The Art of Simple LIving
The Art of Simple LIving
Simple Living
Minimalist Living, Decluttering and
living in focus with your Life Purpose
Gilbert Ross
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CONTENTS
CONTENTS .................................................................... III
FOREWORD................................................................... IV
INFORMATION .............................................................. 42
ORGANISING ................................................................ 46
LESS DOING .................................................................. 49
SIMPLICITY AT HOME...................................................... 53
Foreword
Our lives have become increasingly complex in a fast-paced,
consumer-driven & hyper-connected society. We follow hectic,
stress-laden lifestyles and we are swamped with too much
information. In short, we need to simplify,simplify, simplify!
We need to learn, or rather re-learn, the art of simple living. Many
people are becoming more aware of this and are taking bold steps
forward, towards more conscious living, minimalist lifestyles and
simplifying their day-to-day living.
This book is simply a guide to help people make this transition. It
provides valuable insights into how to change your beliefs and
perceptions a key ingredient for transformative change and
practical step-by-step tips on how to simplify, declutter and focus
on those things essential to our life purpose.
The book is an edited transcript of my online course on
Udemy.com which can be found here:
https://www.udemy.com/the-art-of-simplicity-focusproductivity-freedom/
SECTION
ONE
BOOK TITLE
INTRODUCTION
1
What is Simplicity?
SECTION
TWO
SHIFTING GEARS
2
Needs & Wants
It is not a daily increase, but a daily decrease. Hack away at the
inessentials. - Bruce lee
Need? Want?
25 Shirts
9 pairs of trousers
6 Pairs of shoes
Printer
Old files with Study
Notes
Music CDs
Books
No
No
No
No
No
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
No
Yes
Yes
No
Comment
I could have half or less
I could have half or less
Need 1 for sports & 1 casual
Rarely print
Very rarely to make reference to
them. Occupying space
All my music is digitised
A valuable knowledge reference. I
do give away fiction titles through.
So for instance we all have lots of clothing items. The reason for
this is that we buy clothes we like but then we get tired of them
and we purchase new stuff from time to time. Now some people
do regular wardrobe cleanups. However the main driver behind a
Need?
Change job
Increase income by $400
per week
More time for dealing with
relationship
Doing my Phd
Yes
Yes
Yes
Want?
Comment
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Holiday to Canada
Yes
Yes
Yes
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There are things and ideas that are inessential to our life's
purpose
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12
3
10 Beliefs to Let Go Of
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Practice:
Find a quiet time during the day - could be in the morning, lunch
breaks or late evenings. Think about all the things you believe are
conducive to your goals such as for example - more money; a
better job; a bigger house; a nicer car; a new gadget; a fitter body;
relief from a physical ailment; reconciliation of broken
relationships and so on.
Now think of why you think you need these things. Be honest. Dig
deep. You may hop on from one reason to another but if you dig
deep It will always lead to the same road - self-realization. In
other words being aligned to your life's purpose and doing what
excites you. Now think again. Are these things like financial
freedom, cars, status and so on REALLY conducive to selfrealization? The answer is no, not really. And this is not a bad
news. Actually it is a powerful liberating idea that we can become
self-realized without having to constantly run after these things.
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Practice:
Whenever you have a problem bothering you and feel the urge to
think or analyze it - at first do so but be aware of the process.
Take note, during and afterwards, how simple or complex your
thinking is. Did it lead you to a straightforward solution? Did it
create more questions or more uncertainty? Did it require time,
effort or energy?
In a similar situation, try to refrain from analyzing the problem. Be
sensitive to how you feel about it. Relax. Open up for possible
answers without thinking about it. Leave space. Allow it to be.
With some practice you will start picking up certain 'signals' or
intuition. Often, intuition comes when your mind is actually not
thinking about the problem. The reason is that you would be
creating space for your subconscious to feed in information,
which is otherwise muted by mental chatter. It might take some
time, but as most things it requires practice. One thing to be
encouraged with is that intuition is a basic human ability we can
all acquire with some patience and little effort.
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Practice:
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calling - for example pursuing your studies - but at the same time
feel the pressure of securing income from a stable job.
Practice:
Grab a pen and paper and scribble down all those dreams and
projects you have left on the side because your finances or source
of income took priority over them. For example a project that
required a certain amount of time and hence conflicting with your
full-time job. Or a pet project that required certain financing to
kick start. The purpose of this exercise for now is to take stock of
these projects and be aware of how the idea of financial security
interferes with them.
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Practice:
Letting go of the belief that we need to do something can be
difficult for some in the beginning. Some people get restless and
feel they cannot be motionless for some time. This is OK. It's one
thing being active and another thing being consumed by the belief
that in order to make things happen you need to do something
about it now.
