Learn to Simplify Your Life

As you know if you have followed this blog for any amount of time, I keep a lot of irons in the fire. And even though it has always been my desire to start my own business and work in that business full time I have continued to maintain a day job for any number of reasons. But sometimes we have to be pushed when we’re a little afraid to jump. So when I found out that headcount reductions were going to affect me I decided that now was the time to jump in with both feet and attack my dreams. So here we go…

About 9 months ago I decided it was time to really simplify my life, that I didn’t need all of the peripheral crap I had loaded it up with and I would be able to focus better and see more clearly if I dumped the extraneous things that were distractions. I love having a house, but it’s more work than I care for so it’s up for sale, bad market or not. I don’t really need two cars, after all I only have one butt so the BMW is up for sale (honestly the S2000 is just way more fun to drive). I’ve dumped clothing, old music gear (keep the guitars of course), electronics and other stuff that’s been sitting in a closet going unused. I’m even selling off some furniture and anything else I keep thinking I need but haven’t touched or used in a long time and I’m really looking forward to downsizing and focusing wholeheartedly on my businesses. To be sure, the lower financial burden will be helpful too since anyone who has started a company knows that cash is king and it can be tough in the beginning.

The lesson in all of this is that we really don’t “need” a lot of the things we think we do and lessening those things can be a huge step toward seeing with more clarity and focusing on what is really important. My inspiration for change has come from a lot of places but 4 Hour Work Week definitely played a part. If you haven’t ready it yet, check it out. I also recommend Pam Slim’s blog, escapefromcubiclenation.com for a lot of the same life simplifying insights. In the mean time, if you are thinking of starting a business, going back to school or any other en devour you just haven’t seemed to have gotten started, think very seriously about how important that goal is to you and even more so about what you can do without. Life, like a desk or room, can get cluttered and when it does it’s hard for us to be at our best. So clean it out and get down to what is most important to you. You’ll be surprised at what you don’t miss.

I’m not an advocate of being a “minimalist” either. I’m sure some day I’ll re-complicate my life (to an extent) with some things, but they’ll be things I really enjoy and it will be when I have time to enjoy them. So if you decided to scale back and find it more painful than I have (I find it quite liberating actually) then remember it’s temporary so you can move on to even bigger and better things. Best of luck in doing so.