User:Jeff Davidson/Keeping Everyday Situations Simpler

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Excerpt from The Joy of Simple Living by Jeff Davidson, MBA, CMC

At home, at work, and running errands in between, life is complex and constantly forcing you to make decisions that can make your life even more complicated. Life doesn't need to keep growing more complicated, however, and you can take steps to ensure that it doesn't.

And in Only Four Hours a Month

It's been said that people spend more time planning a party than they do planning for the coming year. Likewise, most people spend more time engaging in complex interactions and activities than they ever spend on contemplating how to make things simpler. It is so easy to get caught up in the busyness of life that you never pause to reflect on ways to not be so busy.

There are umpteen ways you can find an extra hour a week, the most obvious of which is to watch one less hour-long television show per week. During this golden sixty minutes, recall what transpired over the last seven days. Where did bottlenecks occur in your life? Where were you frustrated? What long lines did you stand in? What did you know was an utter waste of time but have to finish anyway?

What ideas about making life simpler popped in your head, but you took no action? What tools for getting organized could you acquire, but so far, have not? Hereafter, if you spend one sixty-minute period per week, perhaps on a Sunday evening, contemplating how to make the whole week go smoother and easier the chances are the whole week will go more smoothly and easily.

A Walk Through Your Week

Starting with Sunday evening, let's take a walk through seven days to identify potential opportunities to have greater simplicity in your life. On Sunday evening, if you so choose, spend however much time you can, preferably sixty minutes, perhaps between 4:30 and 5:30, i.e., before dinner, or, between 9:00 and 10:00, before retiring, to undertake such an exercise. Have a pen and paper ready, or if it suits you, a blank PC or notebook screen.

Arrange your affairs for Monday morning. That same Sunday evening, assemble by the front door whatever you need to take with you on Monday. If you're heading into work, this could involve papers, reports, or a new coffee mug. If you have a doctor's appointment, perhaps you need to bring some type of record or claim form. If you have school-age children, they may need to have papers, books, school supplies, or certain articles of clothing by the front door. Obviously, anything that needs refrigeration can't be stashed there for now, but feel free to use a post-it pad or note that says to go get XYZ from the kitchen.

Out the door on Mondays with more grace and ease. Are you among the millions of people who don't have time for breakfast at home? As a prelude to making your Monday morning go more simply, perhaps you need to get up ten or fifteen minutes earlier than usual. This is particularly true if there are more activities on Monday morning than other weekday mornings. If so, consider getting up even earlier. While it may seem as if you're being asked to dramatically shift your day, a 15- or 30- minute jump on Monday can make a world of difference. And, once you experience the benefits of having extra time in the morning, you won't want to give it up.

Bring food with you if you have to. If eating breakfast at home before departing seems out of the question, then bring a piece of fruit or other easily packed food item with you. If you commute and are part of a car pool, and it's not your turn to drive, you could eat during the commute. If you take public transportation, such as a subway or train, depending on the rules of the carrier, how crowded the car is, and how long a trip you have, you may be able to eat then. Otherwise, pick a quiet place once you arrive at your workplace.

Do not eat while you're driving. It is dangerous, may not aid proper digestion, and unfair to every other motorist on the road.

List your stops on a post-it pad. If you have many stops to make, list them in chronological order on a post-it pad. This could be put inside the front door of your home before leaving, and on your dashboard, once you're in the car. Use different color post-its each day if it helps. Heck, use anything that helps.

Clearing Away Some Mental Space at Work

When you arrive in the morning, particularly if you've arrived before the rest of the office, you have the best opportunity for structuring your day. Envision how you would like your day to go. Review your appointment calendar and plot out the few critical elements that will make your day a success. Keep flat surfaces clear to the degree that you can.

If you don't work outside of the home, when everyone else has departed, give yourself a few minutes to undertake the same type of visualization. How would you like your day to be? What are the critical elements or critical tasks you wish to complete? If you stay home with children or other household occupants, carving out a few minutes for yourself during the early morning is even more crucial.

Take a few moments before lunch. At an outside job, at home, and everywhere in between, take a few minutes before lunch, while seated, to relax, take some deep breaths, acknowledge yourself for what you've accomplished this morning, and contemplate how good it will be to eat lunch. Once you're actually eating lunch, carefully and slowly chew your food.

