We can – with a little thought, an open mind, and a willingness to try a few simple simple changes – edit our needs to their essentials, revisit and reprioritize our values, then figure out how best to go on.
Elisabeth Sharp McKetta, Edit Your Life
An inspiring guide to focusing on what matters most in life—and hitting delete on what doesn’t.
Life is noisier, messier, and more complicated than ever. In our quest to keep up, we can lose sight of what we care about most, and instead try to do it all – with mixed results.
In this beautiful call to examine and edit our lives, writer Elisabeth Sharp McKetta shares eight simple ways to cut through the clutter, drama, and overwhelm of modern life to live with more intention and joy. Inspired by her own experiments with reprioritizing, tiny house living, and finding the right balance of work and family time, Edit Your Life brings together personal narrative and practical takeaway, with inspiring results.
Whether you’re pivoting, downsizing, relocating, or just ready to have more time and energy for the people and activities you love most, this engaging and practical guide will bring you on a journey of exploration and reflection – and point you toward the life you truly want to live.
Editing is an act of change, involving asking questions about what something currently is and what it should be. Whether it’s a book, a relationship, a kitchen, or a parenting philosophy, the principles of editing remain the same. The term “life-edit” signifies the application of these principles to life.
Editing is a skill that helps us see things clearly and involves looking and looking again, exploring skills that transcend the specifics of individual lives. Use life-editing principles to rethink how you spend your time, regardless of the circumstances. Reflect on your own life, acknowledging that while the details may vary, everyone is striving to live a life that is worthy of them.
Life often undergoes involuntary edits due to external or internal changes, including both gain and loss. Crisis situations force people to reevaluate their lives. However, proactive life-editing is a way to take an active role in shaping one’s life around what matters most. It encourages clarity, grit, self-respect, resourcefulness, and joy in this quest.
The best time to edit is not just in response to crises but whenever one’s life feels out of alignment. Waiting to edit carries the risk of regret, as one may wish for a different life. It also leads to disengagement, reducing life to a checklist of tasks, resulting in a sense of claustrophobia and guilt for neglecting essential aspects.
Regardless of when and where you are in life, the time to edit is now, especially if you are contemplating how to make your life better.
Here are some life editing guidelines from author Elisabeth Sharp McKetta, each a chapter in her book:
Examine Your Life – A framework for looking with fresh eyes at your ordinary days: to understand what your life needs to be and to edit in the right direction, without accidentally changing something that works well.
- Ask: What is it? Looking closely
- Ask: What could it be? Identifying the moonshot
- Ask: What is needed? Claiming what’s necessary and discarding what’s not
Edit Your Life – Avenues for making lasting changes according to what feels right and true to your life today, whether you are editing for clarity and ease, for growth, or for a greater sense of abundance.
- Edit for clarity: Setting guardrails with love
- Edit for growth: Respecting the seasons
- Edit for generosity: Adding to the green
Enjoy Your Life – Simple ways to enjoy the ordinary days and accept the exceptions: to trust that eating time is over for this particular season, and to feel content with your here and how.
- Enjoy the Ordinary Days: Organizing in orbits
- Accept the Exceptions: Leaving margins and keeping perspectives
Editing paves a way for you to connect deeply with yourself and the choices you have made. Editing ensures self-trust: that you will not regret the part you played in your own life.
Elisabeth Sharp McKetta
Part of a regular series on 27gen, entitled Wednesday Weekly Reader
During my elementary school years one of the things I looked forward to the most was the delivery of “My Weekly Reader,” a weekly educational magazine designed for children and containing news-based, current events.
It became a regular part of my love for reading, and helped develop my curiosity about the world around us.
27gen.com 