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Want a clean house without spending all day cleaning? It is possible! We just need a good house cleaning routine that works for our lives.
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.
Hi. I'm Misty Winkler, and you're listening to episode number 114. Welcome to the Simply Convivial podcast. Short but meaty focus sessions to help you keep your head in the game as you manage your home. Simply, according to the dictionary, means done in a straightforward or plain and uncomplicated manner.
Speaker 1:And Convivial, according to the dictionary, means cheerful, friendly, jovial. When we keep things simple, we find it easier to be more cheerful because our priorities are in order and our attention is where it belongs, on the people and the process, not the results. Let's be simply convivial in our homemaking. Shall we? This month's topic inside Convivial Circle and here on the podcast is procedure checklists.
Speaker 1:When it's hard to get started because there's too much to do, a procedure checklist is the shortcut to momentum that you need. This episode is an excerpt from a member only mentoring session that we did back in April when we were working through Sweep and Smile. It's about bite sized routines and bite sized routines definitely need a procedure checklist. We're actually just about to start another live run of Sweep and Smile as of October 25th. So if you hop on now, you can implement these strategies right away.
Speaker 1:But for now, let's think about how small routines serve us in our housework more than cleaning frenzies. Let's dig in.
Speaker 2:Who wants a routine that's just a bite sized one? Or maybe a better question would be, who sets up routines that are in no way bite sized? I think that tends to be my tendency, and I know it's a tendency for a lot of us that enjoy planning, that want to do better, and, you know, that that are trying to make improvements. Unfortunately, also usually trying to find the one right way or set up the final once and all once and for all solution. But, what we really need are routines that are bite sized, that are just baby step routines that we can actually manage to do, that we, that we can do without it being an internal, fight or fuss over getting started.
Speaker 2:Because a lot of times just getting started on that routine is one of the biggest hurdles. And when our routines are bite sized, that helps us get going on them sooner. It is it's it is hard to be satisfied with small routines, but, really, just getting started is the best way to make, forward momentum progress. And so when we can always stack the routines up. But unless we start small, we tend to fall into the boom and bust cycle, where we might shoot ahead and get a whole lot done or make a big strides in progress, but then out the window, it all goes because it's actually not maintainable, whatever pace we just set for ourselves.
Speaker 2:So instead of looking for the the big jump, the leap forward, we need to break it down into steps that are bite sized, and that forces us to prioritize. That forces us to really look at all the things that we think we ought to do and zoom in on which of those are actually critical. Because if we focus in on those most important, most effective prioritized tasks and making those routines, it's kind of like the 80 20 principle, right, where you get the most you choose those things that you get the most result, the most impact, but that's not everything. So when we limit the routines that we set to a certain number of tasks, like 3 or a certain amount of time, like 15, that is one way to kind of trick ourselves into prioritizing and into seeing what will make the biggest difference here, and just jumping in and doing that instead of thinking about all the things that we could possibly do and just starting in this corner with this one random thing because it's one of the many thousands of things we could do. But, really, instead of stepping back and looking and saying, okay.
Speaker 2:If I only have 15 minutes, what would I do? Usually, we can see something that will have high impact. So, that is, of course, how Sweep and Smile is set up. Sweep and Smile is not about getting to the final goal of a clean house. It's about figuring out what those priority action items are for keeping your house functional, which is a little bit different than perfectly cleaned and orderly and maintained.
Speaker 2:Oh, I can whine in 15 minutes. Yeah. There's a a quote in the chat Rachel dropped from fly fly lady. You can do anything in 15 minutes but whine. But if that's a command, then that works, but totally possible for me to spend 15 minutes whining, in my own head about what I need to do.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, so Sweep and Smile, of course, is set up to, yeah, sweep and smile is set up to focus in on those high impact actions that then make the biggest difference in our house and keep things functional, that keep up maintenance. And maintenance, of course, means the the fight against entropy. Maintenance is actually the pace or the tasks at which you will stay where you are. It's your expectations that have to be adjusted to reality, though, because it's true. Maintaining is not getting you anywhere.
Speaker 2:Maintaining is keeping you where you are at. So if things are kind of chaotic, you can start to maintaining, and that's just gonna keep you at about somewhat chaotic instead of crazy chaotic. But the thing is that we do have to change our mentality and our expectations around that and realize that that might not feel like progress, like getting anywhere, like making a visible difference in the house, but it is progress in ourselves. It's progress in our skills. It's progress in our routines, and it will make a difference as we then add on even 15 minutes a day to decluttering, or sorting, or cleaning.
Speaker 2:When we have a maintenance routine in place, then any extra work we do for cleaning is more likely to be kept up with, we are more likely to keep up with it. So don't see the routines not getting you anywhere as a negative, and don't tell yourself that it's not true either. Like, no. These if you're thinking that you're doing it wrong because the maintenance routines don't feel like they're getting you anywhere. The maintenance routines are there to keep you from getting farther behind.
Speaker 2:They are doing their job. You are doing your job if they are keeping you in place. Not getting behind is a great place to start, and it doesn't actually take that much on top of keeping up with maintenance to start seeing seeds of progress.
Speaker 1:And that's it for this episode of the Simply Convivial podcast. Imagine ending your day satisfied instead of frustrated, even when your lists are not all checked off. Inside the Simply Convivial circle, you'll get direction, community, and mentorship that will help you focus on self control rather than situation control. After all, organization is mostly about managing yourself. So that's where we start.
Speaker 1:Then, you can handle life with a smile instead of stress. Simply Convivial provides the guidance and accountability that you need to organize your attitude so you can organize your life. To help you get started with a morning jump start procedure list, I have a free guide that you can find at the show notes for today's episode. Just go to simply convivial.com slash checklist. Remember, life is for our sanctification, for God's glory, and not our own.
Speaker 1:So every day, let's repent, rejoice, repeat.