You Simplified Handbook - 20103

You, Simplified
Handbook for a Simpler Life

By Charley Forness yousimplified.net
http://www.yousimplified.net
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Table of Contents
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DISCLAIMER
Sorry, but I have to say this...I am not a physician. I am not a certified financial planner am not a professional organizer. I am merely another spiritual traveler on this human plane. I've tried everything in this book and it has worked marvelously for me. Just understand that the information in this book is meant for entertainment purposes only and should not be considered financial or health advice. I share it with you so that you may pick and choose the parts that resonate with you. I am not a guru of any sort. I have my own daily obstacles that I do my best to attack diligently. The bottom line is that you are the one person in the World who knows you best. You are a certified expert on yourself and your life. As always, consult your physician before engaging in any new diet or exercise routine. PUBLISHED BY SCRIBE FOR THE TRIBE PUBLISHING Uncopyright 2010 by Charley Forness All Rights Surrendered
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Introduction
I put together this little book for myself and any other readers like me whove longed for a more meaningful life, outside the wheel that most of us find ourselves running on each day. I believe that life should be enjoyable and that we shouldnt be dreading each day as we wake. There are ways to design the life you want. There are ways to clear the distractions so that you have the energy and resources to create the life you want. So, What's in the Book? There are five major sections of the book, in order as follows 1. Life Design 101 Cleaning things up just for cleaning sake may help a bit with your sanity but the fact is that you'll fill up the empty space again unless you know what you want, exactly. This is the highly introspective part of the book, and being quite personal, you may have to work at one of the toughest concepts known to humans...being honest with yourself. It may be that you fill up your home and your time with mindless things because it helps keep your mind off what's really troubling you...you yearn to lead a more authentic life. We'll dig in here with some tools you can use to design your ideal life, and make it seem real to you as you learn to grow into this new role.
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2. Simplify Your Stuff There really is quite a disparity in modern times between what most of us think we need to live and thrive versus what we actually need. We often can get by on much less that we currently have and we find that it's much more manageable to care for our things that way. This section will help define your possessions based on what you've determined in the first Essential Area. I won't tell you what you have to get rid of, that can only be determined by you, but you'll get the techniques you need to make this process as simple as possible. 3. Simplify Your Commitments Everybody has twenty-four hours in a day and time is your most precious capital. During these lessons you'll assess how your spending your twenty-four hours and learn to align your tasks with your goals and values. You'll find that there are a lot of activities that don't really help you accomplish your goals. Like a master surgeon, you will cut away the tasks that don't serve you. 4. Simplify Your Health It does you no good to design a new life if you're not healthy enough to enjoy it. Of course, all of these concepts interlock, synergistically, so if you have little time and no equipment to work on your health, well I've got some simple health hacks for you to give you all the functional strength you need.
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5. Simplify Your Finances The steps to control your finances are actually quite easy. The follow through and perseverance can be quite a different story. Finance can be quite scary, and there are many financial pundits who paint it that way on purpose. If you make something complex, you create a need out there for experts to be able to help the common folks like you and I. So, without further ado, lets get started.
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Life Design 101
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What Do you Want? Seems like an odd place to start. Were trying to simplify our lives, right? Not complicate things with all this introspection. Its pretty easy to identify what we dont want. I dont want my house to be cluttered, I dont want to always be searching for my keys and my wallet. I dont want to feel so tired and sick all the time. I dont want to keep running out of money before the end of the month. I dont want to feel like Im always rushing around from one thing to another, always bumping up against the clock. Okay, but what do you want? This is hardcore life design and you are the architect. That power can be enlightening, or it can be frightening. It means that, unfortunately, you have to take responsibility for where you are now in life. Yes, I understand that you may be a victim of a tragedy that you had no control ofIm not trying to diminish that. Im talking about the everyday decisions that we made a month ago or a year ago or a decade ago, they define our reality today. Thats the bad news. The good news is that you can choose to make new decisions today which will drive your new reality for tomorrow. Five years from now you can sit there with your new, totally awesome life and look back on all of the decisions that were made to help bring this about. And thats a really great place to start.
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Why five years instead of one? Anthony Robbins made an excellent observation several years ago in which, paraphrasing, he stated that we generally over-estimate what can be accomplished in one year, and underestimate what can be accomplished in five. With that being said, lets look at our lives five years from now and decide what we want our lives to be like. It helps to write out this new life in a journal. Some people like picture boards better, and thats fine. Pick your favorite medium and really sit down, for a couple of hours or more, uninterrupted and work out your ideal life. What do you do for money? What tasks do you do in your day job (if you have a job)? What kind of business do you run (if you run a business)? Where do you live? Describe the climate, the neighborhood, your neighbors. What does your home look like, inside and out? What kind of vehicle do you drive? What kind of things do you own? What are your relationships like? Who are your friends? Describe their lives as well. What do you do in your free time? What do you do for entertainment? What do you do to relax? What do you do for exercise?
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What do you look like? What clothing do you wear? Are you at your ideal weight? Whats that look like? Describe your ideal day. Do you have children and a spouse? Describe them. What are your accomplishments? What are you planning for the next five years after that? These are just some questions to get you started. Really, you want to describe in as much detail as possible, your ideal life in five years. Yes, some of these things are out of your control. You cannot magically transform your family or your neighbors. You cant impose your will on anyone else. But there is a lot you can do to bring yourself closer to this ideal picture. (This next part sucks, but dont skip it because it will make the entire picture very enlightening). Now answer those same questions about your reality, today. This picture is probably quite different. You may be pleasantly surprised that, for some of the questions, youre already at your ideal. Great! Now you know where you are and where you want to be. Keep this picture handy because, for the rest of this book, were going to work on cleaning up the major areas of your life so you can make room for your ideal life.