What you need to practice is to let go of this belief. For me this
practice was most effective on Sundays. Why? Sundays should be
a time for taking it easy and being with the family. However I
always used to get these irresistible temptations to use that time
to work on some of my projects. Time is limited right? So this was
the best day to practice letting go of the urge to do something
and practice non-doing.
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Practice:
Think about all those goals, dreams and results you are waiting for
as still to come or happen. More income from a new business
venture, job prospects after finishing my degree, more people
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I have been observing myself and others all my life and one thing I
have learned is that people tend to follow compulsive actions in
some way or another even if in the mildest degree. For example,
you might feel that you shower or put on your makeup in certain
ordered steps and feel something is oddly missing if you don't.
You might not even be conscious of this mini-ritualistic behavior.
You might be following a number of these compulsive behaviors
throughout your normal day.
The only problem with compulsive behavior is that it is selflimiting because you fail to see that you have many different ways
to carry out a certain task or solve a problem. Self-limiting our
choices causes more complexity.
Practice:
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Practice:
The good news is that not only can we let go of self-cristicism or
negative self-talk but we can do exactly the opposite - Positive
self-talk. If our subconscious mind can pick up and act upon
negative chatter, then it can also do so with positive affirmations.
And it does. So a good practice is to build the habit of mentally
affirming positive and encouraging thoughts. A lot of people
secretly use mental affirmations with much benefit in their daily
life. This is not wishy-washy stuff but a simple way of hacking how
our mind works.
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even if little, are not obstructed by inner or outer noise. They are
clean, elegant and effortless.
Practice:
Think about a role you identify yourself with. Could be your job,
your role as a parent, instructor, helper, writer or whatever it is
that you have a solid self-image of. Take note of how you visualize
yourself in this or feel about it. Try to imagine how it would feel to
be dissasociated with it. Imagine how your life's decisions would
be different without you putting that role into the equation.
It might feel very strange at first but the mind can adapt quite
easily and quickly. If you get the habit of dissasociating yourself
mentally from your role, you will realize that there are other
aspects of yourself you haven't allowed to express themselves
before. You might find certain inner conflicts to resolve or untie.
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Practice:
One good practice is to free out a day from your schedule or
calendar. It could either be a weekend or a day off from work.
This day should be left completely free from chores, errands, tasks
or commitments of any type. Set out to just wander about or
explore a park or museum. Do not wear any watches and if
possible stay disconnected from the internet or mobile devices
that notify you with pending tasks or awareness of time.
Do not rush, plan or segment your day into parts. This will feel like
a weird and unfamiliar territory at first, but trust me it is just fine.
See how your mind naturally tries to measure time. The urge to
look at your watch or time displays. Or perhaps thinking about
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tasks you should be doing or things left undone. At the same time
tell yourself that it is perfectly OK to 'waste' time.
You will not be missing anything critical. Last time I practiced this,
I managed to completely lose the passage of time. I was
immersed in my all day experience and eventually found myself
refreshed and able to cope much better with time and work in the
following days.
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SECTION
THREE
ELEMENTS OF
SIMPLICITY
4
Space and Time
Elements of Space:
Managing space is at the core of the art of simple living in practice
because if our outer or inner spaces are cluttered with inessential
stuff, we encounter anxiety, obstructions, complexity and lack of
freedom.
This is easy to see from experience. For example, having a
cluttered working space or a room that looks like a tornado aftereffect will give you a bucket load of practical issues - such as
things which cannot be found as they slip beneath mounds of
other items or constant distraction and waste of energy as you
have to shift things around in order to work or move about.
Apart from affecting day-to-day practical issues, our environment
space is also reflected in our inner space. This is the key idea
behind minimalism. In minimalism art, design and architecture,
clear spaces are considered to be of utmost importance. It is in
fact called minimalism, because the amount and effect of objects
within a space is minimal. This is conveyed through wide-open
spaces, simple inobstructive design and clear surfaces. The outer
simplicity then resonates within us to promote inner simplicity
and so minimalist exteriors somehow give us a sense of inner
peace and tranquility.
Now although miminalism and simple living go very well hand in
hand, you do not need to be a minimalist to live a life with
simplicity. For instance, you do not need to convert your home
into a minimalist one.
This is not required although helpful. What is important is that our
exterior space is managed in a way that it opens up, or at least
doesn't negatively influence our inner space...and this takes me to
the importance of inner space.
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Physical space:
Inner space:
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Take a walk
Spend time alone
Disconnect and connect
Meditate
Elements of Time:
It's funny how we are constantly running against time, running
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So every evening or early morning you can start writing your MITs
for the next day or for that same day if its early morning. Ideally
you should have one really important thing to complete that day
but an average of two or three is fine. I usually have about two.
These MITs have to be the goals or projects that are essential to
your life purpose or minor goals that support goals in line with
your life purpose. You should always focus on one goal at a time
while excluding all the others, most importantly tasks that might
potentially distract you such as using mobile devices, email,
Instant messaging and others.
