The thirty-seventh issue of the Project Simplify newsletter The Simplifier is now archived on our newsletter archives page.

This marks a new year of Simplifiers for us: Volume 2, as it were. Volume 1 (as it were) now has its own archives page, with previews and links to the 36 issues which made up our first year of publishing The Simplifier (and its predecessor, The Weekly Simplifier.)

Here is a brief summary of issue #37’s contents:

1. A Note From Shawn
Starting a cohesive year of simplification articles (and more)
2. Our Featured Quote
by Annie Dillard
3. Article: Beginning the Journey
by PS Head Simplifier Shawn Tuttle
4. In the News
No new stuff, Living tiny: the 96-sqft house, and … … procrastination
5. Keep Smiling
How to Laugh…or How to Keep from Laughing

Read the full issue here.
Subscribe to The Simplifier here.

[posted by Lance]

I ran into Carl of Buzz Strong fame this morning at Wisdom Café. Buzz Strong makes the famously tasty caffeinated cookie. He must love coffee.

He told me about a physics principle or law or somesuch that says when you inject energy into a system, it will eventually organize.

Then he said that based on this principle, someone invented a hair de-tangler. It’s an electronic comb like thing with big teeth that you insert into a mess of tangled hair and it vibrates and de-tangles. Sounds like an urban myth to me.

Way! Not only does it exist, KRBC, “Abilene’s First News” featured it in its “Does it Work” section!

Remington’s Tangle Tamer (excerpted from KRBC’s site):

Go figure a product that kids actually like using to take the tangles out of their hair. And just like the box said. NO TANGLES, NO TEARS, NO TANTRUMS.

Who’d’ve thunk?

Then I ran into Carl again down the street a little later and he said, “Hey, I was thinking… That’s what you do, right?”

I thought, “Uh, no, Carl, I’ve got a curly mess of hair but I don’t consider myself to be a hair de-tangler.”

He continued, “You inject energy into systems to give them a more organized form.” Hmm, hadn’t thought about it that way… But I guess so. That would make me a Tangle Tamer! LOL

This tip originally appeared in The Simplifier #36.

How to add some whistle to your work

When your brain isn’t clear about what, when, how, or for how long it should be doing something, your attention scatters. This lack of clarity triggers frazzled and frantic feelings. Here are some strategies for keeping calm while doing your work.

Mono-tasking gives your mind big relief—plus, the activity at hand benefits from concentrated attention. Focusing on one task at a time provides the opportunity to be present with whatever you are doing. It allows you to relax into an activity once the goal and parameters are set: “Why am I doing this?” and “How will I know when I’m done?” (For more on mono-tasking, see “Multi-tasking: the Cost” and “Mono-tasking tips”.)

Separating planning from doing acknowledges that multi-tasking is a necessity at times. It also acknowledges that planning and doing activities utilize different brain functions and that jumping back and forth between the two is practically inviting your brain to short-circuit. When you catch yourself not knowing what to do for an activity, stop! Take a few minutes to define the goal, and only then switch to doing mode. (For more on planning vs. doing, see “Planning Time vs. Doing Time”.)

Routinely using a work flow productivity system, like David Allen’s Getting Things Done, provides huge relief for your head. This clears your mind from trying to keep track of unfinished and unscheduled tasks and projects. Not to be underestimated!! I say routinely because it does take discipline to maintain.

Doing the important stuff first prevents frantic scrambling at the end of the day. We also enjoy more fulfillment from making progress on what’s important.

Scheduling make-up time in your busy weeks allows you to keep up with your high-priority ToDos while being flexible with unexpected demands. You decide when this would work best for you. One client dedicates one hour Wednesday afternoon as well as three hours Friday afternoon just for catch-up.

Working with your biorhythms encourages you to align activities with the time of day that works best for you. Match peak brain time with mentally challenging projects and slower brain time with repetitive or auto-pilot activities. (For more on biorhythms, see “Scheduling with Biorhythms”.)

This article was originally published in The Simplifier #37.

Article: Beginning the Journey

By Shawn Tuttle

Your life.
Do you want to simplify? Are you ready and willing to ask questions that may resist answers?The Journey
The process of simplifying can include questions like:Why are you committed to the things you are committed to?
What is stress telling you about your responsibilities?
How do you want to be living your life?

There are two types. One is practical tools and systems. The other is a set of concepts that illuminate the root (not just the symptoms) of our disorganization “problems”.Over the next year, I’ll help you weave these tools into personalized solutions, one article at a time. We’ll explore simplifying concepts and give food for thought to make it your own. Many of the ideas will probably be familiar—not necessarily because you’ve read them here, but because you’ve experienced them before. (Just as old friends, almost forgotten, can turn up for a welcome re-acquaintance.) They rest in your memory, waiting patiently to be invited to the table.I look forward to the journey and to hearing about your adventures along the way. Keep it simple!

Shawn Tuttle is founder of Project Simplify

Here are 2 more gems from the yoga retreat that haven’t made bumper sticker status, but really oughta!

Fun multi-layered thoughts from Alinda:

The Creator didn’t give us a body to get out of it. Do yoga.

Get a life. Do yoga.

One of the aspects I love about yoga is its ability to bring me back to my essential self when I get too head-y. Insta-return!

Looking through my journal from the yoga retreat I found some sweet gems uttered by other yogis. Do I hear bumper stickers? Do I hear slogans for the new millennium?

Perry said:

“psycho-degradable”

to infer discarding mental and emotional clutter in order to make space for supportive mental and emotional states. The released psycho-degradable clutter goes out into the universe, breaks down into its component parts and then is free to re-combine into new forms.

Now that I’m back online after aforementioned yoga retreat, I’ve done a comprehensive search (assuming that perusing page 1 of Google search constitutes a “comprehensive search”) to see if the term has already been widely used in circulation.

There was one web reference of the words used in this order including hyphen attributed to Julien Cracq (there was a pdf document also attributed to Julien which I may check out later–no promises):

Contradiction d’un systeme qui n’est ja- mais clos, ouI le film, selon Julien Cracq, est “non psycho-degradable” (117), mais ouI le critique “encercle” le …

roughly translated by yours truly to mean: “Contradiction of a system that’s never closed, whereas the film, according to Julien Cracq, is “not psycho-degradable”, but whereas the critique “encircles” the …”

which I take to mean the same thing as I wrote above. Sadly, I couldn’t get more of the context of the writer’s meaning because I don’t have 5 cyber-bucks available to pay JSTOR to access the full article. This was my first visit to JSTOR and wondered what the name stood for. The closest I could find was:

JSTOR is a not-for-profit organization with a dual mission to create and maintain a trusted archive of important scholarly journals, and to provide access to these journals as widely as possible.

Interesting resource. Though the explanation of the name could be more clear, in my humble opinion. I’ll guess that JSTOR stands for “Journal Store”. Maybe I’ll submit my yoga retreat journal to them to add to their scholarly submissions on psycho-degradable contemplations.

This tip originally appeared in The Simplifier #8.

If you frequently start your day off with a bang, jumping into all the things you need to do, and end the day frazzled and wondering “what just happened?”, then review your daily schedule the night before.

The key here is separating Planning Time from Doing Time. Reviewing your schedule is a Planning Time activity. You review your goals for the week, identify priorities, and considering your scheduled appointments, develop a sense of when you will work on your goals.Then you jump into your day with direction. You aren’t just doing, you are Doing activities that support your goals. At the end of the day, you get the satisfaction of having made progress on your goals.