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Simplify Your Stuff
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The Battle against the Bulge is something that Ive waged, on and off, for the last twenty years of my life. Id go through periods of buying the shining things in the window, to dumping them for a loss, then feeling like crap which was remedied by additional shopping. Shiny things in the window still impress me today, but it took a fundamental shift in my thinking to change my relationship about stuff. If we considered our relationships with people to truly be more important than our infatuation with stuff, then we can declutter our homes in piece. Your unused, unloved stuff is a symbol of the abundance in your life. Pass it along to someone who could put it to better use. Those are the thoughts that should be remembered from this chapter. If youre not approaching your decluttering in the manner, then perhaps youre not quite ready for this step. For those who are, the concept of simplicity is often reflected most strongly in scaling back the stuff around their home. We consume gradually more and more as the years go on. Our holidays are largely built upon additional accumulation. We often shop for shiny new things as a means to bring temporary joy in our lives. We all know this at the intellectual level. We know that it takes physical space to store your things, and that the trend over the last fifty years has been that weve had to increase the size of our homes to house our stuff despite the fact that the size of our families has decreased in that time.
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We replace people and relationships with stuff.
Self storage units are a lucrative business these days, and as the Recession of 2009 has shown, many folks are losing their too-big, too-expensive homes because we cant afford them any longer. The good news is that you have a choice at any moment of your life. You can choose to bow out of the consumerist rat race and scale back to a level of comfort and happiness, or continue down a path of consumerism with no happy ending. Ive known former clutterers who made a decision at a single moment in time and within weeks purged 95% of their possessions to become happy minimalists. Others, like me, took several months to emotionally come to grips with it, and cull down my possessions. Either is fine. You are you, and not me. Was there ever a time when youve gone through a large decluttering exercise and not felt terrific about the results? We werent meant to be surrounded by mementos and junk. Clutter is the manifestation of having more stuff than you can actively manage. Its stuck negative energy. Be grateful for your abundance and then pass it along to someone else who may be ready to manage that particular item. So, if youre at that point, then there are really only a few simple, but effective techniques that you can use to clean up the physical distractions around you. Thats what this chapter is about.
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Realizing that there is a large disparity amongst people regarding the layout of their homes, well try to address as many rooms as possible in a generic fashion. The tools of the trade are as follows: 1. One or more boxes labeled Keep 2. One or more boxes labeled Donate/Sell 3. One of more boxes labeled Maybe 4. One of more trash bags for actual trash Take your tools and start with any room in your home. Start from one corner of the room and assess every single object. Ask the simple question of each object, Do I really, truly need this object? If the answer is Yes, then ask yourself why? There should be a compelling reason in that you need it for work, or it is a basic tool required everyday in your personal life. You may allow some objects to remain that you also find absolutely beautiful, that take your breath away each time you look at them, but be very careful. Allowing exceptions is what got you cluttered in the first place. So, if an object doesnt pass your rigorous questioning, it goes in the Goodbye boxes, or trash bags. Trash bags are truly for items that cant be of use if given to someone else. Ive often put items out to the curb the day before trash day, uncovered, and theyll be picked up within minutes by someone who can either sell the item for the metal content, or can put it to use themselves. If
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it doesnt go that way, and it cant be given to Goodwill or Salvation Army, then by all means, toss or recycle it. The Goodbye box is for Goodwill etc. There are some of you out there who would rather take a shot at trying to sell the items online or at a garage sale. By all means, do so, if you are so inclined. For me, the monetary return is rarely worth the hassle, but thats just simply how Im wired. Id rather spend the half hour to take it down to an organization that specializes in and would benefit by, handling donations. Then there are the Maybe boxes. This really shouldnt have a lot of items in it. You need to be as quick and decisive as possible. Knowing that, even when I did this, I had some items that were maybes, I suggest sealing those boxes up and dating them one year into the future. I use a year because I live in a four-season climate, and it is reasonable that in a year, you will go through all the stuff you need that may be seasonal in nature (Im looking at you, Turkey Carving platter!). Clothing Ive put some items on their own to talk about, including clothing here. There are certain items that we find particularly hard to scale back on. For many of us, we have it ingrained that our clothing defines us, and we are all guilty of occasionally judging people based on their appearance. We hold on to clothing because it reminds us of a different time in our lives. We hold on to clothing in the hopes that we may fit into it again someday. We hold on to clothing because we are
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afraid to admit that we fell in love with and wasted money on something at the store that really doesnt look good on us. Unfortunately, holding on to these things makes us more miserable as they are constant reminders of failure and regret. First, have an idea in your mind about what you want your look to be now. Not having a vision in mind means that you really dont know what youre assessing your clothing against. For me, I wanted a few nice, classic pieces for dressing up at work three days per week and some comfortable pieces for casual days at work the other two days of the week. I enjoy basic colors, know that brown does not look good on me, and that everything should be easy to clean and press. Im also a runner, so I needed at least two sets of running clothes, and some cold weather running clothes too. I have no problem going out to run in the snow. In fact, its quite refreshing. Im also an occasional performing musician/poet so I like to make sure my dress shirts look good with casual jeans. And Im a die-hard Buffalo sports fan with season tickets to hockey and lacrosse, so I have a jersey for each and a couple sweat shirts. I like comfortable footwear, but dont like a lot of choices. I dont any jewelry or watches. Cell Phones tell time just fine for me.
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With this vision in mind, it made it easier to go through my clothing. Next, there are a few extra questions that youll want to ask yourself as you assess each item in your closet and your drawers, as follows: 1. Does this fit me? - Dont let your subjectivism take a role here, literally try on the clothing. If it doesnt fit you, get rid of it. It doesnt matter if youre in the throes of a successful weight-loss campaign. When you hit your ideal weight, treat yourself to some new clothes.