The target is to always finish the MITs you have identified first.
The other tasks can be batched up and processed in one go or in
bulk sessions. It is imperative to start from the MITs first. Perhaps
sometimes its really impossible to complete your MITs in one
session because of unforeseen urgent things that might come up.
Thats fine. Just do what you have to do and get back to focus on
your MIT. This has to be the general rule.
Apart from the daily MITs, which by the way you can record in the
note-taking device of your choice, be it a simple note pad or voice
recording on your mobile device, you can create a weekly review.
In the weekly review, you set up your MITs for the following week
- that is the most two or three important tasks for the whole
week. One of them could be completing a project or finishing a
chapter in a book you are writing. That would be an MIT for the
whole week. You can then break it down into smaller chunks that
become one of your daily MITs during that week.
Conclusion
For now it is relevant to note how simplifying our life is so central
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5
Elegant Choices
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You might say, yes but childrens problems and responsibilities are
much less than that of an adult. I would say not really. Our
problems and responsibilities level up with age and experience.
What we have mostly changed is our internal bearing. We
think, analyse and evaluate more and as we saw previously this
brings about noise and lack of clarity. We also form layers of
beliefs of how the world is or how it should be. We have more
expectations and hence more limitations and hesitations.
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6
Information
If your mind isnt clouded by unnecessary things, then this is the best
season of your life
Wu-Men
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conformity to the idea that we have to look busy and on the ball
all the time - catching the latest headlines and keeping tabs on
everything. The truth is that its only shooting ourselves in the
foot. We are making our lives even more complex and stressful.
The art of simple living is about selecting the right information at
the right time and using it in the right way.
Sounds like a mouthful I know but in simpler terms it means using
information in a one shot one, on kill manner instead of letting
ourselves be tumbled and spun around in it.
We started this book with the idea that simplicity is about living
with the bare essentials and discarding the inessentials. Our use
of information needs to follow the same rule. Do not be buried
under tonnes of information that you might never make use of or
forget after a couple of days.
We need to be selective and frugal with information as well.
This doesnt mean living a secluded and isolated life where we
shut off all communication with the outside world. We just have
to know the limits where information stops being useful and
helpful and starts becoming distracting and increases complexity.
In a typical day we are fed a lot of information through different
sources and channels. Our online life has brought this to a new
level especially with social media through Internet connected
mobile devices. The average American adult spends and average
of 5 hours a day just on digital media according to an eMarketer
study published on June 2013. This number is still growing fast.
We need to simplify and digest information more wisely.
We will see how we can do this in a separate chapter. The good
new is that its not all about going back to the Stone Age. We can
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7
Organising
Life is really simple but we insist on making it complicated
Confucious
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8
Less Doing
Less is more
Mies Van Der Rohe
50
Summary:
Doing more doesnt necessarily mean getting more things
done
A lot of what we do is just about moving energy about
with no thrust forward
Focusing on what is in line with our life purpose will give
us much more by doing less
Those to-do items which are not essential for our life can
be prioritised, bundled, outsourced or carried out by using
smarter tools and procedures
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SECTION
FOUR
Simple Living in
Practice
9
Simplicity at Home
Room Priority:
One very important rule of simple living in practice is: Always
focus on one thing at a time and prioritise whats most
important. Simplifying our home follows the same rule. If we look
at our house as a whole structure to be decluttered and simplified
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If there are some things that you are really uncertain of because
of practical value they dont have now but might have in the
future, put them in a maybe box, label and store away. Be sure
not to over-do this as in the end you will end up moving a pile of
things from one place to another. In the case of kitchen
appliances or utensils, I suggest you make an honest calculation
on its usage. If it has been used between one to three times in a
whole year (for example a pasta machine or a bread maker) then
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Simplicity Maintenance:
Although decluttering rooms is a very big first step towards
simplicity at home, the most powerful and effective way to keep
things simple is creating a system that will stop clutter from
accumulating. My favourite method is decluttering on the go. I
started off this method from the kitchen. I love cooking and I cook
a lot for my wife and daughter. Its something I am passionate
about. However, with too much passionate cooking splashed
around, the kitchen ends up looking like war zone every time I
cook. This did not make my wife happy of course.
So I started keeping maintenance of things on the go. For example
every time I finish using a plate, knife, utensil or pan, I quickly
wash and put back in place immediately. It sounds strange but its
actually so time and energy-saving. The idea is not new of course.
Its breaking down tasks into small chunks and clearing them out
of the way as soon as possible. This method works and works very
good. There are a lot of advantages to this method. To start with,
you will not find a huge pile of work in the end such as dishes,
messy floors, cluttered tabletops and so on. I do not see it as a big
chore because it is interspaced between cooking - something I
love doing. It was also good because I started the habit from the
kitchen and I extended it into other rooms and in other areas of
my life.