Eat at a leisurely pace. How you eat your food is as important as what you're eating. Susan Barrus, RN, a therapist and nutritionist at the Center for Lymphatic Therapy in Durham, North Carolina says that even if you're eating high quality, highly nutritious food, if you wolf it down, you'll receive few, if any, of the presumed benefits. By contrast, food not nearly so nutritious, even junk food!, consumed at a comfortable, unhurried pace actually can yield far more nutritional benefits.

Linger for a moment after lunch. No matter how hectic your day is otherwise, you always have a couple of extra minutes following lunch to give your digestive system a little bit more help, visualize how you'd like your afternoon to go, and maintain a relatively sane pace.

Pause daily for a few minutes. Perhaps the biggest obstacle to making life simpler is the unwillingness to allow it to occur. Many people simply do not give themselves permission to achieve a sense of balance, take a deep breath, and then proceed. Paradoxically, every single shred of wisdom on the issue indicates that everybody will be more effective each day, if they simply pause for a minute a couple of times each day. This could be done every morning and afternoon--coming back from the water cooler or rest room, before lunch, orreturning from lunch.

Pausing Before Your Alertness Wanes

Martin Moore-Ede, M.D., Ph.D., in his book, The 24 Hour Society, observes that the lowest point for alertness in a day for most people is between 2 a.m. and 5 a.m. Highest alertness is between 9 a.m. and noon, and 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. A person's alertness will vary due to hours of consecutive duty, hours of duty in the preceeding week, irregular hours, monotony on the job, timing and duration of naps, environmental lighting, sound, aroma, temperature, cumulative sleep deprivation over the past week, and much more. Make the effort to figure out when you are highly alert versus hardly alert during your typical work day so that you can schedule when to handle certain tasks.

Before concluding your work day, tie up loose ends. Can you put away several file folders? Can you return the one key phone call? Can you get tomorrow's project notes ready? Can you discard the junk mail and other unnecessary documents? The more little things you complete before departing, the more focused and energized you'll be when you return the next day to a clear and clean environment that is conducive to greater productivity, not to mention more visually appealing.

If you work at home all day, the corollary would be to undertake these same types of exercises at the various work stations in your house, whether in the laundry room, a home office den, or the kitchen table, before the others start arriving.

Readjusting to Being with Your Family

Once back with your family, readjust. Sure, you've put in a tough day, and in many ways some of the things you endured were nothing less than heroic. To reintegrate yourself into family life at least for the rest of the evening, however, you have to leave the work day behind. Here are some ideas for making this so.

Leave as close to normal as possible. Before getting to your car or other mode of transportation, give yourself one more minute of mindful meditation. This could even be accomplished while you're walking, proceeding down steps or an elevator, or being transported from one place to another. Hey, it's silent, non-fattening, and non-deducible so no one else has to know what you're doing

Acknowledge yourself for what you did do. Once you get to your car or other mode of transportation, give yourself acknowledgment for what you've completed that day and that week.

Years ago, when Maria Shriver was co-hosting one of the morning talk show in New York, she would fly in each week from her home in California and return at the end of the week. Criss-crossing the United States on nearly 100 trips per year is a considerable amount of travel, not to mention disruption. Shriver minimized the effects of thousands of miles in the air and maintained balance in her daily life. Each Friday evening, when heading back to California, she took the same flight, from the same airport, on the same airline, leaving from the same gate, at the same hour. She even reserved the same seat. She often flew with the same pilots and same flight crew, and occasionally, the same passengers.

Rather than having the need to be physically back at her house or touching down at the Los Angeles International Airport, she felt at home when she boarded the plane. In essence, she minimized the effects of a rigorous schedule by transforming her seat in the sky into a welcomed sanctuary. She was home in that seat.

Let your work-related engine rev down. If you are a gung ho, career-climbing, world-beater arriving home still mentally immersed in the affairs of the work day and revving at the pace of business, members of your family may have difficulty relating to you. You may need to let your internal engine "rev down" following work before proceeding to interact with your family. After all, you're not talking to Ted in production, Jennifer in personnel, or Roger in shipping. Perhaps a brief nap, shower, or stroll will help. If you work at home, you may still need to readjust before the others return.

Do something mentally or physically rewarding before dinner. If you only have five minutes, simply sit in a chair and reflect on the day, play with your young child, take deep breaths, or take a long, cool drink of water. Any one of these activities could make all the difference in your having an enjoyable dinner and rest of the evening. Avoid flipping on the television or radio, or reading the newspaper or a magazine if these activities divert your attention away from your family.