2. Do I feel comfortable wearing this? Some items fit but are rather uncomfortable. Every running race I enter, there is usually a t-shirt given to the entrants. The shirts are nearly always scratchy and uncomfortable. Ive also dumped shoes that look terrific, but were horrific when trying to get through a work day with them on. 3. Does it need repairs? If it does, set it aside to be repaired immediately. If youve been holding on to the broken item for awhile, then take it to a seamstress. The cost will be offset by the convenience of finally having it done. If youre not going to get to it now, then get rid of the clothing.
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4. Do I have too many similar items? You dont need seven pairs of jeans. I dont care if you wear them every day of the week. You can get a couple wearings out of jeans before they need to be washed. 5. Whens the last time I wore this? - If the answer is longer than a year, then get rid of it. 6. Does this item easily match several items in my closet? If you really can only match the item to one other thing in your closet, its probably not something you should keep. Mixing and matching outfits is the best use of your resources. Even with suits (I own one black suit) several of your shirts underneath should match. If you wear accessories, they too should match most of your outfits. 7. Does this item fit into the vision I have of myself? Your jeans jacket from high school may be classic, match all of your casual clothes, and you wore it to the Bon Jovi concert (I cant believe theyre still touring and making music) last summer, but if it doesnt match the vision that you are designing for yourself, then it may be time to pass it along.
Chances are that a lot of your clothing wont pass this seven question test but think how much better you will feel with a closet that is preened, leaving only the best of the best for you to choose from every day.
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Books Books are one of the toughest categories for most people to pare down. We like to display our books to show what our interests are, and how smart we are. The truth is, that most people visiting your home dont care. Ive never had a visitor comment on any of the books on my bookshelf except to say, wow, youve got a lot of books. Still, this is another particularly thorny category for me. I read a ton of non-fiction but very little fiction. If I read two novels a year, thats a lot. But Ive historically had hundreds of non-fiction books. Ive reasoned that, as a writer, I may need to go back to these books some day for research. The truth is that Ive rarely, if ever gone back to a book for research. Ive waged war against my books in recent months with a couple of simple hacks to cull down my collection. 1. When I read a non-fiction book, I take notes now (usually electronically. Yes, this slows down the reading process but it significantly increases my comprehension, plus I have the best parts of the book on file for later research.
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2. I also look to see if a book is available at my library. I dont know why I am always shocked to find out that my library has so many books. Ive rarely found a case where it didnt have one that was in my home.
As a side note, its common advice that you should donate your books to the local library, and then you can go check them out again if you need them. Ive donated hundreds of books over the years and have never, ever found that theyve kept one in circulation. They sell them to raise funds. Library editions of books are sturdier, and so most of the books you purchase wont pass the test for a library to keep.
3. I look to see if the book is available on the Kindle. Im loathe to write about technology because of how quickly it changes from year to year. But as 2009 closes out and I am writing this, I often use my IPOD Touch with the Amazon Kindle application to read electronic books. The downside is, on the IPOD, its difficult to flip to a specific page in the book, however, you will save a ton of room by keeping most or all of your library on the IPOD Touch and its awesome for when you go on vacation and you dont have to pack a bunch of books to take with you.
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So, if you really love a book, and its hard to find, and you intend to read it again, then its worth keeping. Music and Movies Seriously, there is no better time we find ourselves in than the digital age, which allows us to store most of our entertainment in bits and bytes. The audio CD is going the way of the dinosaur, and for good reason. How many times have you purchased a CD because you heard a great song on the radio, only to find that the rest of the CD largely sucked? For me, I admit that Ive made that mistake hundreds of times. In the digital age, you can preview an entire album and pick the one or two songs that you really like for a couple dollars. Why bother storing the rest? Its clutter otherwise. Ditto with movies. Though I have several DVDs, Ive largely disposed of the cases. And if Im honest with myself, Id realize that I only watch the same dozen or so each year. The great news is that movies can also be stored digitally and many computer systems have as good of a sound and video system as todays Televisions. Your favorite TV programs can often be found on sites like Hulu.com without all of the commercials. Who knows what tomorrows technology may bring? Im in the middle of a one year experiment with my CD collection. Ive ripped all of the songs (not full albumsagain, who needs the filler toons?) that I like to MP3 and boxed up the physical CDs several months ago. In that time, Ive
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grabbed two for my car because I dont have an MP3 hookup in my 2003 Jeep Wrangler (paid off long ago, and still less than 60,000 miles on it). By the time I am ready to buy my next car, such things will be standard. Collections of Doohickies I wont spend much time on this, except to say that we often think that other people are interested in our collections but the fact is that their interest level rarely is worth the effort of taking care of your collections. I dont know too many people who enjoy dusting things. In my teens, I was an avid sports-card collection. But trying to move that stuff around sucked and a few instances of water in the basement ruined my whole collection. I dont collect anything any longer. I wont say that you should do the same, but you certainly should assess whether the items are worth taking care of. Paper Amazing how printers were supposed to save us from paperyet were inundated with more and more every day. This historically has been another issue of mine. Between the health papers for my children, the receipts for the apartments we own, and a cabinet full of research articles, Ive almost always had paper everywhere. It is still something I must keep a watchful eye on. With a good all-in-one Printer/Fax/Copier/Scanner theres really no need to have a lot of paper around. You can scan everything electronically and throw away the originals. The only originals you
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need to keep around are items that have legal signatures on them, such as Birth Certificates, Promissory Notes, Social Security Cards etc. These can fit in a small fireproof safe. I still err on the side of caution with tax receipts. I can scan them and box away the originals for seven years. I personally worry about being audited with all of the properties so I still hold on to those boxed originals. If youre going to scan, have at least two backups. Thumb drives typically easily hold 16 gigabytes or more at the time of this writing and are expanding all the time. You can also keep a copy of them online at Google Docs. An external hard-drive is nice but can be a bit overkill as they typically run over 500 gigabytes (again, at the time of this writing, but increasing in size all the time). So, weve covered the most common areas of clutter. The techniques and thought processes can work for any of your other trouble areas (i.e. kitchen gadgets). Once you have your stuff under control, we can move on to simplifying your time management.