Another method is having a place for everything and keeping
everything in its place. This is pretty much an extension of the
declutter on the go method. If for example you are about to put
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something down on a flat surface or you are taking off your shoes,
clothes and stuff, think about where that item belongs. If it
doesnt have a place to be stored, find one and stick with it. Keep
doing this every time as part of the decluttering on the go until it
becomes a habit.
Maintenance can be so much more powerful than clearing away
in one big session. Its easier, faster, takes less energy and most
of all prevents things from falling back into disorder.
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10
Simplicity at Work
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Information overload:
We have previously seen how information can be both a lifesaver
and a deterrent to action at the same time. In simple terms, too
much information is an obstacle to simple living. At work or in
business, it's no different. Actually in some cases it can be more
stressful since we are bombarded with information and pressed
to take action in a short time. Information can come from
different channels at different angles - emails, calls, colleagues,
data and figures, schedules, price changes, customer complaints
and a thousand others. Whatever your job or business is there are
times were we are handling too much information at the same
time.
We obviously need to simplify. We need special filters to put the
volume down on some information inputs and amplify other
inputs which are more essential to help us solve some problem or
get us closer to our goals with more ease and less hassle.
One way of handling information overloads, and one which I find
most effective, is by blocking time for certain tasks according to
priority. That means that if I am working on finishing off a
particularly important part of a project - for instance preparing
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Emails:
Emails have completely changed the business world and the way
we communicate. At the same time email is a double-edged
sword. They have revolutionized communication but are very
disruptive to our daily workflow and business. Sometimes they
come in torrents and we spend most of our time answering them.
Some jobs like customer support for instance struggle hard to get
close to the bottom of their inbox and as soon as they get there
it's already full again!
Here are a few practical tips to keep your email management
simple and your inbox clean:
Do not check your email first thing in the day: I used to do that
for a long time. The problem with it is that without you knowing it
will suck you in and waste a good hour or two of your day.
Remember the MITs? Always start from the most important tasks
of the day first and focus on those.
Do not be an email hawk: Stop checking your email. There is a
very common habit of constantly checking for new emails even
when working on something or using a different application. Also,
if you have email notifications popping up on your desktop or
mobile screen - turn them off. I am always fascinated when I
come across managers who have this notification setup and
wonder how it doesn't frustrate them having this thing pop up like
5 times or more in a minute!!
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11
Simplicity in Love
Expectations:
This is perhaps a major cause of friction in relationships which is
underestimated or not very often addressed. We all have
expectations about other people and the world around us. It's like
a model in our head of how people and things should behave. We
sometimes get upset when these expectations are not met and
people's behavior deviate from that mental model. Perhaps our
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not explicitly say it or show it. In a way you can say that you are
starting to pick up signals outside the loud chatter in your head.
Listening to our heart makes our relationship a hundredfold
simpler because we avoid going through unnecessary friction,
misunderstanding and painful clashes. It means communicating at
a different bandwidth where we bypass expectations, judgments
and misinterpretations. We do not let our mind dictate how the
other should behave to be in line with our expectations. Listening
to the heart goes beyond that. It tells us directly what we really
need and if we follow that inner conviction, things get so much
more simple.
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Simple Parenting
12
Simplifying parenting
Here is a list of important things to do or avoid in order to simplify
and make parenting a less resource intensive apsect of our life:
Avoid hyper-parenting:
As parents we are anxious to impart the best knowledge and
values to our children. We want to squeeze the best out of us and
give it to them. Unconsciously this can drive us into hyperparenting where we overdo things and this has counterproductive effects. As a start, hyper-parenting drains and
consumes us. It makes things more complex rather than simpler
for us. As for the children, hyper-parenting restricts the space for
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Create routines:
Create simple daily routines that can systemise and simplify
parenting. Giving your child the habit of a routine can moderate
time and effort on your part needed to direct the child to certain
tasks. Routines need not be overdone though. Too much routine
will bring dullness and leave little free space where the child can
expand her play and creativity. Freedom would be taken at the
expense of structure. On the other hand, a little bit of structure is
needed to simplify some tasks. A very good system that always
works wonders for preschoolers and early grades alike is the
reward chart. Basically a chart is drawn (let the child to the
drawing!) every week with the day of week as columns and the
routine tasks as rows. The tasks could be anything but preferably
let these be tasks that need to be performed everyday such as
cleaning up toys, bathing, washing teeth, etc. A sticker star or a
very good sign will be placed in each box if the task is
accomplished successfully. At the end of the week a small reward
will be given if a certain number of tasks, or all tasks have been
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accomplished successfully.
Purging Toys:
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lot of things that are theme-neutral toys or which can be tools for
the imagination when choosing toys for your children.
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