Reclaiming Your Weekends

Remember when weekends were actually restful, fun, and rewarding? Somehow, for too many people, they've become an extension of the work week. Rather than having relaxing and titillating experiences, weekends often seem like one long set of errands followed by some excessive eating and late night television. Then, before you know it, it's MONDAY! Are there ways to savor the weekend and return to work fit and rested? You bet!

Do something rewarding on Friday evening. When it comes to Friday evening, there are different strokes for different folks. You may like to whoop it up, or to take it easy. You may like to go out with your one and only, or to spend a quiet evening at home. Whatever you do, don't overdo it. Many people who choose to let loose on Friday evening actually steal from their Saturday morning, even their entire weekend, and set themselves up for a situation where they're not fully prepared to return to work on Monday. Avoiding the IDITWE Syndrome. "IDITWE" stands for "I'll do it this weekend." Do you let errands pile up and then spend the weekend completing them? Instead of tying up a Saturday or Sunday, designate Monday evening from 7 to 10 p.m., or Thursday evening from 5 to 9 p.m. as errand night. Most businesses are open for extended hours. While dressed and in your car, there is no better opportunity to make the rounds.

Sleep in Saturday, but not too late. Research reveals that you can sleep past the point of gaining benefit, end up depleting energy, and feel even more tired. So, if you traditionally sleep eight hours, but you get up on Saturday morning after nine hours of sleep, you may feel just fine. If you extend that sleep to ten hours, however, it may only yield the benefit of eight or seven hours.

In that last hour, without getting wrapped up in the physiology of it, lingering in bed too long may contribute to the build-up of various toxins that otherwise would be dissipated as you move about the house and outside.

If you can't avoid errands, finish by noon. If you've avoided the IDITWE Syndrome, then you have a relatively clear, uncluttered weekend. Nevertheless, some domestic tasks and errands may arise or still linger from the work week. Strive to complete these before noon on Saturday, when most of the rest of the world still hasn't gotten out the door. After noon the congestion in many metro areas and particularly in suburban traffic patterns is actually worse than during work week rush hour. Now everyone is going every which way, whereas during the work week, the commute was in one direction in the morning and in the opposite direction in the evening.

Take a nap if you need to. Where is it written you can't lie in the hammock, on the couch, or even in your bed in the middle of the day on a Saturday or Sunday, and let your body renew itself? Like lingering too long in bed in the morning, however, don't overdo it. Beyond a certain amount of sleep, you may find yourself arising with grogginess.

To Sleep, Perchance to Dream

Sleep researchers say that a nap of twenty minutes or less is ideal, because you arise without having engaged in R.E.M. sleep (rapid eye movements, a deeper form of sleep) and feel refreshed. If you have a handy timer, and these are available at Circuit City or Radio Shack, or simply a windup or plug-in alarm clock, set the alarm for twenty minutes.

Dr. Jack Edinger, at the Center for Sleep Studies at Duke University notes that the average person lying down for a nap takes between six and eight minutes to doze off. Therefore, if you allot twenty minutes for nap time, you'll sleep at the most, twenty minutes, but on average, only thirteen minutes or perhaps a little less. In any case, you're likely to awake feeling better than when you first put your head down.

What was good for Friday night is good for Saturday night. The advice for Friday night applies for Saturday night. You know what you want to do with your Saturday night, but be careful not to overdo it. College age youths as well as those throughout their twenties often begin their Friday and Saturday night socialization at 11 p.m., extending to 2 or 3 a.m. If you have one of these types of people in your household, you know that they have no great energy the next morning as they struggle to get out of bed by noon. Then, when it's time to resume the work week, be it at school or a full-time job, on Monday morning, they're not exactly "chipper."

Heed your circadian rhythms. Your body likes routines, regularity, and predictable times. When you change your sleeping hours dramatically from one day to the next your internal mechanisms are working overtime to try to accommodate you. Your daily cycles of sleep and body chemistry, your circadian rhythm, determines how well you think and move, and even how interested you are in sex, at different times of the day and night.

