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Book summary: The Power of Less

Power of less summary

The Power of Less 1 by Leo Babauta 2 is a widely known and over explored in online content book. Nevertheless, I read the book realizing that though many of the described techniques are frequently offered in sources we access often, it’s good to have it all together and well structured to be followed as a full program for habit change, so I decided to give it a try as a whole and summarizing the content was the first step - though it’s more like just organizing my highlights. In particular, the book idea of simplification is extremely appealing to me considering I’ve been spreading too thin in the many things I’ve been letting get involved. The content below is the most important extracts from my highlights on Kindle, so it’s literally what is in the book. I won’t quote because most of it are quotes, they are slightly change to make it shorter and content just enough to get the idea. So where you read “I/me” it’s Leo Babauta and not me! The bold in some sentences was added by me.

  1. Introduction
  2. Part I: The principles
    1. Why less is powerful
    2. The art of setting limits
    3. Choosing the essential, and simplifying
    4. Simple focus
    5. Create new habit and the power
    6. Start small
  3. Part II: In Practice
    1. Simple goals and projects
    2. Simple tasks
    3. Simple time management
    4. Simple E-mail
    5. Simple Internet
    6. Simple Filing
    7. Simple commitments
    8. Simple daily routine
    9. Declutter your work space
    10. Slow Down
    11. Simple Health and Fitness
    12. On motivation

Introduction

The solution lies in setting limits to how much we consume and do. It lies in making the most of our time by focusing on the most important things, instead of everything. It all comes down to making choices. Do less, not more, but achieve more because of the choices I make. Simplicity boils down to two steps: Identify the essential. Eliminate the rest. I’d focus all of my energy and attention on that one challenge, and the barriers would break down. I’d focus on one goal at a time (I call it my “One Goal”) and not try to accomplish everything at once. My answer: It’s a matter of placing limits, and focusing on the essential. Set limitations. Choose the essential. Simplify. Focus. Create habits. Start small.

The entire book goes through this very simple idea of simplification and focus.

Why less is powerful

Doing a huge number of things doesn’t mean you’re getting anything meaningful done. Doing more things means you’re likely to do a lot of unimportant things, and you’ll be overworked and stressed at the same time.

Examine your task list. Take a look at everything on your list and ask yourself the following questions about each one:

Limitation will be the overall rule to help on it.

If there’s any area of your life that is overwhelming you, and that you’d like to simplify, apply limitations.

The art of setting limits

Limitless is weak. Learn to focus yourself with limits, and you’ll increase your strength.

The benefits of setting limits on everything you do

Many times, when we are spread too thin, we only make incremental progress on important projects and goals. It shows others that your time is important. When we try to take on everything that comes our way, the people around us get the message that their time is more important than ours, that we’ll say yes to whatever requests they have. If, however, we have firm limits on what we do, we send the message that we value our time and our priorities.

Take a few minutes to think about your life—what areas take up too much time, or seem overloaded? What would you like to simplify? Some ideas for good places to start:

HOW TO SET LIMITS

So setting limits for anything else will work the same way:

Choosing the essential, and simplifying

CHOOSING THE ESSENTIAL: A SERIES OF QUESTIONS

In everything you do, use these questions to guide you to choose the essential, especially if you have problems deciding. Once you get the hang of it, you won’t need these questions anymore—they’ll become automatic.

  1. What are your values? Values are simply knowing what things are most important to you. Think about the things that really matter to you, the qualities you want to have, the principles you want to live your life by. Once you’ve identified these values, everything you do and choose should follow from those.
  2. What are your goals? What do you want to achieve in life? How about over the next year? How about this month? And today? If you know what you’re trying to achieve, you can determine if an action or item will help you achieve it.
  3. What do you love? Think about what you love, who you love to spend time with, what you love doing.
  4. What is important to you? Along the same lines, make a list of the most important things in your life, in your work, or in whatever area you’re thinking about.
  5. What has the biggest impact? If you have a choice to make between a list of projects or tasks, think about which project or task will make the biggest difference in your life or career. What will have the biggest effect on everything else? For example, if you have a choice between making some calls, having a meeting, and writing a report, think about the impact each task will have: the calls are to clients who spend perhaps one hundred dollars each on your company, the meeting is with a client who will bring in ten thousand dollars in business if you can close the deal, and the report is something that might not even be read. The meeting, in this example, has the biggest impact, and is therefore the most essential.
  6. What has the most long-term impact? There’s a difference between the size of an impact and its long-term value. For example, a meeting with a client might bring in ten thousand dollars next week, but a long-term marketing campaign might bring in hundreds of thousands of dollars over the next year. The impact doesn’t have to be in terms of money—it could be anything that’s valuable to you.
  7. Needs vs. wants. This is a good criteria to use when you’re trying to decide whether to spend on certain items: Which items do you actually need, and which ones are just things you want? If you can identify needs, you can eliminate most of the wants, which are nonessential.
  8. Eliminate the nonessential. Sometimes it’s useful to work backward, if you’re having trouble figuring out the essentials. If you have a list of things to do, for example, start by crossing off the nonessential items. You know that washing your car, for example, isn’t as important as paying your bills or fixing that leak that is costing you hundreds of dollars on your water bill. Once you eliminate some of the nonessential stuff, you are left with the more essential things on the list.
  9. Continual editing process. Most of the time you don’t pare things all the way down to the essentials on your first try. You eliminate some of the nonessentials and give the remaining things a try. Then you take another look at it in a week or two and eliminate more things. Continue that process until you are happy that you can’t eliminate anything else.

The details of how to apply it in different and practical areas of life are addressed in the following chapters.

Simple Focus

Your focus is your most important tool. Focus on less to become more effective. Focus on One Goal in order to achieve it. Focus on the task at hand instead of multitasking, and you’ll be more productive. Focus on the present, to reduce anxiety and stress.

HOW TO USE FOCUS TO IMPROVE YOUR LIFE Let’s first look at how to use the power of focus in different ways:

Single-tasking!

