[2021-05-07] Simplify your life

As a follow-up to last night's post MITs and other habits, this article shares additional tips for simplifying your life based on the book The Power of Less: The Fine Art of Limiting Yourself to the Essential...in Business and in Life. Author and blogger Leo Babauta makes suggestions for how to streamline goals, tasks, time management, email, internet access, filing, commitments, and health and fitness.

Simple goals
Because "Tackling a goal takes energy and focus and motivation, three things that are in limited supply in any person, no matter how driven," Babauta recommends that you focus on one goal at a time. He continues: "Taking on many goals at once spreads out your available energy and focus and motivation, so that you often run out of steam after the initial couple of weeks of enthusiasm." In choosing goals, Babauta suggests that you select ones that will take six months to a year to complete. Identify actions that will move you to your goal, and add at least one to your daily MITs (Most Important Tasks).

Simple tasks
Among Babauta's rules for simplifying tasks are these two: (1) Focus on only one task at a time; avoid multitasking, which leads to more stress and errors. (2) If you find yourself procrastinating on an important task, break it into smaller pieces and get started. (Think the Zeigarnik effect.)

Simple time management
One way to make the best use of time is to achieve flow, that feeling of getting caught up in a task. To reach a state of flow, choose a task that you're passionate about and that's challenging, eliminate distractions and immerse yourself in the task. "While you're working on your task, you'll think of other things you need to do, or be interrupted by a coworker with a request, or an idea will pop into your head," writes Babauta. "Instead of switching tasks, just make a note of other tasks or ideas as they come up, to consider for later." Among the biggest thieves of time are email and meetings. Babauta recommends that you do these in batches, if you can, to allow for longer blocks of time to devote to priority tasks and projects.

Simple email
Babauta cautions: "If you spend all of your day in e-mail, or going back to e-mail and checking for new messages, you'll never get much else done. Instead, make the decision to only check e-mail at predetermined times, and leave it alone for the rest of the day―that will allow you to work on more important stuff." While this may not be practical for work emails (I know that it wouldn't have been for me), it may still be worth considering for personal emails. Babauta's next suggestion, however, could be applied to most emails―work or personal. "Another key to spending less time in e-mail but making the most of every e-mail you send is to write short but powerful e-mails," he contends. "I limit myself to five sentences for each reply (at the maximum―many replies are even shorter). That forces me to be concise and to choose only the essentials of what I want to say, and limits the time I spend replying to e-mail."

Simple internet access
To increase your productivity, writes Babauta, disconnect from the internet. "Consider having an 'offline hour' each day when you regularly work while disconnected. Or even an 'offline day' if you think you can do it." (While I don't disconnect from the internet while writing my daily blog post because I often need to look up some fact or another, I do informally disconnect from non-essential internet content, including social media, when I'm in the throes of the drafting process; this has proven to be very effective.)

Simple filing
To reduce paper clutter, Babauta advises that you create one mail centre in your home to deal with incoming mail and paperwork. Eliminate what's not needed and file the rest in a single drawer (to keep your files from growing without limits). Over time, further reduce your need for paper. Some documents can be scanned and stored online. Sign up for paperless billing and access your accounts online or via apps. Avoid printing stuff, which becomes paper you need to manage.

Simple commitments
"If there's one change that you could make today that would have the biggest impact on your life in terms of productivity, effectiveness, and being able to do the things you want to do, it would be to reduce the commitments in your life," asserts Babauta. "With that one change, you could free up the time you need to focus on the important work and to achieve the things you want to achieve." This could include working on projects you're passionate about, exercising, reading, or spending time with loved ones. To determine which commitments to keep and which to eliminate, take an inventory of your engagements. "Now take a close look at each thing on the list and ask yourself: How does this give my life value? How important is it to me? Is it in line with my life priorities and values? How would it affect my life if I dropped out? Does this further my life goals?" Babauta recommends that you start with something small to eliminate rather than going on a crash diet. "Look for the thing that gives you the least return for your invested time and effort. That thing that's least in line with your life values and priorities and goals." Send your regrets and don't leave any room for negotiation; you could tell the person, truthfully, that you're trying to cut back on your commitments because you've been overloaded. Then replace the eliminated appointment with a task tied to one of your goals. Rinse and repeat.

Simple health and fitness
To form the exercise habit, start light. For example, commit to doing 10 minutes of brisk walking three times during the first week. Add 5 more minutes per workout each week and one additional workout every other week so that by the end of the month, you're doing 20 to 25 minutes of walking―or other preferred exercise―five times per week. Pick a time to exercise when nothing else will interfere and try not to skip a day. "If you start skipping workouts," Babauta insists, "you will soon make a habit of not exercising." Find an exercise partner (my exercise buddy is a good audiobook). Be accountable to others by committing publicly to your exercise goal. To improve your eating habits, eat when you're lightly hungry, choose light foods, eat slowly, stop when you're lightly full.

In addition to his guidance for simplifying various aspects of your life, Babauta provides eight tips for motivating yourself:
  1. Start small.... Start out with a ridiculously easy goal, and then grow from there.
  2. [Choose] One goal.... You have to choose one goal, for now, and focus on it completely.
  3. Examine your motivation. Know your reasons. Give them some thought...and write them down.
  4. Really, really want it.... It has to be something you're passionate about, something you're super excited about, something you want deeply.
  5. Commit publicly. None of us likes to look bad in front of others. We will go the extra mile to do something we've said publicly.
  6. Get excited.... I've learned that by talking to my wife about it, and to others, and reading as much about it as possible, and visualizing what it would be like to be successful (seeing the benefits of the goal in my head), I get excited about a goal.
  7. Build anticipation.... Set a date in the future―a week or two, or even a month―and make that your Start Date. Mark it on the calendar. Get excited about that date. Make it the most important date in your life.
  8. Print it out, post it up. Print out your goal in big words. Make your goal just a few words long, like a mantra ("Exercise 15 mins. Daily"), and post it up on your wall or refrigerator.

I often need to hear something several times (such as "you might like having a coach" or "you might like meditating") before I'll act on it. I often see repeated advice as the universe's way of telling me that I really should give something a try. Beyond Babauta's advice for motivation, I have found that apps are especially helpful for reminding me of goals I have set for myself (such as Plant Nanny, which prompts me to drink at least eight glasses of water or other liquid per day) or for tracking my progress (such as Fitbit, which tracks my steps and other measures and sends me weekly progress reports). Also, having a routine (such as going for a walk immediately after breakfast) is crucial to my achieving my goals. I don't debate whether or not to go for a walk; I just get on with it because it's part of my routine. Simple!