Simple Living Manifesto: 72 Ideas to Simplify Your Life A simple life means eliminating all but the essential, eschewing chaos for peace, and spending your time doing what’s important to you. It means getting rid of many of the things you do so you can spend time with people you love and do the things you love. It means getting rid of the clutter so you are left with only that which gives you value. If you’re interested in simplifying your life, this is a great starter’s guide. The Short List there are really only two steps to simplifying: Identify what’s most important to you. Eliminate everything else. The Long List how to apply that to different areas of your life. Make a list of your top 4-5 important things. What’s most important to you? What do you value most? What 4-5 things do you most want to do in your life? Simplifying starts with these priorities, as you are trying to make room in your life so you have more time for these things. Evaluate your commitments. Look at everything you’ve got going on in your life. Everything, from work to home to civic to kids’ activities to hobbies to side businesses to other projects. Think about which of these really gives you value, which ones you love doing. Which of these are in line with the 4-5 most important things you listed above? Drop those that aren’t in line with those things. Evaluate your time. How do you spend your day? What things do you do, from the time you wake up to the time you go to sleep? Make a list, and evaluate whether they’re in line with your priorities. If not, eliminate the things that aren’t, and focus on what’s important. Redesign your day. Simplify work tasks. Focus on the essential tasks and eliminate the rest.
If you simply try to knock off all the tasks on your to-do list, you’ll never get everything done, and worse yet, you’ll never get the important stuff done. Simplify home tasks. So focus on the most important, and try to find ways to eliminate the other tasks (automate, eliminate, delegate, or hire help). our home task list is just as long as our work list. And we’ll never get that done either. Learn to say no. This is one of the key habits for those trying to simplify their lives. If you can’t say no, you will take on too much. Limit your communications. put a limit on your communications: only do email at certain times of the day, for a certain number of minutes (I recommend twice a day, but do what works for you). Only do IM once a day, for a limited amount of time. Limit phone calls to certain times. Same with any other communications. Set a schedule and stick to it. Limit your media consumption. Simplify your life and your information & media consumption by limiting it. Purge your stuff. Seiri & Seiton. devote daily a certain time to purge your stuff. To keep you organize. Get rid of the big items. simplify your life quickly getting rid of thing you don’t need or use. Edit your rooms. One room at a time, go around the room and eliminate the unnecessary. Act as a newspaper editor, trying to leave only the minimum, and deleting everything else. Edit closets and drawers. Once you’ve gone through the main parts of your rooms, tackle the closets and drawers, one at a time. Simplify your wardrobe. Simplify your wardrobe by getting rid of anything you don’t actually wear. create a minimal wardrobe by focusing on simple styles and a few solid colors that all match each other.
Simplify your computing life. If you have trouble with too many files and too much disorganization, consider online computing. Declutter your digital packrattery. Clear your desktop. Put purging reminders in your calendar Clear out your inbox & Clear out old emails. Simplify your feeds. Drop as many as possible, so the incoming information is reduced to a manageable amount Develop purging routines. develop a checklist of things to purge during these regular intervals. it’s better to reduce to organize simple. (less subfolders) organize everything you need all together. Avoid to create complicated organizing systems for all of their stuff, in an attempt to get organized. Reduce accounts. Defrag your hard drive. Create a simplicity statement. What do you want your simple life to look like? Write it out. Limit your buying habits. If you can escape materialism, you can get into the habit of buying less. And that will mean less stuff, less spending. Free up time. Find ways to free up time for the important stuff. That means eliminating the stuff you don’t like, cutting back on time wasters, and making room for what you want to do. Do what you love. Once you’ve freed up some time, be sure to spend that extra time doing things you love. Go back to your list of 4-5 important things. Do those, and nothing else. Spend time with people you love. Spend time alone. Alone time is good for you, this quiet is necessary for finding out what’s important to you. Eat slowly. Slow down to lose weight, improve digestion, and enjoy life more. Drive slowly. Be present. Living here and now, in the moment, keeps you aware of life, of what is going on around you and within you. Streamline your life. focus on one system at a time (your laundry system, your errands system, your paperwork system, your email system, etc.) and try to make it simplified, efficient, and written. Then stick to it. Create a simple mail & paperwork system. If you don’t have a system, this stuff will pile up. But a simple system will keep everything in order. Create a simple system for house work. a simple system is clean-as-you-go.