Here’s how to single-task:

The best ways to practice focusing on the present:

  1. When you eat, just eat. The best way to think about being present is this: Do just one thing at a time. When you are eating, don’t read or think about something else or iron your clothes (especially if you’re eating something that might splatter on the clothes). Just eat. Pay attention to what you’re eating. Really experience it—the taste, the texture. Do it slowly. Same thing with anything else: washing dishes, taking a shower, driving, working, playing. Don’t do multiple things at once—just do what you’re doing now, and nothing else.
  2. Be aware. Another important step is to become more aware of your thoughts. You will inevitably think about the past and future. That’s OK. Just become aware of those thoughts. Awareness will bring change.
  3. Be gentle. If you think about the past or future, do not beat yourself up about it! Don’t try to force those thoughts out of your head. Just be aware of them and gently allow them to leave. Then bring yourself back to the present.
  4. Exercise. Exercise is my meditation. I run, and try to only run. I focus on my running, on my breathing, on my body, on nothing but the present. It’s great practice.
  5. Daily routines. Anything can be your meditation. When you wash dishes, this is practice. This is your meditation. When you walk, focus on walking. Make anything you do become practice.
  6. Put up reminders. A reminder on your fridge or computer desktop, or on your wall, is a good thing. Or use a reminder service to send you a daily e-mail. Whatever it takes to keep your focus on practicing being present.
  7. There is no failure. You will mess up, but that’s OK, because it is impossible to mess up. The only thing that matters is that you practice, and over time, if you keep doing it, you will learn to focus on the present more often than you do now. You cannot fail, even if you stop doing it for a while. Doing it at all is success. Celebrate every little success.
  8. Keep practicing. When you get frustrated, just take a deep breath. When you ask yourself, “What should I do now, Self?”, the answer is “Keep practicing.”

Create new habits and the power of less

Create new habits to make long-lasting improvements.

Focus on one habit at a time, one month at a time, so that you’ll be able to focus all your energy on creating that one habit.

Here’s how it works:

  1. Select one habit for the Challenge. Only one habit per month. You can choose any habit—whatever you think will have the biggest impact on your life.
  2. Write down your plan. You will need to specifically state what your goal will be each day, when you’ll do it, what your “trigger” will be (the event that will immediately precede the habit that’s already a part of your routine—such as exercising right after you brush your teeth), and who you will report to (see below).
  3. Post your goal publicly. Tell as many people as possible that you are trying to form your new habit. I suggest an online forum, but you could e-mail it to coworkers and family and friends or otherwise get the word out to a large group.
  4. Report on your progress daily. Each day, tell the same group of people whether or not you succeeded at your goal.  
  5. Celebrate your new habit! After thirty days, you will have a new habit. You will still need to make sure you do the habit each day, but it’ll be fairly well entrenched if you were consistent all month.

WHY IT WORKS

THE RULES

There are only a few rules you need to follow to make this Challenge a success.

12 KEY HABITS TO START WITH

If I had to recommend twelve habits to start with (one each month for a year), these are the twelve:

  1. Set your 3 MITs (Most Important Tasks) each morning.
  2. Single-task. When you work on a task, don’t switch to other tasks.
  3. Process your in-box to empty.
  4. Check e-mail just twice a day.
  5. Exercise five to ten minutes a day.
  6. Work while disconnected, with no distractions.
  7. Follow a morning routine.
  8. Eat more fruits and veggies every day.
  9. Keep your desk decluttered.
  10. Say no to commitments and requests that aren’t on your Short List (see Chapter 13, Simple Commitments).
  11. Declutter your house for fifteen minutes a day.
  12. Stick to a five-sentence limit for e-mails.

Start small

Start Small, is simply a way to ensure the greatest likelihood of success for the rest of the changes.

Why?

  1. It narrows your focus.
  2. It keeps your energy and enthusiasm going for longer.
  3. It’s easier to handle.
  4. You ensure success. If you start out with a small success, you can build upon it, get another small success, and build upon that, and so on—until you have a series of small successes that add up to a very large success.
  5. Gradual change is longer-lasting.

Examples:

  1. Exercise: Start with five to ten minutes a day, instead of thirty.
  2. Waking early: Start by waking fifteen minutes earlier, instead of an hour or two.
  3. Productivity: Start by trying to focus on the task at hand for five to ten minutes at a time.
  4. E-mail effectiveness: Start by limiting yourself to checking e-mail just a couple fewer times a day.
  5. Healthy eating: Start by making just one change to your diet, instead of doing a major diet overhaul.
  6. A major project: Start with just one small task from the project, instead of trying to tackle everything at once. Then go to the next small task, and so on.
  7. Decluttering: Start with just one drawer, instead of trying to declutter your entire office or home.

Part II - In practice

Simple goals and projects

Limit yourself to fewer goals, and you’ll achieve more.

THE ONE GOAL SYSTEM

The One Goal System is simple—you focus on one goal at a time to increase your effectiveness with that goal. To break the goal into concrete steps, you will focus on one sub-goal at a time.

  1. Choose a goal. Make a list of things you’d like to accomplish over the next few years. This list might have ten things on it, or maybe twenty. Now, you could try to tackle all those goals at once, or take on as many as possible. But that will dilute your effectiveness. Instead, choose just one, and focus completely on that goal until you can check it off the list. I’d recommend that you choose a goal that you really want to accomplish—the stronger your desire, the more likely you are to actually stick with that goal until you’re finished. It’s not enough to say, “It would be nice to achieve this goal.” You need to want it so deeply that you’ll make it your top priority for months to come. I also recommend that you choose a goal that will take about six months to a year to complete. Any longer than a year, and you will have problems maintaining your focus, and might become overwhelmed. If it’s much shorter than six months, it might not be something worthy of your efforts. What if you really want to achieve it, but it’ll take two years or more? Break it down into sub-goals, so that your first sub-goal will take about a year. For example, if you want to become a lawyer, you have to get in to law school, and then complete three years of school, and then pass the bar exam. Make your first goal simply to be accepted into a decent law school—that’ll take six months to a year.
  2. Break it down to a sub-goal. Once you’ve decided on your One Goal, the next step is to focus on a smaller sub-goal that you can accomplish in the next month or two. In the law school example above, you might decide that your sub-goal will be to do research into some of the top law schools in the areas you prefer, to choose five schools, and to gather the essential information about each school. To shorten that, you might call this sub-goal something like, “Complete research on Top 5 schools.” The reason for a sub-goal is to create shorter steps that are more immediately achievable than a larger, yearlong goal might be. If you don’t break a goal into smaller steps, you can become overwhelmed by such a large and vague goal. You can’t sit down today, for example, and get accepted into a law school. It’s not something that’s doable. So you have to break it into more doable steps.
  3. Weekly goal. Each week, create a weekly goal that will move you closer to your sub-goal. So this week, using the example above, you might just want to find all the decent law schools in the areas you prefer, find their Web sites, and start reading about them. That would be your weekly goal.
  4. Daily action. Then each day, choose one action that will move you closer to your weekly goal. Make this action your most important task for the day. Do it first, before you do anything else. This will help keep you focused on your One Goal, instead of pushing it back when other, more pressing things come up. This might sound complicated, but in action, it’s fairly simple. You set a One Goal for the year (it can be set at any time—you don’t have to wait for January). You set a sub-goal that will take a month or two to complete. Each week you set a weekly goal. Each day you choose a task that will move you to that weekly goal, and make that your most important task of the day. This One Goal system will keep you focused on achieving your goal, moving closer to it each day. It will keep you from spreading yourself too thin, and will allow you to focus all your energy on completing this goal.

