Tag Archives: self improvement

I was at a party last week, talking to people I’d never met before, which is something I always love to do.   When I mentioned the word “simplicity” in reference to this blog, one woman asked me “How do you simplify your life?”

Good question! 

It took a bit of scrambling (there’s a reason I’m a writer), but I think I managed to come up with something coherent.  She looked quite interested in what I had to say, as did the woman sitting next to me.  Her question, and the way the two of them listened to my reply has left me thinking that maybe there are others who want to know how to make life simpler.

I mean, there’s a ton of information out there, isn’t there?  Entire sites devoted to uncluttering and organizing and cooking really simple dinners and being a minimalist and scaling back and cutting down.  Taken head on, it can look a bit exhausting, like more stuff you need to add to your To Do list, which just makes your life more complicated, rather than less.

I lead a pretty simple life, all things considered.  And sometimes I forget that I actually took steps to get here.  I didn’t just luck into it.  I read and questioned and tried things.

The first big step was this:  I figured out what my priorities were.  I mean, I sat down, I made a list of people and activities that caught my interest or my guilt and I wrote them down. 

Then I sorted them by order of importance.  In writing. 

This can be a truly eye-opening experience.  You look at the list when you’re done and if you’ve been really honest with yourself, it will look nothing like what your parents or your teachers or your church would tell it should look.  It will be your list.  It will be you, getting to know yourself, maybe for the first time in your life.

Maybe you don’t like what your priorities say about you.  Maybe you want to put someone or something higher on the list.  Maybe you forgot to put yourself on it at all.  Well, now you know.  You can start to think about making the changes you need to to get your life in line with who you want to be.  You have a clearer picture of what you want more of in your life.  You are so much closer to a simple life.

Just, please, while you’re doing this, be honest and gentle with yourself.  It’s OK not to want to save the world.  It’s OK if making a career out of that talent that everyone tells you is so special to you but that actually leaves you cold just isn’t on your list.  It’s perfectly fine to want to be a little bit ordinary, or really, really special in ways no one suspected.  It’s your list.  Don’t let anyone else dictate what goes on it.

I really recommend this exercise if you’re interested in simplifying or whatever you want to call it when you build yourself a life that is really, truly yours.

Try making your list.  And tomorrow I’ll tell you the second part of my answer.

And if you’d like to share what came up while doing this exercise, I always love reading your comments!

The Daily Photo: Door Number Two