That Killer Third Shift

No one knows how many people suffer from insomnia, but estimates from the Better Sleep Council range between 36 and 62 million people in the United States. Second- and third-shift workers are particularly prone to insomnia, as are older adults. Women, more than men, also seem to be susceptible. If you work a second- or third- shift job outside of the home, undoubtedly you have experienced the ways in which your body rebels as you attempt to shift back to traditional waking and sleeping patterns at the end of your work week. Often, you may feel as if you are "wasted" without ever having touched a drop of alcohol, without having stuffed yourself to the gills with pasta, or without having otherwise exerted yourself in any way.

Living in the Material World

The late 20th century and early 21st century, at least in America, has been one that, for most people, is awash in material things. From skateboards, to frisbees, VCRs, Walkmans, roller blades, CDs, CD-Roms, microwave ovens, designer sunglasses, aerobics outfits, and electric toothbrushes, even the moderate-income family tends to have more and more rooms filled with stuff.

Nowhere is the contemporary focus on materialism more acute than in your typical shopping mall. Take a walk through a shopping mall, either a community or super-regional mall, and you'll see a vast array of so many enticing items, that it boggles the mind.

Walking Through Alluring Anchor Stores

Malls are constructed so that there is an anchor store, a large department store, such as a Nordstrom's, Woodward and Lothrop's, Hechts, Belks, JC Penney, or Sears, that you can't help but notice. Many malls are designed so that you have to enter through one of these stores and walk at least 25 to 50 yards before you get to the common mall area. Hence, from the first minute on, you're subjected to swimwear, ladies lingerie, perfume, men's socks, luggage, and more.

You'll notice that most of the notions in the anchor stores are located closest to the middle aisles, particularly along the path from the outside entrance to the common mall area. This is so you'll be attracted as you walk by. However, consider what's already on your shelves and in your medicine cabinet. Do you need any more perfumes, colognes, or sprays? Aren't most of the multitudinous bottles you already have half to three-quarters full? Do you have more room in your bathroom or supply closet for yet more toiletries, more cosmetics, more of what has been designed to help you to smell sweeter, look younger, feel better, but in the end, largely take your money?!

Avoid the specialty stores. Unless you really need a particular item avoid specialty stores like the plague. These stores will include a map store, a luggage store, a tobacco shop, a cutlery, a jewelry store, and several shoe stores. If you came into the mall specifically for an item in one of these stores, fine, proceed to the store and do your shopping. On the other hand, if you're walking by, and happen to be attracted by this or that, think about what you already have in your closet, on your shelves, in your drawers, and throughout your home. Do you need yet another item that largely duplicates something you haven't used in?

Stop paying top dollar. Even if you need a specific item, do you need to pay top dollar for it? No, no a thousands times no.

Bathed in showroom lighting, products look good. With high store rents they have to since merchants must sell them for high prices to stay in business. Nearly the same items may be available at a fraction of the cost in discount stores. Yard sales, garage sales, tag sales, church sales, rummage sales, and the like also can supply you with a wealth of goods at a fraction of the cost if you are patient and willing to attend a couple sales before finding the item you're seeking.

Never buy on impulse if you can help it! Before you buy anything that you did not specifically come to the mall to buy, think for a second how often will you use it starting one week from now? How often will you look at it, play with it, pick it up, touch it, or even refer to it? What would your life be like if you took that 10, 15, or 20 dollars and put it into a long-term retirement account, where it would double in value within 10 years, quadruple within 20 years, and added to all the other small contributions that you're going to make, grow to a sizeable sum? What would happen if you put that sum in a fund for your child's higher education?

Think about where you're going to put the item, and how many other items you already have in your living room, den, dining room, bathroom, or kitchen. Isn't your house already strewn with stuff? Are you starting a collection? Where else could you possibly put it!

What would your life be like if you could take back 50 or 100 items you bought on impulse over the years, items between 10 and 50 dollars that, cashed in en masse, could yield you a sizeable sum? You've got to think in these terms if you want to keep your house relatively clutter free.

Remember: Less Clutter = Greater Simplicity

When Your Olfactory Glands Betray You

Some place in the mall, undoubtedly, there will be a food court. Even before you get there, you'll be subject to Mrs. Fields or Famous Amos or somebody else's high-priced, heavily sugared, fat laden, indescribably delicious chocolate chip cookies. The science of modern retailing is such that they know how to blow this stuff into the air so it reaches you at just the right distance before you approach the storefront.