THE SIMPLE PROJECTS LIST

If you don’t already have a projects list, I suggest you make a quick-and-dirty one right now. List all the projects you have going on in your life, including all your work projects, any personal and home projects, projects with civic organizations, and so on. Anything that would take a day or more to complete, to use a rough guideline.

Now I’m going to ask you to do something that might be a bit difficult for some of you: Choose just the top three projects on your list. Don’t choose three from each area of your life—just choose three altogether.

This list of three projects is your Simple Projects List. Everything else goes on a second list, which we’ll call the “On Deck List.”

You’ll probably still get to these projects on your On Deck List, but you won’t be working on them right now. They’re on hold until you complete the three projects on your Simple Projects List.

Let me make this point clear: In this system I’m recommending, you don’t move a project from the On Deck List to the Simple Projects List until you finish all three projects on your Simple Projects List. Not just one, but all three.

I recommend that, at all times, you have at least one of your top three projects be related to your One Goal so that you are always moving that goal forward. Of the other two projects on your active list, you can choose another work-related goal and a personal goal (if you like). Whatever works best for your situation.

Why not have just one project?

It’s rare that you can start a project and work on it until it’s finished,

For this system to work, a project should take no more than a month to complete, and preferably only a week or two.

But the real focus of any project should be in getting it done. Completion. Each day, put your focus on moving your project forward to completion. Put aside distractions, and put all of your energy into one project at a time—you can switch to another of your three active projects when necessary, but at any given moment, just focus on one project. And move it closer to completion, until you’re done.

Here are a few more tips to help you get to completion:

Simple Tasks

What about the other things I need to do today? They’re usually smaller things, not as important, but tasks or errands that need to get done anyway. Here’s the beauty of MITs: Usually, the small, unimportant tasks that we need to get done every day (e-mail, phone calls, paperwork, errands, meetings, Internet browsing, etc.) will get in the way of our important, longer-term tasks—but if you make your MITs your first priority each day, the important stuff will get done instead of the unimportant. Once I’m done with my MITs, I will do the smaller tasks in batches (I call them batch tasks).

The key to the MITs for me: At least one of the MITs should be related to one of my goals. While the other two can be work stuff (and usually are), one must be a goal action. This ensures that I am doing something to move my goals forward that day. That makes all the difference in the world. Each day, I’ve done something to make my dreams come true. It’s built into my morning routine: Set a task to accomplish for one of my goals. And so it happens each day, automatically. Another key: Do your MITs first thing in the morning, either at home or when you first get to work. If you put them off till later, you will get busy and run out of time to do them. Get them out of the way, and the rest of the day, anything you accomplish is extra. It’s such a small thing to implement, and yet for most people it’s a huge revelation. Sometimes small things can make big differences. The keys to making MITs work for you: Set them first thing in the morning. Limit yourself to three. Ensure that one MIT is goal-related, or related to one of your top three projects. Focus on accomplishing these tasks above all others. Do your MITs early in the day, before you do anything else. When you do one of your MITs, be sure to single-task—focus on that task only (see Principle 4).

Limiting our tasks doesn’t get anything done if those tasks are too big. Instead, break things down into small tasks that can be accomplished in an hour or less—even better would be twenty to thirty minutes, or even ten to fifteen minutes. The smaller, the better, because then we’re more likely to actually get them done. Let’s say we have a huge task staring us in the face: “Write Annual Report.” We look at that task, and we stare at it, and we know we should do it, but we stare at it some more. Then we check e-mail, or check our bank account (“My balance is still negative?”), or log on to a forum or site we enjoy, or call a friend or coworker. The large task doesn’t get done. Instead, beat that procrastination hurdle by making the task smaller. “Outline report” or “brainstorm report topics” or “write first section of report” are much better, because they’re things we can do in a shorter amount of time. They’re less intimidating. We can get started on them and get them done in ten to twenty minutes. Anytime you find yourself procrastinating on an important task, see if you can break it into something smaller. Then just get started. Don’t procrastinate, but just get started. Once you’ve gotten started, you will gain momentum, and will have broken through the initial resistance barrier, and you’ll be much more likely to continue to the next small task and the next one until the large task is completed.

Small tasks are always better than large ones.

Simple Time Management

Keep time management simple and avoid rigidity or complicated schedules.

How can you do that? First, don’t schedule appointments. This will be a radical departure for many people, but it’s not a new idea and it’s worked for others. If someone requests an appointment, tell them that you don’t schedule appointments. Instead, ask them to call you a little before they’d like to meet to see if you can make it. If you’re free, take the meeting.

What do you do instead of keeping a schedule? Know your priorities (see the next section) and from moment to moment, decide what you should be doing based on your priorities, how much time you have available, and your energy level.

Learn to be in the moment, focusing on one task at a time, and immersing yourself completely in that task. If you aren’t finding yourself passionate about a certain task, allow yourself to move on to something you’re more passionate about. The more passionate you are about a task or project, the more energy you’ll put into it, and the better you’ll do with it. Immersing yourself in a task, completely, is a phenomenon called “flow.”

Basically, flow is a state of mind that occurs when you lose yourself in a task, and the world around you disappears. You lose track of time. We’ve all experienced this from time to time—the trick is learning how to purposefully get yourself into flow.

The way to get into flow:

  1. Choose a task you’re passionate about. If it’s something you don’t care about, you won’t find flow.
  2. Choose a task that’s challenging. But not too challenging—if it’s too difficult, you’ll have a hard time getting into flow. If it’s too easy, you’ll get bored.
  3. Eliminate distractions. The less you think about other things, the better. You want to focus completely on this task. Get rid of distractions such as phones, e-mail notifications, instant-messaging, clutter on your desk or computer desktop, etc.
  4. Immerse yourself in the task. Just start on the task, and focus completely on it. Forget about everything else, and let the world melt away. Get excited about the task and have fun. Warning: You may lose track of time and be late for your next appointment—which is why it’s a bad idea to schedule too many appointments.

