How to Simplify Your Life (or Anything) in 4 Easy Steps

Over the last couple of years I’ve been on a kick trying to streamline and simplify my life in any way possible. I’m a firm believer in “less is more” and while I’m no minimalist, scaling down has been a breath of fresh air. Along the way, I found I was following a similar process for everything I wanted to simplify, from cleaning out my closet to adjusting my living expenses. My intent was never to start saving more, though that’s not a bad thing, but rather to make it easier for me to put my time and energy into the things that were most meaningful to me.

Some of this might sound familiar if you’ve read The Four Hour Workweek, though I assure you this process came about before I ever read the book.  However, I did make better use of the process after reading it, and it was reading 4HWW that helped me to recognize that what I was doing was, in fact, a repeatable process.

I write this on a technology blog because technology is a big part of the problem and the solution to simplifying your life.

The process is simply (in order): Eliminate > Automate > Delegate > Execute

How to Simplify Your Life (or Anything) in 4 Easy Steps

Step 1: Eliminate

Start getting rid of things (physical & virtual) like unnecessary bills, things you aren’t using, people you didn’t really enjoy spending time with, etc… In my case I even sold my house and moved into an apartment in the Uptown Dallas area where I was spending most of my time thereby eliminating a LOT of driving. Other things you can eliminate include email you are never going to get around to reading, subscriptions to magazines and sites you didn’t have time for… you get the idea. The main thing is to get ruthless about getting rid of anything that isn’t really necessary. This step is all about “deletion.” If you catch your self saying “I might need this when…” but haven’t used it in the last few 3 – 6 months… it’s gone! Note, it can be hard to get started throwing stuff out but once you do it can also become addictive!

Now, if something really can’t be eliminated you then…

Step 2: Automate

Automate anything you can that’s left. From paying bills to email auto-responders, auto-tweeting a blog post to filtering email, a lot of things can be set to just “happen”. You don’t have to physically “do it” every time. Using alerts are a good example of automation since the technology “watches” for something and only let’s you know if something is found based on specific criteria and action is required. For example, you get an email when there is a traffic spike on your website or your site goes down. The guideline here is that if it’s repeatable it can be automated.

Then again, there is no reason you have to respond to the alert. If it really can’t be automated and requires human intervention you can…

Step 3: Delegate It

Are you sure you can’t eliminate or automate it? If not, hand off what you can to someone else who can do it cheaper, better, faster or can do it when you can’t (like when you are sleeping or at work). In the physical world that might be cooking, cleaning or lawn-care. In the world of tech it might be things like video transcription, driving traffic to your site (which can be some what automated as well), customer support, research, etc… The point is you don’t have to do everything and with all of the crap most of us having going on you probably can’t. Take your sanity back and let someone else do the tedious stuff.

Finally, if you can’t or don’t want to hand it off to someone else you…

Step 4: Execute

That’s right, whatever is left after the first 3 steps is what you do. Ideally what remains are only the things that require your special knowledge, skills or presence (like a speaking engagement); or, that you personally just happen to really enjoy doing. This list should be pretty slim but it should also represent the few things you do that deliver the most impact to whatever it is you are streamlining and the things you most enjoy doing.

Follow the four steps in as many facets of your life as you can, work, home, business(es), blogging, whatever, and get as granular about it as you can. Even if your execution isn’t 100% perfect you’ll likely find that when you simplify your life it becomes a richer one.

Zen Habits “Simplify Your Workday” is also a good read if you want more of this kind of thing.

I’d love to hear your stories of simplification and what it meant to you, leave us a comment and let me know how it’s going.

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