You'll smell these highly pleasurable cookie aromas in enough time for you to be fully hooked by the time you step up to the counter. Your salivary glands will be in motion. Every fiber of your being will be convinced that it wants a cookie or, hey, why not half a dozen? Gee, you're hungry, aren't you? What damage will one little cookie, or it may be two or three, really do?

Resist that cookie. When you find yourself in a shopping mall, turn your resistance dial up to full power. Remember how passing up that chocolate chip cookie will keep your life simpler. You will save money, unwanted calories, and cholesterol! Without getting personal, take a good look around the mall. Do you see slender, in-shape people? They're living simpler lives.

Beware of the food court. Once you get by the cookie stands, the mini-bakeries, the candy stores, the overly salted nut shops, the cotton candy kiosk and the like, undoubtedly you'll hit the food court. The food court routinely will include a wiener vendor, a steak vendor, a Chinese food vendor, an Italian food vendor, a Mexican food vendor, ad infinitum. Some of the food is good, and depending on your mission for that day, it might be quite appropriate to stop and eat lunch at the food court. However, do you add a highly sugared drink, or highly salted fat-laden fries?

Do you add other condiments laced with nitrates, monosodium glutamate, and other preservatives that you don't need? While at the mall, do you wolf down your food? It doesn't matter where you wolf it, you get limited nutritional benefits.

Bring your own food. This is no misprint. It may sound like a little extra work, but you would be far better off if you simply brought an apple or banana, or a sandwich with you when shopping, so that you could pause, have a light lunch, and keep going. You could always get a glass of water, milk, or if you really insist, coffee! Even a nice herbal tea. You'll spend less money, have a calmer gut later on, and be more energetic, so you can walk around the mall ever more briskly, passing even more stores quickly, spending even less money, and leaving with your pocketbook and sanity in tact.

Mall Side Shows

Someplace in the mall, there'll be a quick photo kiosk where you have a photo taken of you and, perhaps, a friend. These are always overpriced and frequently lack the quality that you could get with your own camera. Someone will be selling gold chains, someone else will be selling beaded jewelry or jewelry you can make yourself, and wood carvings, such as ducks. Heck, some of them will even carve your family name out of wood--heaven knows where you would post it. When you think about it, and you're very serious with yourself, the chances are astronomically high that you don't need any of these items.

You don't need mall jewelry. Don't you already have a lot of jewelry in your jewelry box? Don't you already have several rings and necklaces and earrings? For men, don't you already have cufflinks, and pendants, and pins? Sure, you can support your local economy by shelling out your hard earned dollars for more of these bobbles that will simply go into your mounting collection. Isn't it more important for you to retain your money, display personal discipline, keep your life clutter free, and lead a simpler existence? Here's hoping that the answer is abundantly clear to you.

On your way out, watch for temptation. Even if you were born to shop till you drop, at some point, everyone begins to grow weary of the super shopping mall. On your way out, however, there will be yet more temptations. You'll notice a book store conveniently to your left and as you enter the store, you'll see a huge long rack of magazines. There will be magazines of all types. Some will be beneficial, helping you to maintain your health and well-being. In general, feel free to ignore all the rest. At three to five dollars a pop, they're far too costly.

Recycle magazines by taking them from bins. Most of the magazines you're seeking are readily available in mint condition from your local recycling bins around town. There's no harm in taking these from recycling bins because, after all, if you read them after someone else, that's a form of recycling. Besides, you intend to recycle them once you're done.

Leave the true confessions behind. Elsewhere in the book store, there will be all types of true confessions by celebrities, exposes of political blunders, and the usual assortment of techno-thrillers. Leave them all behind. They cost too much, you probably don't have the time, and you can more than meet your reading needs by visiting your local library and taking out a few well-chosen volumes.

Be forewarned of even the dollar store. You'll probably see a dollar or bargain store. Everything in this store is available at a ridiculously low price. This is because everything in the store represents ridiculously low quality. If you see something that you perceive as a supreme bargain and you simply can't resist, okay, make your day. Plunk down your money, pick up the item(s), and then get the heck out.

When you stray from the straight and narrow path, every harmless little item that you collect adds to the mass of stuff in your life--stuff that you have to house, dust, look at and/or store. Even if you're good at stripping your home of excess stuff you collect, why collect it in the first place? Things will be more simple if you don't allow items to enter to begin with.