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Simplify Your Commitments
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In this chapter were going to cover editing your time commitments. Many of us have a multitude of commitments we have in our schedule every week; the PTA meetings, drinks with friends or coworkers, Rotary Club, adult softball league, playing soccer mom or soccer dad etc. Which of these play an important role in the life youre trying to design? If youve identified family as critically important then playing soccer mom/dad may be on the important list. To someone else it may not. For me, my baby triplets are incredibly important to the life I am designing. Their needs will generally come before mine but as a parent, I will set limits on after-school activities. That is not only my right but my obligation to them to help control their time commitments till they are old enough to do that for themselves. Theres no magic trick to evaluating this. Basically, you need to list out all of your recurring commitments on paper. This list even includes the work-related commitments. If you have the ability to decline regular meetings at your work, youre often better off. Very little gets done in most corporate meetings. But I understand perfectly that much of the time, I speak from a decade of experience working my way up as an executive for a Fortune 500 company. Ive taken some time management classes at work over the years, for more than one company, and they typically speak to our tasks as one of four types: 1. Urgent But Unimportant 2. Urgent and Important
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3. Unimportant, Not Urgent 4. Important but Not Urgent Its not uncommon that we spend much of our day in the first category, taking care of whatever fire drill that comes across our desk that, when accurately assessed, really isnt very important for whatever Project youre working on. In our personal lives, we experience much of the same, while also spending a good deal of time in the third category. When I first saw the four categories, I thought that it was best to spend your time on the Urgent and Important. Of course that ignores the fact that, with proper planning, few tasks, if any, should get to the Urgent stage. The reality is, though, that many times, someone else is giving you work that theyve been given which is already in the Urgent and Important category. It should be obvious that we want to spend most of our time in category 4, with some time inevitably spent in category 2. With proper planning and a rigorous screening system, there is no reason we cant design our days to concentrate our time in the Important But Not Urgent. Time Tracking for One Week (Including the Weekend) If you go to see a nutritionist to improve your diet, one of the first things they will ask you to do is track what youre eating over a typical week. They want to know everything that goes into your mouth. Its a pain to track, but its very enlightening. We talk in the Finance chapter (later in this
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book) about tracking every penny that you spend for a month so that you have an accurate picture of what youre doing with your money. Why wouldnt we do this with our time? If we want to know where the heck our day has gone, the only way to get to the bottom of it is to track every minute. Okay, maybe thats too much, but you could and I have. A better idea is one that I will borrow liberally from the corporate environments Ive worked for. For Billing purposes, we track our work day down to fifteen minute blocks for tasks associated to projects. For example, on a Monday, I might attend three hours of planning meetings (one hour each for Projects A, B and C), spend an hour and forty five minutes working on writing Business Requirements for Project A, reviewing design documents for Project B, and four hours reviewing test cases for Projects. Oh, and you managed to squeeze a lunch, two coffee breaks and four bathroom stops in the other fifteen minutes. Each of those work tasks gets billed against the budget or either Projects A, B or C, so its important to accurately track that. Pretend for a moment that youre a contractor and every task in your life gets billed against a project. You have a Project for sleep (it would be soooo awesome to get paid to sleep!) a project for watching TV, a project for grooming, a project for eating, a project for shopping, a project for yard work, a project for managing the family budget, a project to bill PTA Meetings against etc.
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Track everything you do in fifteen minutes blocks (dont be like my lawyer who makes phone calls for three minutes and then bills me for an hour). You will likely have two to three dozen projects in a given week. If you total all the time against each project, youll have an accurate picture of what tasks you currently give most importance to in your life. You may be surprised as to how much TV you watch, but if its five times more oftenmthan youre allocating to exercise then its clear, whether intentional or not, that you feel TV is the more important of the two. I think its more effective if you can do this for a month, or even pick it up as a permanent task. It has been written that multi-functional genius, Buckminster Fuller, kept a short journal account for every fifteen minutes of his waking life for decades. It can be done, yes it takes a bit of time, but it is extraordinarily helpful if you feel like youre spinning your wheels and getting nothing done. If youre only tracking time for one week, still take into account those less frequent meetings such as the monthly Rotary club meeting. You need all of those time obligations written down so that you can assess them one by one against your new vision for Life Design. We all have exactly twenty four hours in a day. Whether youre a highly productive individual, or a lump on the couch, you still fill up those twenty four hours with tasks. Sitting on the couch vegetating is a task, as is attending your fifth daily planning meeting to plan the next five daily planning meetings. These are all tasks that take a spot in the sphere of your twenty four hours.
