Simplify your life

Making the simple complicated is commonplace; making the complicated simple, awesomely simple, that’s creativity.
Charles Mingus

Today, we live in a world where we are overwhelmed, overworked, and flooded with media exposure, making things more complicated than they should be. Take cell phones for example; a device that was created to simplify and make your life more productive has done the exact opposite for many, but has become a necessity for daily life. But why look to simplicity when everyone else seems to run to more complex solutions?

Clear Mental Noise – Although our brains are capable of many remarkable things, studies have shown that our performance and productivity plummets when we multi-task. By simplifying our thoughts to the single task at hand, we are able to boost our performance and focus on the important details with more clarity.

Lower Stress – A nice byproduct of clearing out your mental noise is lower stress levels. Although high stress levels can be effectively battled with healthy eating, exercise, and good conversations, many people unfortunately tend to cope with stress in negative ways such as by skipping meals, eating junk food, drinking and cigarettes.

Lessen clutter – Clutter, that pile of mess that thrives on your desk, on your bed and everywhere else can be reduced or even eliminated by simplifying your needs. Do you really need to buy an extra pair of pants or the latest electronic gadget?

More Money in Your Savings Account – Simplifying your needs and lessening the amount of clutter you accumulate will translate into more money into your savings account.  This can also be a significant peace of mind when emergency strikes and you have to forgo income till things return to their normal state.

Less Time Cleaning and Maintaining – When we have a lot of ‘stuff’ we tend to take a lot more time cleaning and maintaining.  Do you have so much clothes that they tend to overflow from your closets and drawers? By simplifying and minimizing our needs we can effectively cut down on the time we require to clean and maintain which means more time for other things you enjoy doing.

More Time for YOU – By simplifying your life commitments, you’ll be able to have more time for yourself.  Do you want to learn a new instrument? A new language? Or to just relax and do nothing? You can do this and more with the extra time you gain from simplifying the things in life we tend to complicate.

Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication
Leonardo Da Vinci

Simplifying our life offers us many benefits that go beyond what I’ve outlined above and is something I have been working on to both improve productivity and sanity at the same time. Stay tuned for more on how to begin simplifying your life

Here are some great resources to help you get started in learning
about simplifying your life:

Mnmlist by Leo Babauta
The Minimalist Path by David Darmon

Photo by StefanosP

Got Minimalist?

Up until recently, I’ve never gave much thought to minimalism and how it could benefit my life.  Although growing up I was raised in a ‘mottainai‘ culture, I never connected its ideals with minimalism.  Stumbling across blogs such as mnmlist, aspects of minimalistic living resonated well with me and I began to implement the simple pieces of minimalism to my work and living space to great success.

I will be sharing the productivity boost I gained from applying minimalist principles to my workspace in a future post, but today I’d like to share a free eBook by Dave Damron the author of The Minimalist Path and LifeExcursion.

Click on image to to directly to the eBook page

Check it out as he discusses 7 ways you can apply minimalism into your life:

• Limit Excess – Do all that you can to limit the stuff in your life that takes up unnecessary time and/or space.
• Limit Clutter – Manage the few items you have by keeping them orderly.
• Minimalist Thinking – With whatever aspect of your life, ask yourself what action a minimalist would take. (excerpt)

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Photo by: Malkav