It will take a little while for you to get used to single-tasking, if you are used to jumping from one thing to another and back. That’s OK. Just gently bring yourself back to your task every time you feel yourself being pulled away. Keep at it and you’ll soon be knocking off your most important tasks easily. While you’re working on your task, you’ll think of other things you need to do, or be interrupted by a coworker with a request, or an idea will pop into your head. You can’t let those ideas and requests rule your life. Instead of switching tasks, just make a note of other tasks or ideas as they come up, to consider for later. Have a sheet of paper or a small notebook or a text file on your computer (or wherever you write your list of three important tasks), and get back to the task you were working on. When you’re done with that task, you can take a look at your list to see what you should be working on next.

The fewer tasks you have, the less you have to do to organize them. If you focus only on those tasks that give you the most return on your time investment, then you will become more productive and have less to do. You will need only the simplest tools and system, and you will be much less stressed. I think that’s a winning combination. With task management, as with any type of organization, my philosophy is to reduce before you organize. If you only have three things to organize, instead of twenty, you actually don’t need to organize. With time management, that means you should reduce what you need to do. You can eliminate tasks, delegate them, postpone them, get out of commitments. Focus always on simplifying, reducing, eliminating. And keep your focus on what’s important. Everything else is easy.

Aside from your three Most Important Tasks, there are always smaller tasks you need to complete each day. The trick is:

  1. not to let these smaller tasks take priority over your Most Important Tasks, and
  2. to do them in batches as much as possible to save time.

Computer programmers call this last trick “batch processing” or “batching”—you save similar tasks and then do them all at once. It saves the time it costs to switch between tasks, because instead of switching from important tasks to phone calls to e-mails to meetings to projects to phone calls again, you do all the important tasks first, then phone calls at once, all the e-mails at once, etc.

Less switching means fewer complications, less time wasted, and a simpler schedule. Make a note of these types of “batch tasks” on your to-do list, below your list of three MITs. You can group the batch tasks into different categories (“calls”, “e-mails”, etc.) or just have a list of “batch tasks.” I highly recommend that you wait until later in the day to process these batch tasks, instead of doing them early in the day. Save the mornings for your important tasks, get them out of the way, then focus on knocking out your batch tasks as quickly as possible.

What kinds of tasks work well for batching? Here are some ideas:

Here are some simple tools you might use:

Simple E-mail

The way to e-mail nirvana is by applying the Power of Less—simplify, set limits, and find yourself becoming more powerful with e-mail.

Added on Saturday, October 12, 2019 12:37:43 AM

LIMIT YOUR IN-BOXES

How many different ways do you get information? Some people might have six different kinds of communications to answer—text messages, voice mails, paper documents, regular mail, blog posts, messages on different online services (MySpace, Face-book, AOL, et al). Each of these is a type of in-box, and each must be processed on a continuous basis. It’s an endless process, but it doesn’t have to be exhausting or stressful. Getting your information management down to a more manageable level and into a productive zone starts by minimizing the number of in-boxes you have. Every place you have to go to check your messages or to read your incoming information is an in-box, and the more you have, the harder it is to manage everything. Cut the number of in-boxes you have down to the smallest number possible for you still to function in the ways you need to.

Here’s how:

  1. List all the ways you receive information. You might forget a few at first, but as you remember new ways, add them to the list. The list should include digital and analog information—paper and computer.
  2. Evaluate each to see if it gives you value. Sometimes we continue to check certain in-boxes, even if it’s not adding anything to our lives. It’s just more stuff to check. Have a pager when you also have a cell phone? Maybe the pager isn’t any use to you anymore.
  3. Find ways to combine or eliminate in-boxes. If something’s not giving you value, consider eliminating it from your life. See if you can go a week without missing it.

For all the rest, see if you can combine multiple information streams into one in-box. Have four e-mail services? See if you can forward them all to one service.

I recommend that you decide, in advance, how many times you’ll check e-mail, and at what times. Here are some tips: Number of times per day.

The best times. I’ve found that if you check twice a day—10 a.m. and 4 p.m. are good times—that

Not first thing in the morning. By checking e-mail in the morning, you’re allowing e-mail to dictate the rest of your day, instead of deciding for yourself what your Most Important

The first step is to be more aware of your e-mail usage—pause and give some thought before actually opening up e-mail. The next step is to make it a more conscious decision—think about whether you would rather check your e-mail, or achieve your goals. If you can focus on getting your important projects done, and advancing your One Goal, instead of checking e-mail, you will be that much closer to achieving your dreams.

Turn off e-mail notifications.

How to stick to this habit. It’s easy to say that you should only check e-mail twice a day, but much harder to stick with it when constantly checking e-mail is an ingrained habit. How do you stick to the habit of checking e-mail less? You make it a priority for a week or two. Put up a sign with the rule: NO E-MAIL EXCEPT FOR 10 A.M. AND 4 P.M.!

REDUCE YOUR INCOMING STREAM

One of the most important parts of any e-mail strategy is to stop any unnecessary e-mail from getting into your in-box in the first place. Although I get hundreds of e-mails a day, most of those e-mails never make it to the in-box. They go straight to the spam folder or the trash. You only want the essential e-mails in your in-box, or you’ll be overwhelmed.

Here are some essential ways to reduce your incoming stream of e-mails:

  1. Junk. I recommend using Gmail, as it has the best spam filter possible.
  2. Notifications. I often get notifications from the many online services I use, from Amazon to WordPress to PayPal and many more. As soon as I notice those types of notifications filling up my in-box, I create a filter that will automatically put these into a folder and mark them as read, or trash them, as appropriate.
  3. Batch work. I get certain e-mails throughout the day that require quick action (like ten to fifteen seconds each). As I know these e-mails pretty well, I created filters that send them into a “batch” folder to be processed once a day. It takes a couple minutes to process the whole folder, and I don’t have to see them in my in-box.

Your in-box empty in a minimal amount of time using these methods.

  1. Temporary folder. If you have a very full in-box (hundreds or thousands of messages), you should create a temporary folder (“to be filed”) and get to them later, processing them perhaps thirty minutes at a time until they’ve all been taken care of. Start with an empty in-box, and use the following techniques to keep it empty, in as little time as possible.

  2. Have an external to-do system. Many times the reason an e-mail is lingering in our in-box is because there is an action required in order to process it. Instead of leaving it in your in-box, and using the in-box as a de facto to-do list, make a note of the task required by the e-mail in your to-do system…a notebook, an online to-do program, a planner, whatever. Get the task out of your in-box. Make a reference to the e-mail if necessary. Then archive the e-mail and be done with it. This will get rid of a lot of the e-mail in your in-box very quickly. You still have to do the task, but at least it’s now on a legitimate to-do list and not keeping your in-box full.

