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Christian homemakers need encouragement and motivation to stay the course. Homemaking and homeschooling can feel overwhelming, but they don’t have to be. If you’re a Christian mom longing for a well-ordered home, a peaceful homeschool, and a joyful heart—without the stress or burnout—you’re in the right place. Moms can be productive and peaceful when grounded in Scriptural truth.
I’m Mystie Winckler, homeschooling mom of five, founder of Simply Convivial, and your guide to managing both home and heart with faith and focus. Here, we talk about biblical homemaking, sustainable homeschooling, and cheerful productivity—all through the lens of organizing your attitude and embracing your God-given calling.
In each episode, you’ll find practical homemaking systems, homeschooling strategies, and mindset shifts that will help you manage your home without perfectionism or frustration. We’ll tackle topics like:
✔️ Christian homemaking routines that actually work
✔️ Productivity, mom-style
✔️ Homeschooling with peace—even when life gets messy
✔️ Time management for moms (without rigid schedules)
✔️ Decluttering your home & your attitude
✔️ How to be diligent, not just busy
Motherhood is a marathon, not a sprint. You don’t need more willpower—you need a grace-filled, biblical approach to managing life at home. Let’s cultivate faithfulness, embrace joy, and build habits that make home a place of peace and purpose.
👉 Subscribe now and start organizing your home and heart—cheerfully.
Speaker: All right.
I'm just trying something new here.
I have podcast episodes to record,
and I thought, why not just do it as
a YouTube Live instead of recording?
Now, when I record podcast
episodes, I do usually edit.
My daughter edits my podcast for me, and
she tells me that I have very awkward,
weird pauses, and that is something
I'm getting better at and overcoming.
But one way that I over- need to overcome
it is by just doing it and putting
things out there and not editing.
So thank you so much for joining me today.
Today, we're gonna talk about slow living,
um, and what we really want when we're
attracted to the slow living message.
It's a thing out there, right?
There are YouTube videos, there are
books, there are blog posts, there are
probably whole Instagram accounts, I
don't even know, on slow living, and
they're appealing and they're attractive.
Maybe because it feels impossible for us.
Um, but we don'tâ¦
We need to know what's underneath
that root of feeling attracted
to the slow living message.
Why does that feel so
appealing and attractive to us?
Are we too busy?
Are we doing too many things?
Or are we actually just frazzled
by not very many things?
Like, it can actually be
both at the same time.
We can be frazzled and frayed and feel
like our capacity is just at the limit.
We can't do anything more.
We're too busy, while we're actually
hardly doing anything at all.
And that's especially easy today
because our perspective and our sense
of reality is so easily distorted.
Um, this came home to me a, a couple,
I guess it was a couple months ago now.
I was talking to my daughter, uh,
my 18-year-old daughter, who edits
my podcasts for me, and I was
kind of giving her carte blanche.
I'm like, "If you want to try out
editing techniques or whatever on
my YouTube videos, like, I'm game.
Like, if you can make me look
better or seem better, like, try it.
You can, you can do that."
And so she started looking and watching,
uh, YouTube videos on homemaking to
kinda see what other people were doing,
and she, uh, was just cracking up.
We got together for coffee, and she
was showing me some of the videos
that she watched and just laughing,
imagining me trying to do them.
It was a little bit humbling, but
that's what teenage daughters are for.
So, uh, you know, I'm sure you've
probably seen these videos, pr- probably
reels on Instagram, YouTube videos,
where there's soft music playing in the
background and you're watching someone
sweep You're watching the lady hand-knead
her bread, and it takes so long.
But she's doing it calmly, and she's
maybe talking in a very soothing
manner, and there's soothing music.
It's all very soothing.
Uh, one of the videos that
my daughter showed me, um,
the lady was making her bed.
And so it's like three or four
minutes of every layer of making
the bed, and everything, of course,
is beautiful and soft and beige.
And then my daughter's like, "Wait for it.
Wait for it."
She puts the throw thing on, and her
cat jumps up, and my daughter's like,
"Look, her cat matches her bed."
Like, her cat is part
of her aesthetic choice.
And we were laughing because that is
just not our house and not our home.
Uh, thatâ¦
Well, I mean, there wouldn't be a
cat jumping on the bed, for sure.
But, um, yeah, achieving an aesthetic
is not, um, something I'm capable
of doing, even if I wanted to do.
Um, and so my daughter was
basically telling me, like,
um, I, I can't be a YouTuber.
This is what YouTubers ⦠I'm
like, "Well, I'm just gonna put
up words anywhere, and people
can take it or leave it."
