Focus - Leo Babauta [26]
It's a beautiful way of working. And not incidentally, I've accomplished even more this way, without making that a goal. It's a natural by-product of doing what you love.
"A good traveler has no fixed plans, and is not intent on arriving."
– Lao Tzu
7: finding simplicity
"Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away."
– Antoine de Saint-Exupery
For years now I have been working on living a simpler life -- in my personal, family and work life. It's been one of the best things I've ever done, in many ways:
A simple life is less stressful, more sane, happier.
Simpler living is less expensive, which helped me to get out of debt.
I'm able to focus better when I work, leading to a more successful career than ever (by far).
I free up time for my family, and for the things I love most.
I've rid my life of things I didn't like doing.
I have fewer possessions, leading to a less cluttered home and workspace, which I love.
And those are just a few of the benefits. When it comes to finding focus, simplifying is a great place to start. When you simplify, you remove the extraneous and allow yourself to focus. You might say that simplifying is a necessary part of finding focus.
This is a short guide to finding simplicity.
simplifying your life
What does a simplified life look like? There's no one answer. While some might go to the extremes of living in a cabin in Alaska or on a tropical island, others find simplicity in a city while working a job with the hectic pace of a stockbroker. The key is to find what matters most to you, and to eliminate as much of the rest as possible.
A simpler life probably means fewer possessions. We allow ourselves to accumulate possessions through years of shopping, receiving gifts, and so on, until we're overwhelmed by it all. We are strongly influenced by advertising to acquire things, but we don't have a good system for getting rid of them. Freeing yourself of clutter leaves room for thinking, for focus.
A simpler life means fewer commitments. This is difficult, as commitments accumulate over the years just as much as possessions do, and the result is that we have no time in our lives for what really matters. Getting out of the commitments you already have is the painful part: it requires saying "no" to people, disappointing them in some way. In my experience, they'll live, and life will go on. And when you've eliminated many of your commitments, you've freed up so much of your time for things you truly love.
A simpler life means less distractions, less busy-ness, less clutter... and more space for what matters most to you. You free up time for work you're passionate about, people you love, hobbies that make you happy. Time for solitude, for thinking. And that's a good thing.
simplifying your work
Simplifying work is very similar to simplifying your life in general, but a bit more "productivity" oriented of course. Let's start with this question: what does it mean to simplify your work?
It can mean a lot of things, including:
Clearing the clutter of your workspace, to give you a distraction-free and more soothing space to find focus.
Focusing less on busy-work and more on important work that has a high impact on your career and business.
Working on fewer projects and tasks so you're less busy, and more focused.
Narrowing the scope of your work so you do less but do it better, offer less but offer better things.
Eliminating streams of communication, news, distractions.
Creating the work life you want, rather than one that is a reaction to requests and needs of others.
For me, that means waking in the morning and deciding on one thing that's most important for me to work on. It means spending less time on email and other distractions, and more time on creating and