Hello, dear readers!

As I race around keeping all the “plates” spinning, my thoughts turn back to intentional living. Therefore, in my kingdom (or queendom, you might say), I am declaring Wednesdays to be Intentional Days! While every day should be lived with intention, making one day a week your ‘intentional day’ can be a great way to explore the concept if the idea is new to you.

I wrote about intentional living several months ago and, as I get ready to move across country, I am leaning heavily on my tenets to help me determine what to take and what to leave. I’m already pretty intentional with what I own, but there is always room for self-reflection, especially when it comes to packing up a house.

To help you become more intentional, check out one of my favorite blogs, A Small Wardrobe. This woman writes about her journey through minimizing her wardrobe, space, and life. It is interesting to see how she approaches the concept of minimalism and seeing her definitive personal style (of which I am a huge fan) represented in so few items is a great lesson for everyone.

Whether you are a one-bag-hostel-living-world-traveler or a 5-bedroom-4-kid-having-suburban-mansion-denizen, living intentionally can help you create a calm life, be more efficient, and less stressed. Today choose to do only what is necessary and avoid everything else. If this sounds confusing, let’s use Maslow’s pyramid for help. It sounds super nerdy (I am a nerd, so….) but I have been relying on this for years for travel preparation.

Quick context – Abraham Maslow developed a psychological theory in 1943 which posits that human beings are motivated to achieve certain needs and that some needs are more important than other. At the bottom of the pyramid you have basic survival needs, like food, water, sex, and sleep. When you meet those, you are motivated to fulfill your needs of safety with things like personal security, money, etc. As you meet each underlying need, you can move onto the next need as you climb up the pyramid.

Living intentionally focuses on all of these, BUT for today just try to achieve the bottom three layers of the pyramid. Take care of yourself and your family with food, water, shelter, safety, and love (always HAVE love). Worry about esteem and self-actualization another day. Just for today, avoid spending two hours on Facebook, aimlessly wandering through Target (I’ve SO been there), or agonizing over what to wear. Take back your precious time through intentional living and you might be amazed at what can happen!!

Leave me a comment to let me know how it goes! Thanks for stopping by!