Um, but one thingâ¦
She, she made this comment as we were
watching these videos of ladies just
very slowly and deliberately doing,
you know, very mundane things very
slowly Um, in a very aesthetically.
She said, "This is how I
imagine setting up my home.
This is, like, what I want.
I know that it's not gonna happen.
I know that that's not what life
is gonna be like or what my home is
going to be like, but this is what
I imagine it could be like, and,
and I would like it to be that way.
And so since I can't have it, it's
kind of fun to watch the YouTube
video of someone else doing it."
And I thought that was just so insightful.
And that is why it's appealing.
And the real trick, I mean, the real
problem, what's actually happening
when we're watching those videos,
wherever they pop up in our feeds,
when we watch those videos of the just
absolutely beautiful home, nothing
out of place, everything matches
you know, if the children end up
interrupting, it's cute and they're
wearing linen It's not only setting
us up for false expectations of
what our goals ought to be, it
is also Taking our time, right?
I mean, obviously, we'reâ¦
But when we watch someone else do
work, and we are just sitting watching
them, we actually get a little--
we feel like we've done something.
We get a little bit of payoff.
We're imagining ourselves living
their life while we're watching
them, when we're actually doing
nothing at all in our real life.
And then, you know, we put the
phone down, shut the laptop, look
around, and now our home feels
and looks worse than it really is.
Because we're comparing not only to
the aesthetic, but also to the feel.
That feeling that we got while we watched
her do her work is not at all like
actually sweeping or washing the dishes.
And so then we're less satisfied
with our own lives and our own work.
And so th-that kind of slow-living message
that's very attractive, um, very appealing
to us, ends up taking us out of the game.
It's the wrong kind of slow
So we're slow or those videos
are slow to be soothing because
we feel like we need soothing.
We need comfort.
We are looking to feel more calm.
And so we're getting it from
these slow living messages.
And, you know, the answer usually
for, for those kinds of messages
are like, do less, just cut back.
Um
Don't leave your house, or,
you know, well, you should
just hand-knead your dough.
And if youâ¦
Like, sometimes that's totally
fine, but that's not the kind of
message that we see in scripture.
We see abound in good works.
We see be zealous for good works.
These are, like, energy-type
words, not calm words
But that calmness is hitting us in
a particular way because our souls
and our minds and our attention
is so scattered and so, um, frayed
and we feel like we're frenzy.
And so it sounds like the right answer
And so then busy becomes the enemy or,
and busy is equated with, you know,
hurry becomes an associated bad word.
Um, and there is a sense where you
don't want to be so rushed that you
are not only stressed yourself, but
stressing out everyone around you.
But the way to achieve that kind of not
hurried approach to life doesn't mean
that you can't, you can do the bare
minimum, cut back to the bare minimum.
Um You can be busy and do a lot
of things without being stressed.
And cutting back all your responsibilities
is not the answer to removing stress.
That's the easy answer.
It sounds like it's workable, but that
message is taking us out of the game.
That temptation is taking
us out of the game.
It's the wrong kind of slow.
We're imitating a fake version.
S- so, you know, it's just a video.
It's, uh, put together
with the calming music.
Maybe you should try
playing calming music.
You could try that m- that
much, even if the h- everything
in the house isn't beige.
Um, and You're also getting that payoff
for doing work by watching other people
work and not going and doing things.
But getting up even for 10 minutes
and making progress on your dishes
or just putting things away for 10
minutes builds energy and momentum,
and then we feel more capable, and
we start to get that energy flowing.
And then we don't need, uh, the
coping mechanism of, um, just watching
videos of other people working because
we're guilty that we aren't working,
and that's al- often what it is.
And so we can do a lot of things.
We can get our work done at home.
We can make meals for
people and take them.
We can have our kids in activities
and drive them around town.
We can homeschool multiple
grades at the same time.
We can have a lot on our
plate and be actually busy.
We can abound in good works and
be zealous for those good works.
We can get after it
Without being stressed out.
And often when we're stressed out, we're
probably not as busy as we think we are.
So how do we do that?
We need to do what we're doing.
We need to know what our
responsibilities are.
We need to be prayerfully seeking
what we should be doing and how we
should be spending our time, and being
aware of how we're spending our time.
And not only how we're spending our
time in our work, but also how we're
spending our time in our thoughts, right?
What are we paying attention to,
and who are we paying attention to?
That will make a difference in your
interpretation of your real life.
That's what's going on in your
life, and how you are judging your
opportunities and your, uh, approach.