  3. Process quickly. Work your way from top to bottom, one e-mail at a time. Open each e-mail and dispose of it immediately. Your choices: delete, archive (for later reference), reply quickly (and archive or delete the message), put on your to-do list (and archive or delete), do the task immediately (if it requires two minutes or less—then archive or delete), or forward (and archive or delete). Notice that for each option, the e-mail is ultimately archived or deleted. Get it out of the in-box. Never leave it sitting there. And do this quickly, moving on to the next e-mail. If you practice this enough, you can plow through a couple dozen messages very quickly.

Process to done. When you open your in-box, process it until you’re done. Don’t just look at an e-mail and leave it sitting in your in-box. Get it out of there, and empty that in-box. Make it a rule: Don’t leave the in-box with e-mails hanging around. Now your in-box should be empty and clean. Ahhh!

Write short but powerful e-mails.

Simple Internet

AWARENESS: TRACK YOUR USAGE

Try this challenge: Track your Internet usage for three days. Use a tool like Toggl (www.toggl.com/), yaTimer (www.nbdtech.com/yaTimer/) or Tick (www.tickspot.com/) to track your Internet usage time, and you’ll get a good picture of how you actually spend your time.

This first step helps you increase your awareness, and that’s an important part of the process of getting your Internet usage under control. To simplify anything, you must first become more aware of it. And sometimes it can be an eye-opening process—we might spend a lot more time in e-mail, or at a certain site, or on the Internet in general, than we think we do. Once you’ve tracked your Internet usage, you can take a look at which sites are time-wasters for you—you spend a lot of time there, but they’re not helping you get to your goals. These are the sites you need to limit.

CONSCIOUSNESS: MAKE A PLAN

After awareness comes consciousness. You want to consciously plan your use of the Internet, instead of jumping on anytime you feel like it and getting carried away without thinking. Conscious use means setting limits and having a purpose to your use. That doesn’t mean you can’t ever use the Internet for fun, or for browsing, but you should be doing this consciously—when you need to work, work, and when you have time to play, allow yourself to play.

Here are some things to consider:

I suggest that you set blocks of your day for doing uninterrupted work (without the Internet), for doing communication like e-mail or instant messaging, for doing research and other work-related Internet activities, and for doing fun stuff or just browsing.

Added on Saturday, October 12, 2019 6:15:11 AM

When the internet is needed:

DISCIPLINE: HOW TO STAY AWAY FROM DISTRACTIONS

Beat internet addiction takes focus and energy, but it can be done. Here’s how:

Simple Filing

I'm not much interested in filing since I don't deal with a lot of paperwork, so I didn't take any notes beyond this one:

Simple commitments

IF THERE’S ONE change that you could make today that would have the biggest impact on your life in terms of productivity, effectiveness, and being able to do the things you want to do, it would be to reduce the commitments in your life.

With that one change, you could free up the time you need to focus on the important work and to achieve the things you want to achieve. With that simple change, you could free up time to pursue things you’re passionate about, to exercise, to read, to find quiet time, or to spend time with loved ones. I’m not going to lie to you: Reducing your commitments isn’t easy. It takes determination, it takes a willingness to say “no,” and it can take time. But it will pay off in so many ways, for the rest of your life.

Each time someone makes a request of you and you agree to that request, you’re making a commitment that will take up a part of your life. The curious thing is that we don’t ever decide to do them all at once. They are added to our lives, one at a time—and viewed individually, none of them ever seems like too much work. But cumulatively, these commitments add up, so that eventually they can consume your entire life, and your life no longer belongs to you. Cut back on those commitments, one at a time, leaving yourself with the time you need for the things that are important to you.

TAKE INVENTORY OF YOUR COMMITMENTS

In order to get a handle on your commitments, you first have to take inventory, so you know what you have on your plate.

Here are some common ones (though you may have more):

MAKE A SHORT LIST

Now take a close look at each thing on the list and ask yourself:

Then make a “Short List” of your four to five most important commitments. What are the things you love to do most, the things that are most important to you?

Here’s mine:

It might take some soul-searching to cut your list down to four to five things.

Once you’ve created your Short List, I suggest you go over your list of commitments and decide which of those commitments fit on your Short List and which don’t. The commitments that align with your Short List are the essential commitments.

What are your essential commitments?

BEGIN ELIMINATING THE NONESSENTIAL

Everything on your commitment list that isn’t essential is, by definition, nonessential. They’re all on the chopping block. Eliminating the nonessential commitments is crucial, as it will free up a lot of your time, leave you with less stress, and allow you to focus on the essential. Never have enough time for the truly important projects, or your family, or your passion in life? Now you will, if you eliminate the nonessentials and use the freed-up time for the essentials on your Short List.

Here’s how to eliminate the nonessential commitments on your list:

  1. Start with something small. Don’t try to eliminate everything at once. Maybe find something on the list that will be easy to eliminate. That’s your first target. Look for the thing that gives you the least return for your invested time and effort. The thing that’s least in line with your life values and priorities and goals. Cut it out, at least for a couple of weeks, and see if you can get along without it.
  2. Call or e-mail to send your regrets. Explain that you have too much on your plate right now and you simply don’t have the time to fulfill the commitment. Apologize, but be firm, and don’t leave any room for negotiation.
  3. Eliminate the commitment from your appointment, and instead fill that time with something from your Short List. Don’t just use that time to watch TV—use it wisely.
  4. Repeat this process with the other nonessential commitments, one at a time, until you’re done. Strive to eliminate all nonessential commitments from your list. This might take a while, especially with some commitments where you’ll need to find a replacement or some other solution. But don’t stop until you’ve eliminated all of them.

Each time you cut a commitment, it may give you a feeling of guilt, because others want you to keep that commitment. But it’s also a huge relief, not having to keep that commitment each day or week or month. It frees up a lot of your time, and while others may be disappointed, you have to keep what’s important to you in mind, not what’s important to everyone else. If we committed to what everyone else wanted all the time, we would never have any time left for ourselves.

LEARN TO SAY “NO”

Your list of commitments didn’t become overloaded by itself.

Sometimes, adding a commitment is a good thing, if it’s something you love, and if you make time for it by dropping something you don’t love as much. But most of the time, new commitments just add to your load and take time and energy away from more important or enjoyable pursuits.

So avoid new commitments by learning to say “no” to new requests. A great reason, in fact: Your time is limited and precious. You might think you have all the time in the world, and that a one-hour commitment won’t matter much. But most people only have a couple hours of free time each day, when you factor in sleep and getting ready and eating time and commuting time and work and chores.