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When you have your list of tasks that take up each day, you have the ability to barter with new tasks that follow your new life design. Watching five hours of TV each day? How about exchanging that with one hour of learning Spanish for your trip to Spain, two hours writing a book, one hour exercising and one hour of intimate time with your spouse / significant other? This is where I have to bow out with my personal opinions. Only you can assess how youre spending your time. Its not up to me to judge whether your tasks are essential or not. If you run a blog about Pop culture, spending five hours a day watching TV may be an essential task. For the rest of us, its an opportunity to trim things down so that we can fit in new tasks that support our Life Design. Extending the metaphor of billing by project, lets take a look at each of your primary values as you defined at the beginning of the book. Each one of those can be considered a major project for you to bill your tasks against. For example, I had the following major values when I evaluated my daily tasks: Devotion to Family (6) Being creative (5) Creating Freedom (4) Financial Security (3) Increasing my knowledge (2) Health (1)
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The numbers in parentheses indicate the value of the project. The higher number means its more valuable and the numbering is limited by the number of tasks you have. Stay with me, this makes sense when we start scoring everything. You may have more or fewer values, but for me this was sufficient to work with. I would not suggest having too many more important values that this as youll be risking spreading yourself too thin. Also, the task list is ordered in level of importance. With your list of tasks in hand, you would then assign each task to a project. If a task doesnt fit into a project, then they get a score of zero and those are the first to decide whether to cut out or not. If you are heavily resisting removing a task, then try to assess what value that task pertains to. You may just need to re-assess what Values you have and add or substitute in a new one. Once you have your tasks assigned to a project, its time to assess the importance of each task. Does the time and effort involved to do this task yield significant value? Assign a value based on this of 1 10, 10 being the most valuable tasks. So hopefully this is a little clearer now. Youll see for each Project you will have a bunch of tasks listed. Each Project is labeled in terms of importance as is each task. If you multiply the value of the task by the value of the project youll have a scoring for everything that you do each day. A task can fit into more than one project. i.e. finishing project plan by due date, would rank high in Devotion to Family, Health, possibly financial security (at least in the interim) and perhaps even some of the other categories based upon the trickle down effect of not completing that task.
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Maybe if you dont finish the project plan your job is in peril and as such, so is your perceived financial security (no paycheck and you have nothing in the bank), your devotion to family (no money for food, clothing and shelter). The point is that your answers are completely subjective and are based on your current circumstances. You dont benefit from this unless youre completely honest in assessing everything in your life. So, obviously, your highest scoring tasks are the ones you should be building around. And your lowest value tasks can go under scrutiny. If you cant find one task that can be cut, then there is nothing you can do for your schedule. Youve decided everything is essential and valuable. I would think that even in your most important project, there are some low-value tasks that you can remove. This just creates a bit of space for you. The time freed up has to be attached to new tasks or extending the time you spend on the remaining tasks. It also allows you to start new tasks that are in line with your primary values. There are a few other tips that Ive incorporated in my life that are extremely simple and easy to operate. I do not advocate complex systems, or even electronic systems. If youre looking for something clever like that, there are many better places on the internet. I dont believe that one should have to spend a lot of time managing their system, and I see way too many people get caught up in their systems. If you have a system that works for you, then terrific keep doing it. In order to manage to dos you need the ability to capture information and process it. It is a lot simpler than most people make it out to be and if you only do the few steps below, you will be miles ahead of 99% of the world who are reactive instead of proactive with managing their tasks.
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Capture It First, you need the ability to capture any idea or thought that needs tracking. This is for reminders to pick up the milk, to new blog ideas, to reminders to call back Joe on that assignment. It is a capture for anything you need to remember. For me, its simply four to five index cards held together by a tiny binder clip. Thats it. It goes where I go. One of the cards is my list of Tasks to do today for Work, one similarly for home. And the other two or three are for any other ideas that come in my head. Never lose an idea. I swear, by this alone, practiced over several months, will do wonders for you. You will inevitably have a brilliant idea or two. Some people like to use a micro-recorder, or note taking software on a PDA. The fact is that any Smart Phone on the market these days can do both. If thats your preference, then do it. Ive tried it out a few times with Remember the Milk on the IPOD Touch and AK Notepad on the Motorola Droid. I prefer pen to paper and I quite enjoy the act of writing. Its sacred meditation in its own right. Whatever capture mechanism you want to use is perfectly fine, but the simpler the better. Process It You then have a need to process the thoughts youve captured. Do they go on your work to do list? How about the one for home? I have another notebook devoted slowly to blog article and book ideas. The notebook is big enough that I couldnt carry it around in my pocket, but it is the onestop storage place for my writing ideas. If I have an article idea written on my index cards, it gets entered into this notebook as an article waiting to be written. I might then have a to do task to write an outline for the article idea.
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If its as simple of a thought as, we need butter, then it gets entered on a grocery list at home. The important thing is to not have too many homes for these things, but some are probably necessary. You could only work off your index cards but if you didnt institute a strict first in, first out policy, then you run the risk of having a three inch thick pack of cards in your pocket. Single Tasking vs. Multitasking This is a popular topic for productivity gurus. Unfortunately, the recommendations are all over the map, as is the definition of Multitasking. True multitasking is difficult to do. You really cant write a book while having a conversation on the phone. You can write for thirty seconds, stop to talk, then pick back up and write again. These are really serial tasks. The problem is that stopping and starting different tasks too often is highly inefficient. Its been proven that batching similar tasks together into time blocks is the most time efficient. This means that you combine all of your emails into a single one hour block. You do all of your research in a separate block. You batch your phone calls all together as well. This helps you get more done. But more done is not necessarily the goal. Its getting the important things done, and nothing further. Mary Kay of network marketing fame was a proponent of writing down six things on an index card each day as a To Do list and nothing further. In contrast, Leo Babauta, writer of the Zen Habits blog, advocates completing only the two or three most important tasks each day. The number
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doesnt matter so much, as there will be days in your life that are busier than others. I try to stay between the two and six, but if there is a day when there are ten things on my list, I try to take the time to understand why.
