What would happen if you simplified your life?
No, don't tell me you can't. You made it complex, you can make it simple. The choice--there's that word again--is entirely yours.
Here's an example of simplifying life: How often do you check e-mail? Personally, while working at My computer, I used to check it every 15 minutes. Now I check it every 3 hours. The difference? I gain about 30 minutes more time to work on higher-priority issues than spam, press releases and the very occasional urgent message.
A simple change in e-mail use simplified My life and I gained the benefit of better workflow. Why didn't I do it earlier? Because I bought into the myth of "always connected" as a definer of My work's value.
Stepping back to take a look at My life, I realized there were other areas I could simplify:
-- Less TV: I watched about 10 hours of TV a week; now it's down to 2. (Except for the World Baseball Classic games.)
-- Fewer newsletters: Dropped from 55-60 a week to 23.
-- Fewer bookmarks: I have over 6,000 bookmarks in Opera. Decluttering is a tension reliever, so I refiled over 5,300 of them to an archive file, keeping only the ones I'll use for writing. Doesn't seem like a big deal? I now own those 750 bookmarks as part of My work rather than being overwhelmed by clutter. (Try it in your home or office: you'll see what The Jenius means.)
-- Said "No" more often: Reduced My commitments so I'd have time for what I really want to do.
-- Discovered a website I'd bookmarked in October 2005: Live Simple. Created by John December, it is a very personal guide to simplifying one's life. (This is what I mean by "owning" a bookmark: I could now review it to My heart's content and gain new insights for My path.)
December's take is direct and blunt: simplifying your life is more than an option, it is a duty. Your health, your family, your relationships, your career--your very life--depend on eschewing complexity and embracing simplicity.
Take a trip through Live Simple and choose just one idea to implement in your life, like The Jenius did with his e-mail. You almost certainly will discover a horizon of benefits that you never knew, or wanted to believe, existed.
The Jenius Has Spoken.
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