Protect your time—it’s your most valuable commodity. Guard it with your life. If you have difficulty saying “no” to requests, here are some tips:

Added on Saturday, October 12, 2019 12:54:32 PM

The same will work to free up time for enjoyable things you like to do in your free time:

It really is that simple. When I decided I wanted to spend more time with my family, it was simply a matter of making that time a priority. I would turn down invitations to social engagements, say no to friends who wanted to go out, and cancel previous commitments—just because they weren’t as high a priority as spending time with my family.

TIPS FOR SIMPLIFYING YOUR PERSONAL LIFE

While creating the simple life is as simple as the three steps I outlined above, you’ll get use out of the tips below. I suggest you take a weekend out of your life to examine these issues, to plan how you’re going to simplify your life, and to start making changes to your schedule.

Simple Daily Routine

OVER THE LAST couple of years I’ve discovered the power of having simple routines, especially in the morning and evening. One that incorporates something that gives you solitude, quiet, or stress release.

If you haven’t yet, I recommend that you create your own calming routine.

Give it a couple of weeks to become a habit, focus on doing it every day, and soon you will not want to miss it. With a well-planned morning routine: You can prepare for your day and set your goals; You can get in exercise, reading, writing, or other things you normally don’t have time for; You can do something enjoyable, calming, and relaxing.

Choose four to six of the following ideas for your morning routine—or add activities of your own. These are just ideas to help get you started. Remember to keep your routine simple.

Some ideas for your morning routine:

Notice that “check e-mail” and other work-related activities aren’t on this list. I suggest you wait until after your morning routine to get started on these types of things, otherwise you might get so caught up in e-mail that you run out of time for the rest.

SUPERCHARGE TOMORROW WITH AN EVENING ROUTINE

If the mornings are a great time for me, the evenings are just as wonderful. Planning a calming evening routine, especially one where you prepare for the next day, can make a huge difference to your mornings. An evening routine can take as little as ten to thirty minutes, or as long as a few hours, depending on your goals.

Some common goals of an evening routine include:

EVENING ROUTINE IDEAS

Pick four to six of the following activities for your evening routine, or add ideas of your own. And again, remember to keep the routine simple, try it out for a few days, and adjust as needed.

Some ideas for your evening routine:

Notice there’s no “check e-mail” or work-related activities here either. Use the evening to relax and prepare for the next day, if possible.

The key steps to establishing routines are to:

  1. Focus on them. Keep your routine as your foremost goal for one month, focusing on nothing else. Having too many habits at once spreads your focus too thin, and makes success less likely.
  2. Make them rewarding. If you establish a calming routine, the routine itself is your reward. Include enjoyable activities in the morning to start your day off right, so that you’re not rushed when you begin work. In the evening, quietly prepare for the next day, review your day, and have some quiet time. Satisfying routines like that will make you look forward to doing them.
  3. Log your progress. Reporting your progress every day on an online forum is a great way to log progress, but you could also do it in a journal or some other type of log, or put a big “X” on a wall calendar. The key is to keep track of it and see how well you’ve done over the course of a month.

Declutter your workspace

A CLEAN DESK ALLOWS you to focus on the task at hand, which is the key to being effective in whatever you’re trying to do.

A cluttered desk is full of visual distractions—if you’re trying to focus on one task, but glance at a pile or folder or note that reminds you of something else, you’ll switch focus, at least for a few seconds. But if you clear your desk of distractions, then your mind has no choice but to focus on what you’re supposed to be doing.

Given that calm and focus are two keys to this book, I think any chance to improve them is worth the effort.

It gives you a Zen-like sense of calm.

Here’s how to get started:

  1. Set aside a little time. You don’t need to block off the whole day (though you can if you like). An hour is a good start, if you can manage it, or thirty minutes will also suffice if your day is busy. Put it on your calendar for today and don’t push it back.
  2. Take all the paperwork off the top of your desk and put it in a big pile. You’ll tackle that soon.
  3. Clear everything off your desk except your computer, phone, in-box, and other essential equipment. Everything else goes, at least for now. Put it next to the pile of papers.
  4. Start with the pile of papers—take a chunk and start processing it from the top down. Never re-sort, never skip a single piece of paper, never put a piece of paper back on the pile. Do what needs to be done with that paper, and then move on to the next in the pile. The options: Trash it, delegate it, file it, do it, or put it on a list to do later. In that order of preference. If you can’t trash, delegate, or file it, then put it on a list of to-dos.
  5. Work for as long as you can, then schedule another block of time when you can do another chunk of papers or other items (or when you can finish the piles, if possible).

Added on Sunday, October 13, 2019 12:21:58 AM

it’s time to ask yourself: What’s essential? What do you really need to do your job? What do you use often, and what is just cluttering your work space and drawers?

A SYSTEM TO KEEP THINGS DECLUTTERED

Soon you’ll have habits that will be hard to break. And trust me, once you’re used to your desk being clear, you won’t want to go back.

One of the things that gives me the most peace in my life is having a clean, simple home.

A SIMPLE HOME Once you’ve decluttered your desk, you might want to declutter your home as well. You can use the same techniques as above to declutter your living space.

How to do it:

Slow Down

We have every minute of our schedules packed with errands and tasks and chores. Learn to move at a slower pace and you will be happier, and just as importantly, you will become more effective and productive.

You won’t learn to do more in less time, but you’ll learn to do things better, and to do the right things. This simple combination can have a wondrous impact on your effectiveness,

SLOW ATTENTION

Our attention is one of our most important assets. What we focus our attention on becomes our reality. The projects we focus on are the projects that get completed.

Unfortunately, with the hectic pace of our lives, our attention is pulled in a million different directions all the time. We switch our attention from one thing to the next and back again, and then back to another thing, then to a new thing. As a result, nothing gets enough attention.

Learn, instead, to focus your attention, to move it from one thing to the next more reluctantly, more slowly, at a more relaxed pace. As a result, things will start getting done. You’ll start to notice things more. You’ll be less stressed. Here’s how to do it:

SLOW WORKING

Instead, try this method:

