(This article originally appeared in The Weekly Simplifier #16.)

By Lance Brown

Recently, a local tree offered me the opportunity to give the car-free lifestyle a try for a little while. Before I knew it (and with a screech of tires), I had accepted, and it wasn’t long after that I was rolling my bicycle out from the basement area, and wondering if I could make it work as my only form of transportation for a while.

It’s been a couple of months since then, and my adventures in biking for groceries have taught me a lot about the value of planning, especially when resources are limited. And really, aren’t everyone’s resources limited? Though you may not be restricted to a 50-pounds-per-outing maximum like me, it still makes sense to think about efficiency, and how to make best use of your (limited) resources.

Riding a bike into town for all of my supplies has put a lot of things we take for granted into stark perspective for me. Things like priorities, planning, and knowing my limits, to name a few.

First, some background. I live way out in the country, at the end of a dirt and gravel road. The nearest supermarket is 20-25 minutes away by car. A normal round trip on my bike is about 20 miles, approximately half of which is uphill. A trip into town now takes between 2-1/2 hours and 4 hours, depending on how many places I go. And after about 15 to 18 trips like this, they still tire me out pretty well. So the impact reaches further than the trip itself.

The lesson there is simple: simplify, or else. I can only do so many of these trips, so often. If I’m doing the bike thing, that’s just how it is. So it’s essentials only, for the most part. Each trip has a limited carrying capacity, and so far, competition for space in each trip has been fierce. Groceries and errands start lining up for the next trip immediately after the last one, and I have to be the strict arbiter of priorities—deciding, within fairly rigid limitations, which items are really essential, and which can be done without.

Which isn’t to say I’m torturing myself with deprivation—I’m not. I’ve hardly gone without ice cream at all during this adventure, for example. But I have had to think hard about just about everything that gets included in a journey into town. Does it involve extra travel? Are there hills? How much does it weigh? How big is it? Will I have to rush home with it?

All these questions matter quite a lot when you’re biking far for supplies. But even if you aren’t having to measure your groceries by the pound, evaluating the real cost of your choices—of including certain things in your life or your planning—is important all the time. Your time and resources are limited too. Maybe not limited to the size of a large duffel bag and 10 miles each way, but still…

Here are some resource management lessons I’ve been learning during my adventures in biking for groceries:

Saying No

In accepting this effort to try out forced simplification via bicycling, I was also accepting the notion of saying “no” to a lot of things in my life, at least for a while. It’s not as negative as it sounds, though. In contrast, it has helped me to identify and concentrate on what’s essential to me—a key step in living a simpler, more focused life. When I do rejoin the ranks of the auto-driving public, it will be a lot easier to notice that which is wasteful and/or unnecessary for me. Plus, it will do my clutter load some good to have one summer where I don’t “brake for yard sales” (and “Free” signs) every few days. :-)

Planning Matters

Planning is everything in my situation. Poor planning can mean hours added on to a trip, or even being stranded and having to walk home with an unwalkable load. Before I head out for a trip into town, I know exactly where I intend to go, in what order, and what I will do or get when I get there. I double-check all my choices and assumptions to make sure I’m not missing something, and if there are any variables in play, I come up with a workable backup plan. All this happens before my foot hits pedal one. Once I do head out, the details of the agenda are set, and at least that one part of my trip is easy and stress-free. Which is good, because I’ve got other things to worry about on these trips—like not getting run off the road, and keeping sweat out of my eyes, for example. And hills…

Watch Out For Hills

It’s amazing how much we take hills for granted when we’re in a car. Now that I’m biking, “How bad are the hills?” is my first question when considering a new destination. And if you think of hills metaphorically, that’s an important question to consider when taking on projects or making commitments. Every commitment carries with it a series of obligations—some obvious, some not—and it’s in your best interest to make an honest evaluation of those things before you jump into a given endeavor. Metaphorical hills can be even more exhausting than literal ones (and you don’t even get the bonus of having firmer legs!)

Deprivation = focus

The bottom line is that periods of deprivation or limited resources can teach us a lot about how to make the most of what we do have, in order to do what we really need to be doing. This is one of the major tenets of leading a more simplified life, and also an extremely important part of doing business as effectively as possible. And while going bike-only for the summer has been rough (and really, really sweaty), it has been enlightening too.

When actor Jamie Foxx was filming his amazing performance as Ray Charles for the movie Ray, he wore uncomfortable prosthetic contact lenses which rendered him completely blind. He kept them on all day (not just when on-camera) so that he could get the best understanding possible of what Ray’s perspective was like. Before long, Foxx’s hearing became ultra-sensitive, as he began to develop some of the strengths that blind people develop to make up for their lost sight. Foxx’s voluntary deprivation helped him better appreciate the limited (but still very powerful) perspective of the musical genius he was imitating—and it won him a much-deserved Oscar award for his performance. And Ray Charles himself, and his amazing career, is a testament to the fact that even with limited resources, your ability to make the most of what you do have is virtually unlimited—with the right perspective.

Just don’t try biking for groceries and the blinding contact lenses at the same time, OK?

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Lance Brown is Co-Editor of The Weekly Simplifier.