but it gives you some direction.

[00:06:14] You can do taco Tuesdays, which of course just aren’t tacos, which by the way, there’s like a hundred different ways that you can make tacos. But this also for me would include things like fajitas and burritos and things like that. You can do a pasta Wednesday and et cetera, down the line so that you have kind of, like I said, this framework to work with so that you’re not reinventing the wheel every single time that you sit down, what I used to do is I used to sit down and I get really overwhelmed with all the different choices and all the different options.

[00:06:44] And I would ask my kids," okay. What do you want to eat?" And they’d kind of hmm and haw and tell me the same thing every time. And I like a little bit of variety. That’s why I like this framework is because if you’re doing seafood Sunday, you can do salmon. You can do even [00:07:00] fish tacos. I mean, there’s so many different ways that you can do that.

[00:07:02] I know tacos are on Tuesday, but you can incorporate that into your, into your week so that you can make things a little bit easier for yourself.

[00:07:11] So becoming the CEO of your life means that your life is really boring, when it comes to actually the execution of what you have going on. I’m not to say that your life is boring, but the structure of your life is very simple, to the point where you almost feel like there should be more.

[00:07:33] Okay, if you feel like there should be more in your life, you’re doing it right. And when you’re trying to execute the routine, You’re going to stick to the routine and you’re going to tweak the routine slightly over time. You’re just going to do more of what’s working for you, and then you’re going to tweak it a little bit.

[00:07:52] So if seafood, Sunday, meatless, Monday, taco, Tuesday, pasta, Wednesday does not work for you. That’s okay. You can tweak that system over time, but I want you to [00:08:00] start there. And that’s the same with the way that I have my week scheduled. So on Mondays, I focus on all of the things podcast related. So I reached out to guests.

[00:08:10] Or I’m recording and editing shows. Today is a Monday tomorrow. I’m going to be focusing on all things social media. On Wednesday. I’m going to focus on doing weekly webinars for people. That’s something that I’m going to bring back this fall is doing weekly, or at least three times a month, webinars for my audience.

[00:08:29] And I’m going to be teaching different things in that time. On Thursday. I’m just focused on coaching. And on Fridays, I’m writing all of my email content. That includes marketing emails. It includes weekly emails. It includes emails to the people who are inside of my programs. That’s it. So easy. That is how easy you can make running your business or running your life.

[00:08:51] You don’t have to make things crazy complicated. When we’re doing this, we’re not getting stuck in decision fatigue. It’s the same thing. Just kind of rinse and [00:09:00] repeat the things that are working for you. This is why Steve Jobs wore the same black turtleneck every single day of his life.

[00:09:07] Cause he wasn’t standing there in his closet. Like what am I going to wear today? Okay. the less that we have to decide on the more creative power that we have in our lives. And like I said, you want to stick to the framework. Make things very, very simple for yourself. Okay. So the next step is you want to think about creating systems to protect your personal time.

[00:09:34] What I mean by this is you really want to embrace the power of no. And I’ve talked a little bit about saying no on the podcast before, but I’m going to kind of take it in a different direction today because you really can transform your life with no. And in the past, I’ve talked about saying no to other people.

[00:09:52] And I want to talk today also about including how to say no to yourself, because these are two different skills, because they’re [00:10:00] two different things. If you’re like me, and you get distracted really easily, or you’re also like me, a multi passionate woman.

[00:10:08] And you just love to do so many different things, which are so fun, you have to learn how to rein yourself in. And that means you have to get good at telling yourself no. And what that sounds like in my head when I’m doing this practice with myself is, I tell myself things like, "okay, not right now," or "it’s not a no forever."

[00:10:30] If I’m really disappointed about telling myself, no, or "we can revisit this on Sunday during our planning meeting and see how this is going to fit." Okay. But you’ve got to be, you’ve got to have those kinds of conversations. It cannot be a knee jerk yes every single time you want to do something in your life. If you’re also like I used to be, and you struggle with telling other people, no, you need to work on this.

[00:10:53] I’ve done other podcasts, like I said, that talk about how to do this with grace and gratitude and with ease, [00:11:00] but this is possible for you. You can say no to people without feeling guilty or without feeling bad about it. No one else owns your time. And so when you say yes to someone from that knee jerk space, you have no one to blame, but you. You cannot blame other people for asking and you can’t get upset with them for asking for your time.

[00:11:23] You’re amazing. Of course, they want you to help them out with something. You cannot blame them for that. You need to take ownership and responsibility for saying no and staying in alignment with the things that matter the most to you. So the way that we do this is, of course, the first thing is we need to get clear on what those priorities are.