  1. Choose work you love. If you dread a task, you’ll have a hard time losing yourself in it. If your job is made up of stuff you hate, you might want to consider finding another job. Or consider seeking projects you love to do within your current job. At any rate, be sure that whatever task you choose is something you can be passionate about.
  2. Choose an important task. There’s work you love that’s easy and unimportant, and then there’s work you love that will make a long-term impact on your career and life. Choose the latter, as it will be a much better use of your time.
  3. Make sure it’s challenging, but not too hard. If a task is too easy, you will be able to complete it without much thought or effort. A task should be challenging enough to require your full concentration. However, if it is too hard, you will find it difficult to lose yourself in it, as you will spend most of your concentration just trying to figure out how to do it—either that or you’ll end up discouraged. It may take some trial and error to find tasks of the appropriate level of difficulty.
  4. Find your quiet, peak time. This is actually two steps grouped into one. First, you’ll want to find a time that’s quiet, or you’ll never be able to focus. For me, that’s mornings, before the hustle of everyday life builds to a dull roar. That might be early morning, when you just wake, or early in the workday, when most people haven’t arrived yet or are still getting their coffee and settling down. Or you might try the lunch hour, when people are usually out of the office. Evenings also work well for many people. Or, if you’re lucky, you can do it at any time of the day if you can find a quiet spot to work in. Whatever time you choose, it should also be a peak energy time for you. Some people get tired after lunch—that’s not a good time for this method. Find a time when you have lots of energy and can concentrate.
  5. Clear away distractions, and focus. Aside from finding a quiet time and place to work, you’ll want to clear away all other distractions. That means turning off distracting music (unless you find music that helps you focus), turning off phones, e-mail, and IM notifications, and anything else that might pop up or make noise to interrupt your thoughts. Then learn to focus on that task for as long as possible.
  6. Enjoy yourself. Losing yourself in a task is an amazing thing, in my experience. It feels great to be able to really pour yourself into something worthwhile, to make great progress on a project or important task, to do something you’re passionate about. Take the time to appreciate this feeling.
  7. Keep practicing. Again, this takes practice. Each step will take some practice, from finding a quiet, peak time for yourself, to clearing distractions, to choosing the right task. And especially keeping your focus on a task for a long time. But each time you fail, try to learn from it. Each time you succeed, you should also learn from it—what did you do right? And the more you practice, the better you’ll get.
  8. Reap the rewards. Aside from the pleasure of immersing yourself in a task, you’ll also be happier with your work in general. You’ll get important projects done. You’ll complete tasks more often, rather than starting and stopping frequently. All of this is hugely satisfying and rewarding. Take the time to appreciate this, and to continue to practice it every day.

SLOW EATING

Some good reasons you should consider the simple act of eating more slowly:

Simple Health and Fitness

The recipe for getting lean and fit and healthy is simple, of course, and everyone knows it: Eat healthily and exercise regularly.

So our simple fitness plan is this:

FORMING THE EXERCISE HABIT

Here’s the plan:

  1. Start light. Start your workout plan as easy as possible until you’ve learned to stick to it. You can gradually increase your exercise later, but at first it is vitally important that you hold yourself back. The first week, just do five to ten minutes of cardio—fast walking, running, cycling, or swimming. Only five to ten minutes, and no more. You will want to do more, most likely, but don’t. The next week, increase your time by five minutes, and do that every week for the first month, so that by the end of the month you’re doing twenty to twenty-five minutes each workout. If this seems like too little to you, don’t worry; after it becomes a habit you can do more. Focus on forming the habit first.
  2. Schedule your workout time. This is crucial—figure out a time when you will be able to exercise, when nothing will interfere. For most people, morning is the best time, because evening workouts are often canceled due to social engagements or other obligations. But for some people, working out right after work is best, and for others, a lunchtime workout works well. Choose the time that works best for you, and create space in your schedule for your workouts. The first week, you just need to schedule three workouts—give yourself thirty minutes, as the workout appointment always takes longer than the workout itself. The second and third weeks, schedule four workouts, and the fourth week, schedule five workouts. Try to stay with five workouts a week from then on, as this is the best way to get in good shape. This is important: Treat these workout appointments as your most important appointments of the day. Don’t let anything get in the way of them.
  3. Don’t allow yourself to miss a day. Just about the only good reasons to miss a workout are sickness or injury. Otherwise, don’t let yourself skip a workout. These workouts are so light, in the beginning, that they shouldn’t be tiring you out too much. If you’re tired from a long day’s work, just start the workout—you’ll be glad you did. If you start skipping workouts, you will soon make a habit of not exercising, instead of the other way around. When forming a habit, it’s very important that you be consistent. Remember, it’s just like brushing your teeth—do it for your health, do it regularly, and just do it.
  4. Don’t give up. Even more important than not missing a day is sticking with the program. If for some reason you do miss a day or two, don’t stop. Get back on the program. If you miss more than a couple of days, back up the program a week or two and start working on forming the habit again. If you get discouraged and stop, motivate yourself and start again. Failure is not as important as starting again after you fail, and sticking with it for the long term.
  5. Get a partner if you can. This isn’t mandatory, but if you can find a reliable partner, it makes it a bit easier. First, having someone to talk to while you exercise makes the time go by much more quickly. Second, if you make an appointment to meet that person for your workout, you’re more likely to stick to the appointment rather than wimp out.
  6. Be accountable to others. This is how you motivate yourself to stick with the program—no one wants to look bad in front of others. Commit publicly, to your friends or to the entire world via a blog, to stick with the program. Keep a strict workout and eating log, and make it public. Share it with as many people as possible. Let the light shine where once there was darkness, and that accountability will motivate you.  
  7. Enjoy yourself. Very mandatory. If you don’t enjoy yourself, you’ll never stick with it. So try to have as much fun as possible. Enjoy getting fit and healthy! Enjoy burning off your fat! Enjoy the sweat! Enjoy the relaxation of burning off stress! Exercise should be fun, not torture.

After your month of forming the exercise habit, it’s time to start focusing on your eating habits. If you already eat fairly healthily, you can modify this to suit your needs, and try to make further improvements in your diet gradually.

**MAKING GRADUAL HEALTHY DIET CHANGES

Here’s your plan:

  1. Eat when you’re lightly hungry.
  2. Eat light foods
  3. Eat slowly
  4. Eat until you’re lightly full, not stuffed.

CONTINUATION, SHORT-TERM GOALS AND ACCOUNTABILITY

  1. Continue to gradually increase exercise, adding variety.
  2. Continue to eat healthier, also adding variety and flavor.
  3. Set short-term goals.
  4. Hold yourself accountable. Log your eating and exercise daily. This is the key habit. If you can log your workout, you will start to see your progress, and it will motivate you to keep going.
  5. Reward yourself.

EXERCISE MOTIVATIONS

  1. How you feel after a workout.
  2. Time for you.
  3. Calories burned.
  4. Having fun.
  5. How you’re going to look.
  6. Being attractive.
  7. Stress relief.
  8. Adrenaline rush.
  9. Time for contemplation.
  10. An exercise log/graph.
  11. A coach or trainer.
  12. An exercise class.
  13. Your before picture.
  14. A 5K race or triathlon.
  15. Living long enough to see your grandkids…and play with them.
  16. The scale. It’s not motivating to weigh yourself every day, as your weight fluctuates. But if you weigh yourself once a week, you’ll be motivated to have it keep going down, instead of up. Combine the scale with the measuring tape, and measure your waist.
  17. Reaching a goal. Set a goal for weight, or your waist measurement, or a number of days to work out, or a number of miles to run this week. Setting and tracking a goal helps motivate you to complete that goal. Make it easily achievable.
  18. Posting it on your blog. Tell people you’re going to lose weight or exercise daily, and report to them. You’ll make it happen.

