Highlights from This Show:

• Mystie admits she was a natural list-making organizer and thought she had everything together until she had kids. She tried doing things as efficiently as possible, but she’s learned that dealing with the big picture and the vision were more important than the details.
• Mystie said that she used to ask herself “Why do the dishes need to be done?” or “Why should I mop the floor in the first place?” Finding her “why” was the answer!
• I mentioned that when it comes to homeschooling AND housekeeping, you do need to lower your standards and expectations a little bit. {Here's a post about more on this: Help! I Homeschool & My House is a Mess!}
• Mystie states that her eyes were opened to the “why” from reading two novels: Mansfield Park by Jane Austen and Bleak House by Charles Dickens.
  “[In the novel] Bleak House, [the main] character is wrapped up in how she keeps her house. The fact that she has the ‘household keys’ and that the house runs smoothly because of her was a huge part of the beauty that she brings.” — Mystie Winkler
• Mystie said that reading about this character from the Dickens classic helped open her eyes to the fact that details do matter and that the way one keep her house reflects on the character of the housekeeper.
• “[Paying attention to details is a] way that we love people. It’s not meaningless, because it’s a gift that we’re giving to others.” — Mystie Winkler
• “The way we keep our house does speak to our character.” — Mystie Winkler
• I brought up the book Discipline: The Glad Surrender by Elisabeth Elliot and explained how the author brought up the fact that if you want to see if someone is disciplined, look at their house. I was convicted!
• Mystie said that part of coming to know the meaning and value of cleaning up is doing it for others. Not just people you invite over, but the people that live in your house.
• “You need to bless your family as well as you would bless others with your house and the standard you keep your house in…and what also prepares you for hospitality is when you make it a priority to actually take time to get a little bit organized here and there.” — Kristi Clover
• We need to extend the hospitality we show to guests to our own family! It's so easy to forget that they are the ones who we should be focused on blessing. We need to get organized so that we can best live out our priorities.
• Mystie talked about her blogs: 1) Simplified Organization: where she keeps home and life management thoughts. 2) Simply Convivial: her homeschooling blog.
• Mystie shared her thoughts on productivity and about how we only have “so much time” in our day. We need to be investing it in areas that are not self-focused. We need to ask ourselves,
  — “What are the roles or responsibilities that God has given to me?”
  — “Who am I supposed to be serving?”
  — “Am I using my time to build and grow my family?”
• *Mystie discussed that serving the important people in her life comes before productivity and that feeling of accomplishment in herself.
• I asked Mystie to talk about one of her key habits for productivity: Decluttering your brain! She said it’s good to write down all the thoughts and worries that are occupying your mind on a piece of paper. On paper, it’s much more obvious that we have too many commitments or emotional ties to unimportant duties.
• Mystie talked about brain dumping on paper vs. brain dumping on the computer. She explained how mental space and different brain connections comes into play. Once the brain dump is out, you: 1) Go through and delete as much as possible, 2) Set up a reliable calendar, a place to keep to-do lists, and a place to keep reference notes, & 3) Look at the lists regularly! Because it’ll only work if you review them. {You can get Mystie's free brain dump guide right on her site HERE!}
• I mention my struggle with insomnia and the fact that I feel like I just couldn't turn my brain off at night.
• Mystie teaches in her Habits of Productivity course about how to use Evernote and paper for such organization. Evernote has a good search function for finding notes efficiently and can recognize scanned-in notes.
• “Your brain is for thinking and not for remembering.” — Mystie Winkler (from the book Getting Things Done by David Allen)