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Simplify Your Health
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Ive had many gym memberships over the years, and Ive also trained for and run a couple half marathons, as well as the debacle that was the 2008 Buffalo full marathon (I was one of the last dozen people off the course). I used those situations to really challenge my body, in the hopes of impressingI really dont know who. Being able to run a marathon is overkill for everyday cardio just as spending hours in the gym is overkill for functional strength. The fact is that it really doesnt take much to get into functional shape. Functional shape means how it sounds. This is the fitness level you need to be in to be able to protect yourself in modern society. Your definition of this may differ based on your personal circumstances, but for the sake of argument, this really means being able to propel your own bodyweight, swim a few hundred yards or run a half mile to safety, or being able to quick burst sprint away from immediate danger. There are several small workouts that you can space throughout the week, none taking more than five minutes to accomplish that will provide you everything you need. While I still spend six months out of the year training for the Buffalo Marathon, in my off months, I engage in one of any of these five minute workouts, several times per week. Five Minute Strength Workout One Minute of Stomach Crunches Two Minutes of Hindu Pushups Three Minutes of Hindu Squats
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These are all fast-action exercises and there is no reason you cannot whip out 25 50 repetitions of each. If you do only this five minute workout daily, you will be utterly amazed at how much stronger you feel after two weeks. Its difficult to document how to do a Hindu Pushup or Hindu Squat in an eBook, so I highly recommend checking out YouTube for some prime examples. It will be worth the ten minutes of research to learn how to do it right. I find that the Hindu Pushup, in particular, is vastly superior to the regular pushup and the Hindu Squat is terrific for lower body explosive functional power. Five Minute Stretch I prefer Yoga, and will talk about it the next chapter where I give a compelling argument as to why it is very beneficial for Men and for Women. However, picking five or so simple stretching exercises is all you need. Knowing the basic poses helps a lot, and you can learn all about them on YouTube. I usually work with the Cat and Dog poses, the warrior pose (for Balance) and some Tables and Backbridges. By all rights, I should work on an exercise video, but that will wait someday till I can borrow a video camera. Five Minute Cardio There are two things that you can do here, each terrific for quick cardio gains. 1. Jump Rope for Five Minutes 2. Do Hill Sprints of about 100 meters, five seven times and a 20 degree or less incline, jogging
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back down the tract to your original starting position. 3. Five minutes straight of swimming laps (either indoors or in open water) Hill sprints build power and speed, and nothing gets your heart moving like jumping rope. Again, dont make the incline too steep. Its challenging enough that its not flat ground but gentle enough that youre not popping your knee out of place. Thats it, people. Its not rocket science. Youre building functional strength, not a rocket to the moon. How I Implement It The Five Minute Strength workout can be done nearly anywhere that there is open room on a floor to do so. I generally do this in the morning, either before I shower or just after. Its a great pick me up for the day. I will do this workout daily, occasionally taking a weekend day off, but there is no reason to. It becomes part of the morning ritual just as showering, shaving, and brushing your teeth. The Five Minute Cardio workout happens less frequently, perhaps one to two times a week, often as a warm up before marathon training. The Five Minute Stretch is a nice pairing before or after my meditation, and I try to do this a couple of times per week, or more as needed. While we have an exercise mat, I rarely take the trouble to roll it out and use it. I find the carpet in my home works just fine. If you dont have five minutes each day for these, then find a minute, or thirty seconds. Anything is better than nothing at all.
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Nutrition This is perhaps the most confusing area of all due to the myriad of conflicting information thats out there about what to eat. Ive come to realize that there is a reason why there are so many diets out there and why they all work for some people, and dont work for others. Its because we all have different genetics and come from different ethnic backgrounds. Theres a reason why Indian food, despite how yummy it is, always takes a toll on my body. Its because Im Scottish, German and Italian, and in my own little personal laboratory, Ive proven day in and day out, that my body reacts best to those ethnic foods. So, while I want sit here and advocate a specific diet (i.e. vegetarian vs. meatatarian) Id suggest looking into the foods that your recent ancestors ate, especially if youre having trouble with your current diet. By recent, I mean in the last few hundred years. The primal eaters camp would have you believe that 10,000 years ago, all humans were hunters and gatherers who ate largely the same thing. There really isnt evidence to support that. There is more recorded history by culture in the last two hundred years, so its better if you research your ethnic foods on Google in that manner. Aside from that little tidbit, I have some tips on how to eat, that will prove helpful no matter what your ethic diet. 1. Drink 1 2 large glasses of water about ten minutes before you eat, and then do not drink anything during or after dinner (for one hour). The water helps you feel fuller, thus preventing overeating. A piece of fruit can do the same. Not drinking while eating or for an hour after prevents you from diluting the important digestive juices that help break down your food.
