Keeping Your Life Pure & Simple
Take Away The Unnecessary
Keep asking yourself, does this “something” add anything to my life? If you have to think about an answer to the question for more than a few seconds, it doesn’t. Remove it from your life. Throw it away. Clear out the space visually and mentally.
There’s no use keeping around a piece of digital material (RSS feed, song, file, bookmark) if it’s not adding anything to your life, or helping you in any-way. Try to simplify things down and keep only the essentials, both in the material world and the evolving digital world.
Moving from a desktop computing setup to a notebook based setup comprising of a MacBook Pro helped my digital cleanliness propagation a few months ago, I migrated over 1TB of data into under 100GB.
Living For Now
Stop living for the day where you will own the faster computer, sexier car, bigger home. Start for living for today where you have the computer you’re reading this text on, the car you have parked in your garage, and the roof you have over your head.
It’s important to have these things in your sight, but don’t let them be the focus of your life. Let this minute, this current day be your task in hand. Enjoy it for what it is and what you have. Stop being materialistic and live for experience.
Goals Are Essential
Where would you like to be in six months, one year, five years away? While focusing on the current day, it’s important to have things to aim for, to have plans of where you’re going in life rather than simply living year in and year out. Set yourself goals on what you’d like to achieve in a certain period of time. Keep these somewhere where they can be openly viewed, and set time to reflect upon them.
Easing Workload
Keeping on a relative point to the first point mentioned, there are dozens, if not hundreds of ways you can make your life more simple. Find workarounds to tasks which you don’t enjoy. Find ways to delegate and remove tasks which you dread thinking about from your daily life. Where there’s a will, there’s a way.
Hate doing the housework? Hire a cleaner. If it’ll make you happier and improve your life, it’s worth the money - or as it could be otherwise called, it’s worth the investment.
#1
Christoph → KwasK.de
Hi,
first i want to say is: “WOW”,
This Text is great and so completely right.
Thanks for reminding me of the Facts:-)
Best Regards
#2
CB → www.tumbleintopeace.com
We always need this reminder from time to time. Simplify, simplify, simplify.
My best Friend is always reminding me to be conscious and aware that I am alive and to remember all that I have been given, not what i am lacking.
#3
Luke → lukees.com
This just makes me think of all my poor friends who have terabytes of media they feel they must to horde.
#4
Patrick → patricksilani.com
Gleen, it sounds like you saw the movie “into the wild” recently :) am i right ?
#5
rmaspero → www.rmaspero.com
Some really helpful tips, I really should apply some!!
#6
Alex → www.alex-hardy.co.uk
You’re absolutely right. I work on a project in my free time and as much as I enjoy it and hope it will be profitable, I remind myself to focus on “the task at hand” (i.e. the day job that I enjoy very much and am not trying to quit) which is what pays the rent.
Another urgent task springs to mind - to phone a friend I’ve not seen in a little while and buy him a pint tonight :)
#7
MariaI am totally seeing you eye-to-eye with this one, Glenn. Great tips! I’ll definitely keep this in mind. Sometimes, all a person needs to get back on track are a few helpful reminders, eh?
Thanks again! :)
#8
Someone → whoomp.org
I don’t see your point with this one Glenn?
#9
Henning → www.firstofall.net
What you say is true and worth saying, but the post sounds weird as a whole.
#10
shadownight → thomasgvl.50webs.com
By the way, a great blog about this very topic (and more) is Zen Habits. Check it out:
http://www.zenhabits.net
#11
Aidan → www.theaidangirard.blogspot.com
I do try that a lot, and lots of the time it works. Good post Glenn.
#12
JustinSeriously good stuff Glen. I myself live by very similar rules and went through a VERY similar migration to a limited storage MacBook Pro back in June. It forced me to clean house… That being said it is always good to be reminded. Thank you for it!
#13
Tyler → murf1992.wordpress.com
I must agree, we all tend to forget what is so simple yet truly positive in our lives and focus on simply what each of us lacks. Even I forget this from time to time. Glenn, this post truly gave me a revitalization that I’ve needed for some time now simply because I’ve tended to focus on the negative things in my life, when truthfully, I behold so much that I am truly grateful for.
Thank you for compelling me to realize this, and most importantly, thank you for even blogging. I know that your career on this mess of cables and servers that we call the interweb will only continue to grow…and exponentially at that and I can simply tell this by the kind of person you are in reading this.
So…thanks!
#14
Umair AtaGlenn, I must say this is your best post ever. I really enjoyed reading it. Every single word of it was very true and correct. But I am still wondering that how did you manage to migrate from 1TB to 100GB? Anyway, great post. Keep up the good work.
#15
Josh → www.myspace.com/joshiewashitatakashi
indeed, very wise of you Glenn.
#16
Jorge Quinteros → www.jorgeq.com
Nice post and very inspirational. I particularly will put to practice the portion where you ask where you would like to be a couple of years from now and to establish a time frame to set goals.
#17
Thássius V. → memoriasfracas.com
That’s a good a theory to get things done. Congrats.
#18
Jonathan → www.jonathandavies.org.uk
Some good tips there Glenn. I’ve been trying to keep everything simple for a while - overcomplicating things does nothing for you in the long run. Also, quite a feat to cut down on the amount of space you photos take up!
Jonathan
#19
jackhi
great piece but thought why this sudden revelation all of a sudden??
i dont think this is relevant to your blog?? otherwise keep up the gd work
#20
Timothy Andrew → timothyandrew.net
That’s spot on, man.
#21
Ben Carroll → bencarroll.wordpress.com
Well when you are in After Effects and it can’t even render one from in 10 seconds and it keeps crashing due to CPU inefficiency I think it might be an exception to want a more powerful computer. Sure my current iMac is nice but it would help me tons to have a Mac Pro.
But this is great thinking here. I have been pondering life for a few years now and I find that is right on par of what I have decided to do, simplify.
When you simplify you can actually focus on the task at hand.
not much more to say.
#22
AllanGood post, Glenn!
#23
Steve Mills → www.steven-mills.com
Hi Glenn,
You are right on the money with this one. When people wake up and take an honest look at their lives they start to notice that they don’t need as much as they thought, have a lot more freedom then they thought and can accomplish more then they thought.
A lot of people live their lives on autopilot, it’s time for more of them to take the controls.