Simplify
Wednesday, February 4th, 2009I once edited a book of an author for a well-known publishing house. It was a good book and I liked it, except for the ending. What was wrong with the ending? It should have been closer to the beginning. He was guilty of excess, literary glut, overabundance, redundancy, and lack of restraint. I helped him edit out the surplus and the book was eventually published.
I started thinking about my own life. My life is filled with glut, redundancy, overabundance, and lack of restraint at times Just as editing is key to producing a good book, redaction and refinement is key to having a simplified and productive life. Life editors help to simplify and stream line our lives. Let’s simplify our lives through several means:
1. Define our core values and beliefs. We often feel the stress of life because we live out of sync with our values. Determine your values as they are revealed in Scripture and live according to those values.
2. Focus on the essentials and remove the clutter. Ask the following questions: 1) What is important to me? What do I love to do? 2) What are the things going on in my life, the things I do every day, every week, and every month and how are they related to what is important. 3) What possessions are important to me? If my house burned down and everything was destroyed, what few things would I replace? Get rid of all the rest. I am in the process of doing this at my home.
3. Put all of our life on one calendar. This has helped streamline my family’s life in amazing ways.
4. Learn to say no. Those things and appointments that are not on your essentials list and not part of your core values and not related to what is important to you, learn to say no. This is one of the most liberating things that I have learned in recent years. I still have much to learn.
5. Create priorities. Determine what are the one or two things you want to accomplish this year. As you pursue those priorities, beware of distractions – those things that are not important to you.
6. Take care of ourselves. Let’s take time to care for our bodies through daily exercise. Physical exercise really does reduce stress in our lives.
7. Relax. Relaxing is not comparable to being lazy; use the time to retool and think through your strategy to simplify. Also, relaxing involves making time to do the things that bring you joy. Have fun!
Simplifying our lives is not removing things from our lives to leave us on empty. Simplifying our lives is about leaving space in our lives for what is really important and what we really want and need to do.
1. Define our core values and beliefs. We often feel the stress of life because we live out of sync with our values. Determine your values as they are revealed in Scripture and live according to those values.
2. Focus on the essentials and remove the clutter. Ask the following questions: 1) What is important to me? What do I love to do? 2) What are the things going on in my life, the things I do every day, every week, and every month and how are they related to what is important. 3) What possessions are important to me? If my house burned down and everything was destroyed, what few things would I replace? Get rid of all the rest. I am in the process of doing this at my home.
3. Put all of our life on one calendar. This has helped streamline my family’s life in amazing ways.
4. Learn to say no. Those things and appointments that are not on your essentials list and not part of your core values and not related to what is important to you, learn to say no. This is one of the most liberating things that I have learned in recent years. I still have much to learn.
5. Create priorities. Determine what are the one or two things you want to accomplish this year. As you pursue those priorities, beware of distractions – those things that are not important to you.
6. Take care of ourselves. Let’s take time to care for our bodies through daily exercise. Physical exercise really does reduce stress in our lives.
7. Relax. Relaxing is not comparable to being lazy; use the time to retool and think through your strategy to simplify. Also, relaxing involves making time to do the things that bring you joy. Have fun!
Simplifying our lives is not removing things from our lives to leave us on empty. Simplifying our lives is about leaving space in our lives for what is really important and what we really want and need to do.
Tell me how you have simplified your life over the years.
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