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2. Eat Slowly Masticate your food. Allow the fact that your mouth naturally produces salivary amylase to digest your food to become your ally. I suggest chewing each bit of food 20 25 times before swallowing. It takes your brain about twenty minutes from the start of eating to realize that your body is not hungry anymore. So, eating slowly helps you get to that twenty minute threshold with less food. A decade ago, in my searches, I read a rather famous authors book who claimed it was best to eat almost exclusively meat, gulping it down in one or two bites so you can give your stomach a workout. He also advocated purchasing an herbal concoction, not sold in the United States, which would help you eliminate your waste since eating an all meat diet would bind you up. Does any of that make sense? Should I need a special exotic tea to go to the bathroom? It didnt stop me from trying it. The tea was god-awful tasting, took ninety minutes start to finish to brew, and all I got for my efforts was indigestion and operative hemorrhoids. Decidedly unsimple. Lesson learned, and I have only myself to blame. I was pleased to find that eventually this doctors work and reputation were discredited as I feel that his recommendations were dangerous stuff, to say the least. 3. Turn off the Distractions Try to stay away from eating while reading or watching TV. When distracted like that, its easy to forget how much youre eating. Yes, I realize that makes Super Bowl parties and Movie Night kind of lame, but you can allow yourself these exceptions occasionally, as long as you realize the potential that you may overeat. 4. Be mindful of food combinations during a single meal. Despite the side note in point number 1 above, it is ok to have a meal completely composed of meat. Eating meat and starches (grains,
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fruits, vegetables) in one meal can have explosive implications for many sensitive stomachs. If youre reasonably healthy, keep on doing what youre doing, but if youre having regular stomach issues, I would try out the following rule for a month. If you are a meat-eater, eat meats exclusively as a meal. Then balance it by having one to two meals of only starches at different times of the day. Due to the fact that your digestive system reacts differently to each, it can be quite painful to combine the two, as we are accustomed to in modern culture where food Is much more plentiful for most of us. If youre a vegetarian, then I admire you greatly, and Ive dabbled here and there in vegetarianism over the years, only to find myself craving chicken wings and sliding back into the Standard American Diet. For you, I suggest separating out vegetables and grains with a single meal, and fruits by themselves with a separate meal. Proteins like Eggs and Dairy (if you are Lacto-ovo) should again be a separate meal. My best health has followed prolonged periods of minding my food combinations. 5. The Mini-Fast I highly suggest mixing in a Mini-Fast as often as once per week of approximately 24 hours. This isnt as difficult as it seems, and once you do it a few times, you will get used to it, and even look forward to it. All you need to do is start after dinner one night, and do not eat again till dinner the following night. You are allowed water, green tea, or my favorite, the Braggs Apple Cider Vinegar Cocktail. But apart from that, refrain from any other foods.
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The Braggs Apple Cider Vinegar cocktail is normally taken twice daily (morning and evening). The recipe is as follows: 2 tsp. Apple Cider Vinegar 1 tsp honey (I use dark raw organic honey, local if available) 8 oz water, room temperature if possible Relaxation Finally, for relaxation, Ive about given up on a good nights sleep with infant triplets in the house. Sleep is the most important, restorative form of relaxation. My body is adjusting but I do feel the stress when I have to get up a couple of times each night to feed the babies in turn. Someday, I should be able to resume to the standard 6 8 hours needed of sleep. Get your sleep, and make sure your bedroom is conducive to sleeping. You shouldnt have televisions, stereos, or bookcases in your bedroom. It should be free of electronic gadgets and other distractions. You use the bedroom to either sleep or have intimate time with your mate. Apart from a good nights sleep, I highly recommend working in a few minutes of meditation everyday. Five minutes of meditation I can fit into my schedule. I always fit this in once a day, whether I have to hide in a bedroom, or in my car at the parking garage near work. I have a meditation timer program on my phone, which counts off the five minutes for me, and wakes me from my meditation.
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Five minutes buys peace of mind, and you dont need to get overly spiritual about it if you are not inclined. Just find a quiet place to sit comfortably, close your eyes, and concentrate on your breathing. Thats all you need for simple meditation. We all know that stress is generally bad for you. There are good types of stress, such as that which, when overcome, makes you stronger, smarter, happier etc. The bad stress is the stuff we internalize, when we let things worry us that we really shouldnt; when we worry about things that may never happen. Its easy to say dont let the stress get to you, but much harder to do in practice. So relieve the stress regularly by treating yourself right. Book a regular massage, or Reiki session. Go to the spa once a month. Spending some money on relaxation is only beneficial (DISCLAIMER This is not a license to engage in Retail Therapy!). With that being said, lets go on to the Chapter about Simplified Finance.
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Simplify Your Finances
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Theres nothing simple about finance, you think. It can feel that way, much of the time. Cable TV has several dozen channels of financial pundits who preach every manner of the spectrum and rare it is that any two of them agree. This means that, whatever you do, youre wrong in someones book. I am not a financial expert and I will never claim to be. I will say that Ive had one goal since 2003, when I bought my first investment property, and that was to be able to build a monthly residual income that could some day replace my unpleasant day-job income as I transition into designing the life of my dreams. So, I cover the basics here before presenting my financial plan. Again, this may not work for every person in the world, but it should get your creative juices flowing to create your own plan. The point is to try to take charge where you can with your finances. Give Some Money Away What? Im up to my eyeballs in debt and you want me to give some money away? Yes, I do, quite seriously. If youre approaching your finances with a sense of lack, with a sense of hopelessness, then your turn-around is doomed from the start. Pick a sum, whether its $20 or $100 and give it away. Be a better tipper, give to the Salvation Army collection posts at holiday time, give ten bucks to a homeless person, donate to your favorite charity, whatever. Just do at least one thing to break the pattern of feeling like theres not enough. AND DONT SKIP THIS STEP!
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Build an Emergency Fund Protect yourself against the inevitable emergency with some money in short term savings to soften the blow. That amount differs based on your circumstances. For the college student, it may be $200, enough for an emergency ride home, or to cover unexpected school supply expenses. When the student graduates and takes his first job, it may be $500 $1000. When married and with family, it should never be below a thousand. This money is for an emergency only, not a, we could really use a new mattress fund. Once the Emergency fund is in place, its on to step 2. Bad Debt, Bad Basically, I am talking about the credit card balances and the personal loans. Youve made mistakes in the past; Ive made mistakes in the past. Own up to it and address it. You need far less income if you dont have monthly credit card and loan bills. It makes it a hell of a lot easier to jump ship and start anew with your life design when you arent giving away your money to the finance companies. You need to break free of the psychological chains of debt. The best psychological (not necessarily mathematical) way to do this is to line up your consumer debts from lowest to highest and write down the minimum monthly payments. Take the smallest debt and find some way to pay extra money on the minimum each month until it is paid off.