Uh, your expectations will be
set by who you are listening to.
And if you are parenting, teaching, doing
housework, running errands, planning
all the things, making the food, and
you're doing those things while your
brain is fretting Where you're worried,
you're comparing, you're anxious, you
are holding a million things in your
head while also listening to someone else
talk kind of and doing this other thing,
that's where we get to that frayed mental
state where we check out and need toâ¦
and feel attracted to lies about life and
ourselves and what we need, where the, the
calming effect, um, feels like the answer.
Because in our hearts and our
heads, we are all over the place,
not aware, not integrated, not
attentive to what really matters.
So, uh, when we have our minds in a
million places and someone's talking
to us, then suddenly, like we've all,
all felt that way, of like that's
the straw that breaks the camel's
back, and now we just fall to pieces.
Something happens and we fall to pieces
because we were in too many places in our
own heads and some of those places were
lies Um, we're trying to hold information
in our heads instead of having it written
down and just doing what's in front of us.
We are full of guilt for not doing
what we need to be doing, and so
we're, and we're trying to ignore
the guilt, and it comes and attacks
us in, in different and weird ways.
So these things wear us down
and take us out of the game.
We can do a lot of good works in our home.
We can be busy.
We can get our work done.
I mean, it's not gonna ever be done.
We can do our work and be satisfied in
what we are doing, even if it's never
finished, 'cause there's going to be
another load of laundry, another meal.
These are good things.
That's not frustrating.
We can learn to love what must be done
And we can abound in good works and be
zealous for good works without succumbing
to stress and hurry and rushing when we
are engaged in the work and in where we
are, when we are certain of our calling
and we're not second-guessing ourself, and
we aren't comparing ourself, when we are
attentive to what we're doing and where
we're, where we are from thing to thing.
You know, I, I actually didn't count.
I don't know how many things I have on my
calendar for today, but it is quite a few.
But I'm not thinking about what's next.
I'm here where I'm at.
Um, when this is over or if a kid comes
in and talks to me or whatever, like, the
laptop goes down or the phone goes down
and I'm paying attention to the person
talking to me, and I'm where I'm at.
And then the next thing comes, and
that's why I have calendar reminders
and alarms and things to pull me to
the next thing at the right time.
Because when we're engaged in what we're
doing and when we're paying attention
to the person talking to us and not
somewhere else in our heads, then it's
possible to be calm and attentive and,
and that's not a stressful way to live.
See?
There's a, there's a
little beep right there.
I've got 10 minutes to the next thing.
And we could just-- we can do that.
It's only stressful when we are worried
about something or guilty about something.
And so we need to get to the root
of the guilt or the worry and deal
with that before God and with our
husband's help to figure things out
It's underlying guilt and worry that
takes us out of the game, makes us
think that cutting things is the only
solution, and that ends up making those
videos of an unrealistic, unattainable
life feel soothing and calming.
It's a coping mechanism.
It's anoth- and it's taking us
out of the game 'cause then we're
getting that payoff of housework
without actually doing our own.
Now, I have heard some people turn
one of those on, and then they're
h- doing their housework with that.
Like That's fine if it's
like background music.
But if you're sitting on the
couch watching someone else
sweep instead of sweeping Like,
maybe you shouldn't do that.
That's not helping you because I
bet that's not helping you love your
broom and floors more, actually.
It's you're imagining yourself
living that life instead of being
engaged in the life that you've been
given and the life that you have.
So watch out for comparison, for stress,
for feeling scattered and drawn in
a million directions because you're
letting a million different people
talk into your life and pull- and tell
you you should be like this or like
that or cut everything or, you know.
Brain dump, write things down, get
things out of your head, talk to
your husband about them, pray about
them, and then make a daily card.
Do 15 minutes, do 10 minutes.
Get up and do something.
Pay attention to your own life,
and know that God is with you and
equips you to help you do what you
are called to do without stress,
without worry, without guilt.
That's possible, and that's why we
need to repent, rejoice, repeat.
If we notice guilt, if we notice
laziness, we don't excuse it or deny it.
We confess it, and we get forgiveness,
and we move on and do the next thing.
We then can rejoice in obedience and
be grateful for the work in front of
us because it's given to us by God.
That's how we learn to love it.
And then that is just
the repetition of life.
All right.
Thank you so much for joining me live.
We'll see, I might try this a few more
times, just kind of experimenting with
what's possible and how it all works.
So, um, l- yes, I appreciate this,
and we'll ⦠I can't promise
I'll do it again, but we'll see.
Thank you, everyone.