THE HILARY HENINGER

I work from home a few days a week. I work my side hustle almost exclusively from home. Sometimes I work at the kitchen table. Sometimes in an armchair in my living room. Sometimes at my make shift desk that I have set up in the middle of other spaces (my living room, family room, etc). . . It varies based on my mood and household activity and is largely dependent on the day.

I have walked past a spare room in my house for almost an entire year (since my oldest moved his room to the basement).

I am embarrassed to admit that it has become like my junk drawer.

My love affair with artwork hides beneath the reality of not enough wall space. Boxes of cabinets wistfully remind me of long lost renovation plans I made for our basement. A random Christmas arrangement from my front step sits in holiday purgatory. All of the rejected items from my daughters HGTV inspired bedroom makeovers are housed where the theme seems to be ‘everything must go’…somewhere else.

A friend of mine often says ‘You have to get 80% sorted in your life to function properly”. It has always stuck with me.

It doesn’t mean that you have to get 80% of your life perfect or great. It also doesn’t mean you have to get the answer ‘right’ 80% of the time (ie. the right job, the right partner, make the right decision, etc).

Here’s the thing – the 80% isn’t what you think it is. It’s actually nothing terribly profound or earth shattering. It’s the classic idiom of, we have to walk before we can run. While I appreciate that everyone will define this somewhat differently – I imagine there are more similarities than differences in the components we can all agree on.

So what do I mean when I say you have to get your life 80% functional?

Simple – it’s the building blocks. The everyday pieces that you unknowingly rely on ‘to work’ so that you can spend your time figuring out the rest. It means that there are enough things that will randomly ‘come up’ that will overwhelm or test you in your everyday – migraines, sick kids, challenging co workers, family dynamics, financial surprises, even weather or technology – you don’t need to add to this with the basic components of functional living.

In addition, I have learned that it is hard to listen to what is authentic and aligned for me when I feel overwhelmed. In fact, everything feels hard when I am overwhelmed. I imagine I am not alone in this experience.

Admittedly, life can feel overwhelming. This is the reality.

So when we survey the building blocks, we are talking about:

• your vehicle/transportation
• your home in function, space, utility
• your systems; ie. ability to keep track of and find things
• your awareness for what you need to be/feel prepared and not in chaos (nervous system awareness is my litmus test for these)

It’s a reliable, reasonably tidy vehicle. It’s a house that functions better for how my family uses it with half as many things in it and one more laundry basket than I think I need. It’s a spot for my keys where I know they go every time I come home, my purse being cleaned out regularly, scheduled weekly grocery trips (or instacart), buying my son a monthly bus pass so I don’t have to scrounge for change weekday mornings, enough charging cords so that I don’t have to listen to the bicker of teenage squabbles and buying more than enough toilet paper so we aren’t (literally) living on the edge with every square used (funny not funny, and also something I have been guilty of). It’s the sacrifice of having a cleaning lady once a month so at one point in time, even if for only an hour, my body can feel relaxed and peaceful.

It’s wild to think that so many small, and in some cases insignificant things, can add up to so much stress and overwhelm, like the straw that broke the camel’s back. Regardless of which scenario you take, by the time one of these things is out of whack or missing I am already feeling defeated, overwhelmed and frustrated. And that’s before the wrench of life has been thrown into my day. The difference between realizing we have no food in the house and knowing my groceries will be replenished in 2 days make a massive difference to my nervous system and mindset so why would I ignore that?

So here I was floating my office between multiple defunct spaces, collecting chaos in a space that stressed me out to look at, reminders of plans I had not followed through on, planning all of my meetings before my kids got home or on school days (for fear of Ramen hour happening in the kitchen at the same time, ie. my office) and wondering why I was feeling overwhelm.

The mental resistance is strong some days. Today my awareness was stronger.

I spent the afternoon hanging artwork, cleaning and organizing, returning cabinets (the refund was a bonus!), and setting up a space that honored both my physical and mental needs. It might sound weird to say but I feel deeply capable and true to myself when I have accomplished things like this. I feel prepared, organized, mentally lighter and like a tiny weight has been lifted off of me. Funny how we wait so long to do some of the things that we need the most – like spaces that function for us.

So whatever it is that your 80% looks like – front entry organization, an ample toilet paper supply, a dedicated phone charger in your car, an AMA membership for ‘mental insurance’ to address automobile anxiety, or a dedicated office space. . . I don’t know what it looks like for you – but trust me when I say – knowing your 80% and getting it functional has truly been a game changer for me in living consciously so that the rest of what life has to throw at me (this week it was a barfing kid, a dog that knocked the garbage everywhere and taking my kids to snowboarding only to discover they had left their boards at home) derails me a little bit less.

PS: I wrote this post from my newly set up/organized office and with (not from!) my bathrooms which are currently overflowing with spare toilet paper rolls!