The Joy of Less, A Minimalist Living Guide: How to Declutter, Organize, and Simplify Your Life

Many of us look back on our young adult days as one of the happiest, most carefree times of our lives. No matter that we were living in a shoebox (sometimes with two or three other people), and had little disposable income. No matter that we couldn’t afford designer clothes, fancy watches, or electronic gadgets. All of our possessions fit in a few

Now, imagine your ideal day. Which activities would you include, and which would you omit? Of course, you’ll probably still need to go to work and cook dinner; but would you visit the park instead of the coffee shop, or do yoga instead of surfing the Internet? How closely does your ideal schedule match your real one?

I once saw an interview with a prolific author who had turned out hundreds of books over the course of his career—and could write a single one in a matter of days. His secret? He had developed a computerized template for outlining his plot, and simply changed the premise, locations, characters, and other details for each new story. In essence, he h

Material World: A Global Family Portrait by Peter Menzel.

The most straightforward way to set priorities is by ranking them. List everything you need to do, and order them from most urgent to least. For example, answering time-sensitive emails, or completing a project due in the next few hours, will rank much higher than working on your development plan or picking up your dry cleaning. Furthermore, highli

Let’s take a breather, and reminisce about how carefree and happy we were in college. Not coincidentally, that period was likely when we had the least amount of stuff. Life was so much simpler then: no mortgage, no car payments, no motorboat to insure. Learning, living, and having fun were far more important than the things we owned. The world was

Although I don’t condone such a formulaic approach to writing, I think it’s perfect for the repetitive tasks we face on a daily basis. After all, there’s no sense in reinventing the wheel for every item on our to-do lists. By making templates, we can complete them more quickly, more efficiently, and with a minimum amount of effort—leaving us time a

Cross out those two hours of television each night, and you’ll gain over half a day each week. That’s quite a windfall!

Embrace “good enough” Have you ever spent too much time writing the perfect email, cooking the perfect dinner, preparing the perfect presentation, or finding the perfect gift? (I know I have!) The quest for perfection can throw our to-do lists in a tailspin; what we should have been able to complete in short order takes us two, three, or four times

A common example of such standardization is document templates. If you often need to produce paperwork with a specific format—such as an invoice, memo, or letter—save a blank version of it as a template. Then, you can dispense with all the setup each time you start a new one. Simply open the template, save it as your new file, and get right to work