Clear your desk. If you have a cluttered desk, it can be distracting and disorganized and stressful. A clear desk, however, is only a couple of simple habits away. Establish routines. The key to keeping your life simple is to create simple routines. Keep your email inbox empty. Learn to live frugally. Living frugally means buying less, wanting less, and leaving less of a footprint on the earth. It’s directly related to simplicity. Make your house minimalist. A minimalist house has what is necessary, and not much else. It’s also extremely peaceful (not to mention easy to clean). Find other ways to be minimalist. find ways to be minimalist in every area of your life. to spur your own ideas. Consider a smaller home. if you can be comfortable in a smaller home, it will not only be less expensive, but easier to maintain, and greatly simplify your life. Consider a smaller car. Learn what “enough” is. Our materialistic society today is about getting more and more, Get off the cycle by figuring out how much is enough. And then stop when you get there. Create a simple weekly dinner menu. Decide on a week’s worth menu that can be done in 10-15 minutes. 1. Eat healthy. Eating healthy simplifies all of that greatly, over the long term. Simple. 10 minutes of prep. Nutritious, Low in calories, saturated fat, sugar and cholesterol. Exercise. Declutter before organizing. If you declutter enough, you won’t need to organize at all. Have a place for everything. Age-old advice, but it’s the best advice on keeping things organized. Find inner simplicity. Spend some time meditating or journaling or getting to know yourself. Learn to decompress from stress. after you go through stress, find ways to decompress. Try living without a car. Find a creative outlet for self-expression. We have a need for self-expression, and finding a way to do that makes your life much more fulfilling. Whether that’s writing, poetry, painting, drawing, creating movies, designing websites, dance, skateboarding, whatever. Simplify your goals. Instead of having half a dozen goals or more, simplify it to one goal. You’ll be able to focus on that One Goal, and give it all of your energy. That gives you much better chances for success. Single-task. Multi-tasking is more complicated, more stressful, and generally less productive. Develop equanimity. Learn to detach yourself, and be more at peace. Live life more deliberately. Do every task slowly, with ease, paying full attention to what you’re doing. Make a Most Important Tasks (MITs) list each day. Create morning and evening routines. A great way to simplify your life is to create routines at the start and end of your day.
Morning Routine (example) 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.
Wake at 4:30 a.m. Drink water. Set 3 Most Important Things (MITs) for today. Fix lunches for kids and myself. Eat breakfast, read. Exercise (run, bike, swim, strength, or yardwork) or meditate. Shower. Wake wife & kids at 6:30 a.m.
Evening Routine (example) 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9.
pack lunch (for yourself and the kids) get your clothes (and other gear) ready check your calendar plan your MITs review your day wash any dishes, clean the counters pick up so that you’re greeted with a clean house in the morning set your alarm read yourself to sleep
Create a morning writing ritual. If you enjoy writing, like I do, make it a peaceful, productive ritual. Learn to do nothing. Doing nothing can be an art form, and it should be a part of every life. Go for quality, not quantity. Try not to have a ton of stuff in your life … instead, have just a few possessions, but ones that you really love, and that will last for a long time. Fill your day with simple pleasures. Make a list of your favorite simple pleasures, and sprinkle them throughout your day. Carry less stuff. Are your pockets bulging. Consider carrying only the essentials. Simplify your online life. If you have too much going on online. Strive to automate your income. This isn’t the easiest task, but it can (and has) been done. I’ve been working towards it myself. Simplify your budget. The goal is to reduce the time you spend on your budget and finances to about 15-20 minutes per week. Create a simple spreadsheet for your budget 60 Percent Solution. the simplest ways to structure your budget strategy: 60 percent: Monthly expenses — such as housing, food, utilities, insurance, Internet, transportation. This is the part most commonly thought of as a budget. o 10 percent: Retirement — and if you’re doing it right, this is being automatically deducted from your paycheck for a 401(k) investment. o 10 percent: Long-term savings or debt reduction. It’s best to invest this in something such as stocks or an index fund, and this can serve as your emergency fund. But if you are in debt (not including a home mortgage), I would advise that you use this portion of the budget to pay off o
your debts, and even draw some from the other categories such as retirement to increase this to about 20 percent for now. Once your debts are paid off, you can switch this to long-term savings. You still need to have an emergency fund, but while you’re in debt-reduction mode you can either create a small, temporary emergency fund out of the money from this category or the next. o 10 percent: Short-term savings — this is for periodic expenses, such as auto maintenance or repairs, medical expenses (not including insurance premiums), appliances, home maintenance, birthday and Christmas gifts. For this savings account, be sure to spend the money when you need it — that’s what it’s for. When these expenses come up, you will have the money for them, instead of trying to pull them from other budget categories. o 10 percent: Fun money — you can spend this on eating out, movies, comic books — whatever you want. Guilt free.
Simplify your financial life. Learn to pack light. Use a minimalist productivity system. Leave space around things in your day. Whether they’re appointments, or things you need to do, don’t stack them back-to-back. Leave a little space between things you need to do, so you will have room for contingencies, and you’ll go through your day much more relaxed. Live closer to work. This might mean getting a job closer to your home, or moving to a home closer to your work. Either will do much to simplify your life. Always ask: Will this simplify my life? If the answer is no, reconsider.