[00:11:42] You have to know what matters most. Otherwise, you don’t know if you’re in alignment or not. You have to understand what the time trade offs are if you do say yes to something new. You have to be really clear on that. If this is a yes, what are you by default saying no to?

[00:11:58] Okay, so those are two skills [00:12:00] that you want to develop. And I’m just gonna recap for you here, how to say no with grace really quickly to someone else. It’s called the no sandwich. First, you start off with a positive. You’re very affirming. You tell the person how much you love them or how much you love that they asked you to be a part of their project.

[00:12:18] You say no clearly and concisely. Without any wiggle room, you don’t say, how about we do it next month or in three months for now, the next time you have this opportunity, circle back and ask if that’s not what you mean, don’t say it. And then you want to end on a positive. You want to just, again, shower them with appreciation and love and end the conversation.

[00:12:39] Okay. So it’s a no sandwich. It’s a no sandwich between two positive statements. Okay. The next thing in Unlocking the power of simplicity is, of course, decluttering your space. I cannot talk about this enough because a clutter free [00:13:00] environment is going to lead to a clutter free mind. I think I said this on the podcast last week, actually.

[00:13:05] You want to be able to breathe and have clarity of thought in your space. Okay, if this is not your whole house, you want to just dedicate time and energy to creating one space in your house like that. One room, one corner, one nook and cranny in your house that is clutter free that allows you to breathe.

[00:13:28] Fortunately, I have a house that feels this way to me most of the time. I love this idea of it being kind of a work in progress, because with other people in your house, it’s going to have stuff in it. Things are going to come and go more quickly than if it’s just you living there, right?

[00:13:47] Let me just offer some step by step guidance here on decluttering and organizing your living space if this is something that you want to focus on over the next week or two. So the first step is to [00:14:00] set a timer. Particularly if you’re brand new to decluttering your space. Set a timer for 10 or 15 minutes.

[00:14:05] That’s it. And you want to focus on creating a doable win in that amount of time. Okay. It’s 15 minute magic. You’re just going to focus on one drawer, one cupboard, one tiny little space in your house. Okay. That is going to help you generate a lot of momentum. And it’s a quick win. I’ve learned this little trick from Shira Gill, who I really like.

[00:14:27] I have her book Minimalista. Highly recommend it. She’s really fun. And this is one of the things that she does. Totally works. You’re going to work, you’re going to work on one thing at a time. Which means you’re going to stay put. This is from me. This is my tip on Shira Gill’s advice for this. You want to stay put.

[00:14:48] Don’t follow the rabbit trails of stuff all throughout the house and put things away until it’s time to do that. You want to finish the drawer, put everything inside, and of course you’re going to have things to [00:15:00] sort through. It’s either going to be a throwaway or put somewhere else. Right. Hopefully not too much putting somewhere else, but you’re going to have stuff to throw away, give away, or put somewhere else in your house.

[00:15:11] But if you do this as you’re cleaning, you’re going to wind up and wonder what you’re doing in different areas of the house, because you’re just like, Oh, and this, Oh, and I forgot about this. And, Oh, and there’s this. I don’t know if you guys do that too, but I get distracted when I’m in this frame of mind.

[00:15:29] So I just want to focus. The timer helps me to stay put. And that is what I recommend. You also want to focus on finishing. You want to take the project all the way from start to finish in a day. So don’t bag up, for example, all of your giveaway clothes and then have that bag sit in your hallway for days or weeks.

[00:15:48] You want to actually take that bag where it needs to go. And it could be in the trunk of your car. Like if you’re doing this as a project this week, you might have Six bags by the end of the week, hopefully, that would be amazing, right? You’re going to [00:16:00] put those bags in your car saving Saturday to take care of that, or however you want to do it, but make a plan and get that bag out of your house. Put it in your car or take it all the way to goodwill or salvation army or wherever you’re going.

[00:16:14] Okay, the next thing is you want to practice mindful consumption. This kind of goes with what I was just saying. So if you’re doing the work to declutter your space and to create breathing room, like physical empty space in your house, you want to not fill those spaces with more stuff by consuming and buying and filling up your space.

[00:16:38] You want to assess your shopping habits and you want to avoid unnecessary purchases. I know 15 years ago I used to buffer by shopping for things online or at least window shopping for things online and didn’t necessarily buy everything that I was looking for. But I would just window shop and I would just browse.