Tools of the Trade

If you could undertake simple activities for the next couple weeks that would take a little effort but ultimately would enable you to have a easier time of things, would you do it? Good, because here are some tools of the trade when it comes to making your life simpler. We'll start with simplicity with the telephone.

Keep pens and paper at every station in your life. Have you ever phoned someone and he paused to get a pen or some paper? How inane! How could anyone proceed in this world without having a pen and paper by every phone in their house? If others in your household remove the pen or use up the supply of paper, consider attaching the pen on a wire or string. You can always tie a knot and secure the wire or string on the underside of the table using a thumbtack.

Create your own pad. A large wad of stick-em pads works well because they stay together until you remove one at a time. You could also get a note pad holder, although this is superfluous.

The least expensive note paper of all comes from simply using recycled sheets. Suppose you have an 8.5" by 11" piece of paper that was used on one side and has one side clear ready for re-use. Using scissors or simply the straight edge of a ruler, reduce that piece of paper to six fairly equal smaller pieces of paper that serve as your makeshift note pad.

Keep a phone book handy. Equally frustrating to not having pen or paper nearby is not having a phone book nearby. Your phone company supplies you with the number of phone books equal to the number of phone lines in your household. In some areas, you may request additional phone books for no extra charge, or a nominal fee. If push comes to shove, put last year's phone book near the least used phone. In any case, it's important to have phone books nearby these days. As the phone systems decentralize, merge, and reorganize you never know what level of directory assistance you can obtain.

Get phone books of surrounding locale as well. If you live on the border of phone exchange it makes sense to get phone books for adjacent areas that may require a one or area code dialing if you frequently call over to those areas. It can be cumbersome to have to rely on directory assistance and, in some areas, quite costly, not to mention time-consuming and down-right aggrevating.

If you use something once a week, it probably belongs in a top drawer. If you use something once a month, it probably belongs in a lower drawer or on shelves. If you use something less than once every three months, it may be a seasonal item, and hence can be socked away in a box, closet, or storage room.

Caution -- No Money On Hand Complicates Things

Don't fall into the oversimplification trap of having no money on hand at home even if that's an excuse to avoid any door-to-door vendors. You need cash for times when it makes sense to complete a transaction swiftly and easily. Alternatively, when you're offered something you don't want, you have only to say, "sorry, I'm simply not interested."

Stash $50 someplace in the house. Keep some cash in the house, albeit a low amount, so that you have money available when you need it. If the next door neighbor's child comes to the door selling Girl Scout cookies, and you're practically obligated to buy them every year, you might as well have some tens and twenties around to make the purchase on the spot.

Get Ready, Get Set, Simplify

If you'll adopt a simplicity mindset, you can get from here to the end of your days with far less complexity than you might have imagined. It all comes down to asking yourself a set of basic questions whenever confronted with yet something else that potentially will make your life complex.

Whether you're in a mall, thumbing through a catalog, or confronted by an enticing offer from a door-to-door sales person (there are less of these as time goes on), ask yourself the basic question, "Do I really need this?" Often, the answer is, "No, I don't need it."

Then ask yourself "Do I want it?" In some cases you might concede that, "Yes, I'd like want it," but after a while, would it bring you any great joy? Often the answer is, "No, it would be of passing interest."

Ask yourself, "Will This Make a Difference in My Life?" If you're confronted with an item of discernable value, ask yourself further probing questions. If you bought the item, would it make a difference in your life? Would it save labor or time, or yield piece of mind? If so, perhaps consider buying it. Hold on, however, not yet.

Ask yourself, "Will it pay for itself shortly?" If an item pays for itself the first, second, or third time you'll use it, and you'll use several times within a few month, go ahead and buy it. If it's a high priced item and easily pays for itself within a year and perhaps far sooner, and there are immediate recognizable benefits, take the plunge.

Ask yourself, "What are my options?" Often, the alternative to buying something new is using something else you already have that costs you nothing more.

What's the Walkman Attraction?

Consider a Walkman. Unless you intend to insert your favorite music and take a good long walk, it probably makes sense to pass on this buy. For $6.95 or less, at any appliance outlet, you can get yourself a reliable headset, plug it into your existing cassette or CD stereo, and achieve the same effect as a Walkman, except that you have to sit or stand close by. For more money, you can get cordless headphones that enable you to move about the house while listening to your favorite tunes. Depending on the make and model, you still will save money over purchasing the Walkman. Perhaps all you need to do is turn up the volume and stay within the vicinity of your stereo. There, you've paid nothing, you have the same effects as a Walkman or cordless headphone, and it didn't cost you a dime.

