Simplify Your Life

Some ways we make things more complicated are:

• Instead of moving our bodies more and eating less, we pay money for complex fitness plans and diets.
• Instead of doing the work that needs to be done, we procrastinate and create unnecessary stress for ourselves.
• Instead of getting started toward a goal, we spend months researching every detail on the topic.
• Instead of inviting a few friends over for dinner, we follow them on social media and read books about how to have better relationships.

You get the point. For almost any activity, there is a simple way and a more complicated way. Many of the smart, thoughtful people I know opt for the complicated path, and it’s worth pausing to consider why that is.

1. We Fear Getting Started: Adding complexity is a subconscious way of avoiding the real thing you’re trying to do. As long as you’re researching a topic, or imagining yourself doing it, you get all the good feelings without any of the discomfort. However, all this extra stuff is just weighing you down. It’s a weight you don’t need to carry anymore. Recognizing this fact, and noticing when you’re doing it, is a powerful way to root out complexity in your life.

2. We’re Afraid of Failing: There is no denying that failure hurts, but it’s often the only path toward the meaningful goal you have for yourself—whether that’s finally decluttering your life, connecting more deeply with friends, or whatever else you desire to better yourself.

3. We Seek Some Secret Knowledge: If you’re like me, you have a high desire for certainty before working on something important. Instead of getting started and trying to figure things out as you go, you’ll want to know the exact path to ensure success. Maybe you’ll spend months looking for that one piece of advice or secret knowledge.

At 34 years old, I haven’t figured this all out yet. But one thing I’ve come to believe as true is that there is no secret knowledge for almost anything you want in life. From friendship to faith, finances to wisdom, it isn’t complicated, it just takes time and persistence.

Simplify Your Life

There’s a big difference between wanting a simpler life and achieving one. The three reasons above are factors that cause that gap.

Like entropy, which creeps into every dynamic system, our lives will lean away from simplicity and toward complexity. We must constantly root out the clutter that accumulates in our thoughts and actions to actually make the progress we desire.

3 Tips for Practicing Simplicity

Here are my three best tips for making simplicity a regular practice. These are practical steps to combat the drift toward complication.

1. Learn As You Go

Except for the most complicated specializations, you don’t need much upfront training. Just get started and have the mindset that you’ll learn as you go. Learning on the go is much more efficient, and the lessons stick with you forever because they come with real-world context.

2. Do the Real Thing

In a moment of quiet clarity, identify the activity that would bring you closer to your goal with the least amount of complication. Don’t assume you need some special knowledge to figure it out. Then spend most of your time doing that activity—the real thing—and avoiding the secondary stuff that feels like work but is actually a distraction.

3. Reframe Failure

For this to work, you have to embrace uncertainty and failure. The more control you demand, the more complicated systems and roadblocks you’ll add to your life to avoid the discomfort of letting yourself down. In the long run, you have to believe that failing fast and adjusting course is the quicker way forward.