On motivation

If you can stick with a goal long enough, you’ll get there. It just takes patience and motivation.

Don’t quit. Sticking with something for the long term is the true path to anything worthwhile.

Motivation is what drives you toward a goal, what keeps you going when things get tough, the reason you get up early to exercise or work late to finish a project.

So motivation, in its best form, is a way for you to want to do something. There may be times, for example, when you don’t feel like getting up early, and in those times you may just want to sleep in (not that there’s anything wrong with that). But if you have a reason to want to get up early, something you really want to do, you’ll jump up out of bed with excitement.

The best kind of motivation, then, is for you to really want something, to get excited about it, to be passionate about it.

WAYS TO MOTIVATE YOURSELF FROM THE BEGINNING

It’s important to start out with the right motivation:

  1. Start small. I’ve said this before, but that’s because it’s one of the most important tips in motivating yourself toward a goal. Don’t start out big! Start out with a ridiculously easy goal, and then grow from there.

  2. One goal. Too many people start with too many goals at once, and try to do too much. And it saps energy and motivation. It’s probably the most common mistake that people make. You have to choose one goal, for now, and focus on it completely.
  3. Examine your motivation. Know your reasons. Give them some thought…and write them down. If you have loved ones, and you are doing it for them, that is more powerful than just doing it for self-interest. Doing it for yourself is good too, but you should do it for something that you really want to happen, for really good reasons.
  4. Really, really want it. This is essentially the same as the above tip, but I want to emphasize it: It’s not enough to think it would be cool to achieve something. It has to be something you’re passionate about, something you’re super excited about, something you want deeply. Make sure that your goal meets these criteria, or you won’t stick with it for long.
  5. Commit publicly.
  6. Get excited.
  7. Build anticipation.
  8. Print it out, post it up. Print out your goal in big words. Make your goal just a few words long, like a mantra (“Exercise 15 mins. Daily”), and post it up on your wall or refrigerator. Post it at home and work. Put it on your computer desktop. You want to have big reminders about your goal, to keep your focus and keep your excitement going. A picture of your goal (like a model with sexy abs, for example) also helps.

STOP QUITTING

Here’s how you can stop from quitting, and get to your goal:

  1. Hold yourself back. I might think I can run three miles at first. But instead of letting myself do that, I start by only running one mile. When I’m running that mile, I’ll be telling myself that I can do more! But I don’t let myself. After that workout, I’ll be looking forward to the next workout, when I’ll let myself do a mile and a half. I keep that energy reined in, harness it, so that I can ride it even further.
  2. Just start. Well, instead of thinking about how hard it is, and how long it will take, tell yourself that you just have to start. I have a rule that I just have to put on my running shoes and close the door behind me. After that, it all flows naturally. Once you start, it is never as hard as you thought it would be. This tip works for me every time.
  3. Stay accountable. If you committed yourself publicly.
  4. Squash negative thoughts and replace them with positive ones. This is one of the most important motivation skills, and I suggest you practice it daily. It’s important to start monitoring your thoughts, and to recognize negative self-talk. Just spend a few days becoming aware of every negative thought. Then, after a few days, try squashing those negative thoughts like a bug, and replacing them with a corresponding positive thought. Squash, “This is too hard!” and replace it with, “I can do this! If that wimp Leo can do it, so can I!” It sounds corny, but it works. Really.
  5. Think about the benefits.
  6. Get excited again! Think about why you lost your excitement…then think about why you were excited in the first place.
  7. Read about it. When I lose motivation, I just read a book or blog about my goal. It inspires me and reinvigorates me.
  8. Find like-minded friends. Staying motivated on your own is tough. But if you find someone with similar goals (running, dieting, finances, etc.), see if they’d like to partner with
  9. Read inspiring stories.
  10. Build on your successes. Every little step along the way is a success—celebrate the fact that you even started! And then did it for two days! Celebrate every little milestone. Then take that successful feeling and build on it with another baby step.
  11. Just get through the low points. But realize that while it may go away, it doesn’t do so permanently. It will come back.
  12. Get help. It’s hard to accomplish something alone.
  13. Chart your progress. This can be as simple as marking an X on your calendar or creating a simple spreadsheet, or logging your goal using online software. But it can be vastly rewarding to look back on your progress and to see how far you’ve come, and it can help you to keep going—you don’t want to have too many days without an X! Now, you will have some bad marks on your chart. That’s OK. Don’t let a few bad marks stop you from continuing. Strive instead to get the good marks next time.
  14. Reward yourself often. For every little step along the way, celebrate your success, and give yourself a reward. It helps to write down appropriate rewards for each step, so that you can look forward to those rewards. By appropriate, I mean 1) it’s proportionate to the size of the goal (don’t reward going on a one-mile run with a luxury cruise in the Bahamas); and 2) it doesn’t ruin your goal—if you are trying to lose weight, don’t reward a day of healthy eating with a dessert binge. It’s self-defeating.
  15. Go for mini-goals.
  16. Never skip two days in a row. This rule takes into account our natural tendency to miss days now and then. We are not perfect. So, you missed one day…now the second day is upon you and you are feeling lazy. Tell yourself, “No! You will not miss two days in a row!”
  17. Use visualization. Visualize your successful outcome in great detail. Close your eyes and think about exactly how your successful outcome will look, will feel, will smell and taste and sound.
  18. Be aware of your urges to quit, and overcome them.
  19. Find pleasure again. No one can stick to something for long if they find it unpleasant and are only rewarded after months of toil. There has to be fun, pleasure, joy in it, every day, or you won’t want to do it. Find those pleasurable things—the beauty of a morning run, for example, or the satisfaction in reporting to people that you finished another step along the way, or the deliciousness of a healthy meal.

References

  1. The Power of Less ↩

  2. Zen habits ↩

Written by
Luis Moneda
Data Scientist

Citation
Moneda, Luis, "Book summary: The Power of Less", Blogpost at lgmoneda.github.io, (2019).

		
		  @article{moneda2019powerofless-blogpost,
		  author = {Moneda, Luis},
		  title = Book summary: The Power of Less,
		  journal = {Blogpost at lgmoneda.github.io},
		  year = {2019},
		  howpublished = {\url{lgmoneda.github.io}},
		  }