Ask yourself, "What else accomplishes the same ends?" Before you buy an electric can opener, for example, have you tested new mechanical can openers? Some are available for $3 or less and work so well that lids practically glide off. If you have arthritis, the electric ones make perfect sense. If you're otherwise adept, the low cost simple substitute does the same job.

The same principle applies when shopping for an alarm clock. Do you need a souped-up, overloaded, combination radio, alarm, snooze button, timer, extra large display, built-in phone, and who knows what else? So many gadgets, so many instructions, so little time. Identify your major need--perhaps a good quality alarm, with an overly large red, lighted display so that you can see the time without your glasses, and nothing more. If so, pay less, sleep just as soundly, and make your life simpler.

Keep a Sharp Lookout for More Ways to Simplify

Suppose that your postal carrier frequently mis-delivers mail to your house. It belongs to previous tenants, or someone down the street. Why not put the names of all the residents on the inside of your mailbox? The next time a postal carrier might otherwise deliver someone else's, he or she will know better. Hence, one less item in your day that you don't need to deal with.

Post reminder labels. If lights or appliances need to be turned off at certain times of the day, and household members or co-workers frequently forget this, post a label on the spot to increase the probability that the proper action will be taken. Whether you use a computer and label paper, or simply hand write a note on a post-it pad, leave notes near the stations of your life that help to simplify things.

Near the coffee pot at work leave a note that says turn off by 5 p.m. Similarly, around your home, create notes to help other occupants know the proper times to take proper action.

Change the appearance of labels to keep the message fresh. After a while, the notes become part of the environment, i.e., people don't notice them anymore. In that case, change their color, use stars or flare pens to draw attention to them.

When notes don't work use timers. If the item is crucial, install a timer so that an appliance or device automatically turns off. Timers are available for a nominal fee and offer a wide variety of options. As the almighty micro-chip gets smaller and more powerful, more appliances will have a built-in automatic shut-off feature. For now, simple electric timers, either with a hand dial or digital keypad, are widely available.

Coach Others Around You to Think Simplicity

Whether at work or at home, let others in on your campaign. Though at first some may scoff or not take it seriously, your actions will speak louder than words. With many people, you'll win their silent if not vocal approval. After all, they have to make their way in this overly complex world as well.

Co-workers, family members, or those who simply spend time with one another can greatly simplify each other's lives by keeping communications concise, maintaining clutter free work or living spaces, and giving one another a moment here and there to pause and reflect.

The Simplest Ways to Keep Everyday Situations Simpler

Here is the simplest of the simple, to make each day less complex and more enjoyable:

( ) Complexity abounds and your ability to spot it will be one of the key tools in your arsenal for ensuring that you minimize its effects.

( ) Watch one less hour-long television show. During these minutes recall what transpired over the last seven days, what ideas about making life simpler popped in your head, for which you took no action and what tools for getting organized could you acquire but thus far have not?

( ) On Sunday evening, contemplate how you'd like your week to go, and assemble whatever you need to take with you on Monday by the front door.

( ) On Monday morning, perhaps you need to get up ten or fifteen minutes earlier than usual.

( ) List your stops in chronological order on a post-it pad and put the list inside the front door of your home before leaving and on your dashboard, once in the car.

( ) Acknowledge yourself for what you've accomplished each morning and contemplate how good it will be to eat lunch.

( ) Before concluding your work day, tie up loose ends. The more little things you complete before departing, the more focused and energized you'll be when you return the next day to a clear and clean environment that is conducive to greater productivity.

( ) Once back with your family, readjust. You may need to let your internal engine "rev down." A brief nap, shower, or stroll will help.

( ) Instead of tying up a Saturday or Sunday, designate Monday evening from 7 to 10 p.m., or Thursday evening from 5 to 9 p.m. as errand night.

( ) Your body likes routines, regularity, and predictable times. Avoid changing your sleeping hours dramatically from one day to the next.

( ) To keep your life simpler, resist the vast array of enticing items .

( ) Keep pens and paper at every station in your life.

( ) Ask yourself the basic question, "Do I really need this?", "Will this make a difference in my life?", "Will it pay for itself shortly?" and "What are my options?"

( ) Let others in on your simplicity campaign.