“Purity and simplicity are the two wings with which man soars above the earth and all temporary nature.” —Thomas à Kempis
Simplifying your life will bring balance, freedom, and joy. When we begin to live simply and experience these benefits, we begin to ask the next question, “Where else in my life can I remove distraction and simplify life to focus on the essentials?”
Once we’re able to answer that, we will understand what is important in our own lives.
How to Simplify Your Life
Based on our personal journey, our conversations, and our observations, here is a list of the 10 most important things to simplify in your life today to begin living a more balanced, joyful lifestyle:
1. Your Possessions – Too many material possessions complicate our lives to a greater degree than we ever give them credit. They drain our bank account, our energy, and our attention. They keep us from the ones we love and from living a life based on our values.
If you will invest the time to declutter the non-essential possessions from your life, you will never regret it. For more inspiration, consider Simplify: 7 Guiding Principles to Help Anyone Declutter Their Home and Life.
2. Your Time Commitments – Most of us have filled our days full from beginning to end with time commitments: work, home, kid’s activities, community events, religious endeavors, hobbies… the list goes on. When possible, release yourself from the time commitments that are not in line with your greatest values.
3. Your Goals – Reduce the number of goals you are striving for in your life to one or two. By reducing the number of goals that you are striving to accomplish, you will improve your focus and your success rate.
Make a list of the things that you want to accomplish in your life and choose the three most important. Focus there.
4. Your Negative Thoughts – Most negative emotions are completely useless. Resentment, bitterness, hate, and jealousy have never improved the quality of life for a single human being. Take responsibility for your mind. Forgive past hurts and replace negative thoughts with positive ones.
5. Your Debt – If
Find the help that you need and learn how to get out of debt. Sacrifice luxury today to enjoy freedom tomorrow.
6. Your Words – Use fewer words. Keep your speech plain and honest. Mean what you say. Avoid gossip.
7. Your Artificial Ingredients – Avoid trans fats, refined grain (white bread), high-fructose corn syrup, and too much sodium. Minimizing these ingredients will improve your energy level in the short-term and your health in the long-term.
Also, as much as possible, reduce your consumption of over-the-counter medicine – allow your body to heal itself naturally as opposed to building a dependency on substances.
8. Your Screen Time – Focusing your attention on television, movies, video games, and technology addiction affects your life more than you think. Media rearranges your values. It begins to dominate your life. And it has a profound impact on your attitude and outlook.
Unfortunately, when you live in that world on a consistent basis, you don’t even notice how it is impacting you. The only way to fully appreciate its influence in your life is to turn them off.
9. Your Connections to the World – Relationships with others are good, but constant streams of distraction are bad. Learn when to power off the phone, log off social media, or not read a text. Focus on the important, not the urgent.
A steady flow of distractions from other people may make us feel important, needed, or wanted, but feeling important and accomplishing importance are completely different things.
10. Your Multi-Tasking – Research indicates that multi-tasking increases stress and lowers productivity. While single-tasking is becoming a lost art, learn it. Handle one task at a time. Do it well. And when it is complete, move to the next.
Simplifying your life is a core aspect of minimalism. To learn more about this lifestyle, visit this primer on minimalism.
Life likened to a sailing ship and this will infact help me sail more smoother
thanks man ,i am saying it is indeed good and infact if we spent som time we could realise it
Awesome post. Just starting my journey to minimalism and this helps a lot.
“…A steady flow of distractions from other people may make us feel important, needed, or wanted, but feeling important and accomplishing importance are completely different things….”This point piques my interest the most and am sure a lot of people will agree with me. Unless we learn to differentiate these two concepts we may end up just chasing the wind.
At work, we have a secretary that talks throughout the entire day about absolutely nothing. It’s difficult to hear others on the phone or to concentrate on work. It’s very tiring.
Joshua,
Great post. I’m glad I found this blog. I’ve been trying to simplify my life for a while now – my end goal is to live out of a 30 ltr backpack and travel the world. Got the backpack, just need to get rid off the stuff. I’m sure I’ll find great snippets of wisdom here.
Love your post and agree with every single point. Most I have already incorporated into my life and I am definately on the path.
Right now my focus is on using fewer words. I talk way to much. Being home with two small children has not helped this problem of mine. I am at the beginning of this particular goal to be worked on and it is tough but I know I can do it!
Practice silence.
I LOVE this post! #10 really builds me up! I need to read that. I’ve always been a single-tasking person but some people don’t like that of me. And I would always feel bad or skeptical to work with others because I can’t multi-task to save my life. I just can’t do it. I’m very focused and meticulous. Not so much a perfectionist, but I do pay much attention to details, and that I do the task to the best of my ability.
Now I don’t have to feel bad about it… It’s an art and it’s perfect for the kind of life we’re moving towards. Thank you for making me be conscious of that!
this is exactly all we need to rescue man’s world from going extinct and giving rise to monsters.thanks u are the bestest.
This introduces a pleasnlgiy rational point of view.
such posts do increase moral to people thoughts, as in todays world its a revolving one,,,we need such posts to either remind us or make us know where to start afresh :)……… need we be incomplete and need we be unchallenged???????? we need eagerness to boost us up in air and be with time!!
Great List! I am putting this in my Life Binder. I am currently on my journey from being a hoarder to becoming a minimalist. It is a very scary thought and I still haven’t even taken action yet, just researching and making lists…I need to become minimalist, though, for myself and for my family. We are drowning in our stuff and I have realized that I have a strong attachment to things. Things seem simple. People seem complex. I need to let go of my attachments to things so that I can teach my boys (7 and 2) that relationships with others are most important, not how many things you have. I am glad I have another person’s experience to read about now!