How Kelly Mantoan, Mark Zuckerberg, and Steve Jobs changed the clothes I wear

I’m not even going to beat around the bush here, y’all. I’m over-scheduled and beyond frazzled. I sat down in Mass two weeks back and realized that I hadn’t spent a full day at home without leaving since well before Halloween. I wake up in the morning already running out the door, and lay down at night with thoughts of the next day’s to-do list dancing in my head.

I’m struggling to find time to do anything with my kids that’s not school, cleaning the house, or driving them somewhere. I dream of leisurely reading stories while snuggled on the couch in the pajamas we just got to wear and not change out of. I want to drag out the hated Play-Doh and spend an afternoon not caring that they’re mixing the colors!

I keep rearranging my schedule and looking for time hacks. I’d be thrilled with little savings of even half an hour. That seems like it would be HUGE right about now. A half hour would mean I could sing silly songs and blow soap bubbles with the littles during bath time instead of scrubbing them up, peeling the crusty booger out of the littlest one’s left nostril, drying them off, and pajama-ing them in record speed. We’ve become all about EFFICIENCY!!! here, and I hate it.

And prayer? Remember when I had time to say a rosary all in one sitting? Yeah. Me neither. It takes me all day to get through it.  (Shameless commercial break – which is why I use my rosary bracelet from Organic Mama’s Shop for all my praying needs. It keeps me on track and in fashion. Get yours today!)

I started praying about a way to simplify my life. Just one simple time saving step. That’s all I asked God for. Please show me one place that I can cut back.

Can I be real here and admit I was hoping He’d show me where I could cut back something I do for the kids? I’m driving them places All. the. Time. and am getting pretty ding-dong-dang tired of it. Instead, He stayed predictable and showed me one more place where I could save time by taking the focus off myself a little more. (Any time He’d like to ease up on this whole death-to-self thing, I’d be game for that.)

It began with a blog post by Kelly Mantoan about capsule wardrobes. The basic concept is that you pare down your wardrobe to the bare bones and learn to re-purpose and mix and match what you have to live bigger with less. I love the concept. The creativity required was crippling to me. The last thing I needed was one more place where brain power was required.

While I love some crazy accessories like a tiara made from cereal or a blingy turtle ring,

the imagination behind turning a t-shirt into a nifty dress is far more than I will ever want to be able to do.

Then I read this article on the uniform wardrobes of Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg, and  I thought to myself, “Self, this is a wardrobe trend made for overwhelmed, mentally fatigued, time challenged me.” (To be fair, Steve Jobs isn’t much worried about what he’s wearing right now, but it’s the concept that I’m going for.)

With Steve Jobs as my new style guru inspiration, I bought four identical long sleeve black t-shirts, and four charcoal gray ones (the wal-mart fitted tees for $7 were a lucky and unexpected find), and held onto my three pairs of jeans that fit just right.

Toss in a pair of Converse or a pair of sparkly Tom’s, and I had a new uniform.

For the past two weeks, this is all I’ve worn except on Sundays. (On Sundays, I put on a dress and heels and give what I’m wearing a little more oomph.) It was a small but noticeable change in my routine. I didn’t stand in front of my dresser in the morning deciding which shirt I felt like wearing. Since everything that wasn’t one of my two shirt styles of choice was boxed up in the corner, I simply grabbed a shirt, jeans, and black belt. I hadn’t realized how much time I spent picking clothes in the morning until it was gone. Just that one simple task was eating up 20-30 minutes of my morning by the time I had also decided on belt, shoes, and accessories.

The only two downsides I had envisioned were that either a) someone would call me on always looking the same, but they haven’t yet. Even the friend I’ve seen five times in the past two weeks hasn’t said a word (And believe me, she would. I’m not friends with people who wouldn’t say something if they’d noticed.) In fact, on Friday she told me how put together I’ve been looking lately, which is pretty much the opposite of “why the heck are you wearing the same darn thing every day.”

or b) I would get bored. That hasn’t happened yet. The sameness of it has been a relief.

It’s worked so well that I’m now looking for other places I can streamline into the same darn boring routine. I think meal planning may be next with a solid two week rotation and only allowing for improv on Sundays. The idea of not having to make the decisions is very appealing to me.

I can remember being eight and telling my mom that I couldn’t wait to be grown so that I could MAKE ALL THE DECISIONS!!! She laughed and told me that there are more choices to be made every day than an 8-year-old could imagine.

What do you know? My mom was right.

What she didn’t say was how exhausting that was, or how freeing it could be to pick a uniform and find a whole 30 minutes in my day! Thirty whole minutes to say a prayer and then write a blog post about how I’m dressing like a computer nerd because…. well, I’ll just let Mark Zuckerberg explain it to you.

That’s it. My time is up, and I’m running to get one of the kids from youth group. If I find more decisions I can decide not to make and save time doing it, I’ll let you know.