[00:16:58] And this was a way that [00:17:00] I would buffer my emotions. So you kind of want to take a look and say, okay, why am I actually buying this right now? What is it that I actually need? What am I feeling? Like all of these things are just good information to know. If you don’t need it, don’t purchase it. Doesn’t need to be one more thing in your house to get rid of.

[00:17:19] There are definitely advantages of adopting more of a minimalistic mindset when it comes to material possessions, of course, right? Overall, you save money. Again, you have this space in your house to actually breathe and enjoy your house. I mean, you’re living in this space, I think, the majority of your life, right?

[00:17:38] If you’re like me, you’re… At home quite a bit. You sleep here. You eat here. I work here. I mean, I’m in my house a lot. And so you want to be really intentional with the purchases that you make. I really like to focus on higher quality products. And I like shopping from companies who have mission driven goals. They’re not just out to [00:18:00] sell me something, but they’re environmentally aware of how they’re manufacturing their products. Some of the companies that I buy from support causes that matter to me. They support homeless populations or education, or like I said, environmental causes that are important. You might pay a little bit extra in this, but for me, it’s totally worth it. I love supporting small businesses this way. And these products tend to last a little bit longer. And truth be told, they have better customer service. There are things that people actually care about making and there are things that you end up actually loving in your house and in your life.

[00:18:33] Okay, the last one that I have here is to build a support system. And there’s several different ways that I love to do this. I am going to put in a little shameless plug here for coaching and I’m going to put myself on the spot. I’m going to talk about how my coach really turned some things around for me. It’s one of the reasons why I’m doing this podcast today.

[00:18:52] I was getting coached by my beloved coach, Laura. I love Laura . And I’m a productivity coach. You guys know that. And [00:19:00] even then there are still some things for me to learn. Never feel like I arrive. And I fortunately, I think this is one of my superpowers is I’m eager to learn.

[00:19:09] I’m eager to learn how I can get better, even in, what I would consider an expert space for me, but my coach was able to call out my decision fatigue. That’s why I started there today on the podcast. We all have a tendency to overcomplicate things. And we all have a tendency to be blind to it. So it’s really helpful to have someone else who knows us really well, knows about the things that we’re trying to accomplish in our lives, and call these things out for us, because she was totally right.

[00:19:40] Because she did that, I was able to get back on track really easily and make things so much easier for my life. Okay. The second option for this to surround yourself with support is to surround yourself with people who get you. They understand what you’re trying to do in your [00:20:00] life.

[00:20:00] So this could be other female entrepreneurs who also have families. They could be people who are in your specific situation and have big goals and dreams and want to make an impact in the world. There is a woman who I am getting to be really good friends with here in my town. And I was on a hike with her the other day, and she just asked me, what are your dreams?

[00:20:22] And I didn’t know her that well, but I loved that she asked me this kind of question because these are the kinds of things that I think about. But it’s not necessarily a typical question that I get asked by other people. So make sure that you’re surrounding yourself with people who get you and make sure that these people are kind and love you.

[00:20:43] I know sometimes when people have criticism to share with us, it’s easy for us to get offended. But if you have these types of relationships, if you’ve articulated what you would like from them, I think just asking people and saying, Hey, this is how I would love for you to be supportive of me.

[00:20:59] And this is [00:21:00] how I want to support you too, and see if that’s a want match. On both sides of things. I think these relationships can be cultivated much easier if we communicate well, but you want to have these kinds of people in your corner, and you don’t need to be a lot, just one or two people in your corner that have got your back for sure.

[00:21:18] By the time I am By the time you’re listening to this, the wellness retreat has already passed, but I’d love to think about ways that I can create space for women to be together and to support one another, because I think we have different needs. We have different desires. We have different energy and that all needs to be cultivated and nurtured.

[00:21:39] So think about the relationships that you have and the spaces that you find yourself in and ask yourself if you can be seeking a more supportive. space to help you to simplify your life and not make things overly complicated. All right, my friends, that is all that I have time for today.

[00:21:58] If you want to know more, if you [00:22:00] want to get into the nitty gritty details about how to either, get started or how to take this to the next level, whether that’s breaking through your burnout or becoming the CEO of your life, I would love it if you booked a call with me.

[00:22:14] I would love to have a conversation with you. I will totally get you pointed in the right direction if that’s one of my programs or somewhere else. I don’t mind doing that. So if that sounds like a good fit for you, book a call with me at janeenalley.com/breakthrough and I am really looking forward to hearing from you.

[00:22:30] All right, you guys have a beautiful rest of your day and we’ll catch you guys soon. See ya.