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A variation on this is to attack the debts in order of what bothers you the most. For example, if your jet ski loan makes you sick, especially since you never use it, then perhaps you should pay that loan off first. There are dozens of hacks to find a little extra money. Take a second job, deliver newspapers, drop a bad financial habit, collect bottles for refunds, be a tutor, write an eBook, stop buying the large latte, etc. If you evaluate your spending for a month, and I mean every dollar you spend, youll easily see some holes that you can close up. If you sit down with a pen and paper and jot down fifty (legal) ways to make more money, youll definitely find something that you can do to bring in a little extra money to help here. The time to start thinking about increasing your income may be as your building your Emergency Fund. Yes, this does mean that your efforts to simplify your time management may take a brief hit as you work harder to get your debt under control. This is not a contradiction to the advice in the Time Management chapter. Depending on your need, spending time to increase your income may be considered an essential task. That extra money, whatever it is, goes on the first debt. When the first debt is paid off, roll that money over on to the second debt. This is an extremely simple yet effective debt reduction strategy popularized by John Cummuta and Dave Ramsey. It is strong, proven advice.
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Double Your Emergency Fund Enough said. Youre now debt-free; lets get a little more padding in there so youre not at risk for creating new debt. This shouldnt take nearly as long as it did to create your initial emergency fund. Since youre not paying money to the finance companies there should be more around. Contribute to a 401K or Roth IRA If your company offers a match of your funds in a 401k, at least take advantage of the free money coming from your employer. If you dont have the luxury of the 401k, contribute something, anything to a Roth IRA. Now I know these types of accounts are largely a United States concept, but most countries have something similar. The point is start contributing a little but dont completely sacrifice the present for the future that you cant guarantee will ever arrive. Thats contrary to what a lot of financial gurus recommend today. They say to max your retirement now, when youre young, so that youre taken care of when youre old. The problem with that is that you lose the ability to enjoy life while youre still young enough to. Additionally, its often recommended to put money away for your childrens college fund. We do contribute to 529 Plans but we are conservative about it. Is it better to max your childrens college fund or to make sure youre well-funded for retirement? I think if you ask your children whether they would rather have money for college or would they rather make sure mom and dad are financially secure so they dont have to live with them in retirement, the answer would be obvious. Children can work their way through college. You shouldnt have to work your way through retirement.
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Balance is the key. Have some fun now, do some planning for tomorrow. Invest the money in Index funds. Yes, I am writing that in the midst of a horrible global recession. That doesnt change my advice. Let the experts (meaning the overall indices) manage your assets. Unless its something you truly enjoy doing, its not worth the time to research your own stocks and keep up on it on a daily basis. Look for Other Income Streams This is somewhat controversial. Many would suggest saving for a home. I made my homes incomeproducing streams. Every home that Ive owned was a two family home that Ive rented out one of the units while living in the other. It is only now, in my most recent transition, that we are moving ourselves and our baby triplets to a single family home, that is paid off, thanks to the income from the rentals. I concentrate on the rental income. Therefore, Im not bothered when there is a housing market crash. In fact, when there is (God forbid) it actually means more potential renters. There are definitely pros and cons to owning a home. In the area of the United States where I live, home prices are very affordable, but taxes are sky high. Yet I can command rent that will pay for up to 90% of my mortgage and allow me to live for nearly free. As I said at the beginning of this chapter, my goal has been to create income streams to replace my current day job income, thus allowing me to transition into a more meaningful life. This is just one approach to effective Life Design.
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This is not the only means to create residual income. You can invest in Bonds, a CD Ladder, or Dividend-paying stocks. You can create a product, book, membership site, anything based on your expertise that can bring in royalty and residual income on a regular basis. Finally, Buy and Pay off Your Home (Optional) Homes are not the awesome investment that they are played out to be. Anybody who lost their home in this most recent recession can tell you that. There are bloggers who advocate renting only. Renting is throwing your money away, but in many ways, so is owning a home. An apartment comes with less responsibility but again, theres that whole throwing your money away thing. Even when you pay off a home, theres still Taxes, Insurance, and associated User fees to pay for. Thats where the anti-home buyer bloggers chime in. They say that this is all throw-away money. As with everything, the lines are blurry. You have to make that choice for yourself. Whether its a home or an apartment, it should be no bigger than what you need. Given that youve gone through the Simplify Your Stuff chapter, you shouldnt need as much square footage for a home or apartment. Buy what makes sense for you.
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Conclusion
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So, now that youve put some tips into practice to reducing your life to the absolute essential, where do you go from here? First, its important to note that life is a journey. It makes sense to do everything you can to be present in this journey and enjoy it as you go. Life is not a series of goals and destinations. Its not about accumulating bigger and better, its not about dying with the most money. Its about fostering relationships. Its about discovering and developing your gifts. Its about sharing your gifts with the world. Its about loving and being loved. Keep this in mind every day, after you close this book.
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Resources
The Simple Living Network A nice community of simple livers that also includes a great series of discussion boards. http://www.simpleliving.net Mnmlst A blog written by internet legend, Leo Babauta. Leo puts out weekly articles on minimalist concepts. http://www.mnmlst.com Miss Minimalist I love that her and her husband are both into the minimalist lifestyle and they sold off almost all of their stuff to move overseas. http://www.missminimalist.com The Everyday Minimalist This is a different side of minimalism. She is very stylish and does accumulate things related to style, but is minimalist in things that arent important to her. http://www.everydayminimalist.com Simple. Organized. Life Lots of great articles about all things simple. http://simpleorganizedlife.com Becoming Minimalist Another family who is going through the process of minimalizing, mostly together. http://www.becomingminimalist.com
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Thrilling Heroics Life Design is a new interest of mine. I love this new paradigm where people are begging out of the rat race and doing things that make a difference in the world. http://www.thrillingheroics.com You, Simplified A little shameless self promotion. I hope to make half the impact of the wonderful people listed above. http://www.yousimplified.net
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