Welcome to The Weekly Simplifier, brought to you by…

    

Contents:

1.  A Note From Shawn
2.  Quote of the Week
3.  Article: Clearing Space for the Best of You
4.  This Week's Simplification Tip
5.  In the News & On the Web
6.  Featured at ProjectSimplify.com
7.  Keep Smiling

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1. A Note From Shawn

This issue represents Project Simplify in a nutshell. The Quote of the Week and Keep Smiling sections embody the essence of our goal– Simplify. A beautiful notion.

For most, however, this is not enough. Our minds demand, “Simplify what? How? Specifics, please!”  So we start breaking it down. The three “In the News” articles represent a cross section of areas we can simplify: “mess” management, time management, and work/life integration. Besides explaining some of how it's done, these articles illustrate that people are tackling these issues in every locality– and seeking help when they need to.

Taking the next step, the article and “Tip of the Week” give examples of specific tools you can use to aid your simplification journey.

And journey it is. There are no “quick fixes.” We are talking about lifestyle choices that affect all facets of your life. The goal of Project Simplify is to support the infrastructure that helps you maintain your choice to Simplify.

Let it be easy!

Shawn Tuttle
Head Simplifier, Project Simplify

 

2. Quote of the Week

"As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler."

-Henry David Thoreau

3. Article: Clearing Space for the Best of You

By Shawn Tuttle

Every day and in every conversation we share our stories with each other. When our minds are clear, we more readily tell rich stories of inspiration, good-will, ideas and plans from the heart. When we have a lot on our mind, we tend to ‘process’ out loud.

I choose a series of stories for my lifetime. Chapters and volumes begin and end. Each one is characterized by lessons learned, contributions made, experiences to draw from later, and clues gathered to direct my path. The common thread of my current volume is helping people be their best. This drive is simple and community oriented—one of many doing her part. And the choices for supporting storylines are endless.

Supporting storyline: Clearing out mental clutter. My intention for mind clearing is to remove all that detracts or distracts us from feeling as divinely as we desire.

Goal: a mind that is open, relaxed, engaged, appropriately responsive, gently focused and free for quiet time, big picture planning, or idea development.

The primary culprit of the cluttered mind: using it as a Storage Space. We store lists, ToDo’s, reminders, phone numbers, upcoming appointments, projects to do, places to go, things to get… It takes a lot of energy to constantly feed these memory burners.

Fed up with extraneous thoughts? Here is a great exercise to relieve the cluttered mind: 

You’ll want a notebook or several pieces of paper and a pen. Then, it’s List Mania time. Your goal is to get everything out of your head and on to paper. EVERYTHING. Either just start writing, or if spontaneous categorizing is easy for you, label a page and flow into a list for that subject. Examples: calls to make, emails to write, out of balance relationships to be resolved, long term projects, desired travel destinations, marketing ideas, problems to solve, groceries to get, health issues to address, etc. 

Keep the notebook handy throughout the day. Deep, long-forgotten ideas will be triggered by seemingly unrelated situations. The items on the lists can be prioritized, identified for release, or tagged for an undetermined time in the future. Additional systems for information flow, scheduling, managing your addresses, files etc. can assist you in working with your lists and maintaining your clutter-free mind.

Once you release it all, take a deep breath and feel the difference in your body and mind. Observe how your story changes. :)
——–

Shawn Tuttle is Founder of Project Simplify

4. This Week's Simplification Tip

The 10X Rule

If you plan on growing your business, even if you are doing everything yourself, consider this when setting up your office systems:

When planning a system, or considering whether to change a system, ask yourself, will this system’s integrity hold up with 10x more use? And then you can follow this question up with: Could someone else stepping in to do this be easily oriented?

Moral of the story: plan for growth all the way down to your filing system :-)

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5. In the News & On the Web

[In this section, we will highlight sites and pages of interest from around the Web, as well as news stories that relate to simplicity, time management, and organization when we see them. If you know of something in the news or on the web that should be featured here, let us know!]

In The News

This week, we have three stories about people who do the sort of things we do - help people out with their time, their mess, and their efforts to balance work and life.
Click on an article's title to read that article.

Mess Management (Bangor Daily News)
This in-depth article profiles several professional organizers in Maine and their clients. It discusses why different people become disorganized, and what can be done about it.

Solving the work-life dilemma (MercatorNet)
This interview with Chicago-based management professional Mary Hunt is an excellent discussion on balancing home life with work and career. She runs a training and consulting firm that offers home management solutions for blending work and personal life.

Tackling Time Management (Oshkosh Northwestern)
This review of an OshKosh (Wisconsin) time management seminar provides an overview of some of the basic principles and tips.

6. Featured at ProjectSimplify.com

The Best of April

Here's a run-down of some of the best new entries that were added to the site during the month of April.
Click on an entry's title to read that entry.

Happiness and Positive Psychology
Shawn mulls over and reacts to some of the findings of the positive psychology field/movement.

Be on Time. Simple as that.
Being on time: why it's important, and how to make sure it happens.

Daily time for You
An extension of the Daily Check-in, featured in last week's Simplicity Tip.

Intro to Permaculture
Two book recommendations about the principles of Permaculture.

The simple answer
Sometimes we don't know what we've got (dragging us down) 'til it's gone.

Cleansing Our Time
Shawn's latest article for Wild Mountain Yoga Center newsletter.

Desktop StopWatch by DesignSoft
This is a handy software tool for tracking billable work-time; Shawn explains what she likes about it. (Besides the fact that it helps her get paid! ;-))

7. Keep Smiling

The Way to Happiness

(The following is from Norman Vincent Peale's legendary book The Power of Positive Thinking.)

A genuinely happy man is a friend of mine, H.C. Mattern, who, with his equally happy wife, Mary, travels throughout the country in the course of his work. Mr. Mattern carries a unique business card on the reverse side of which is stated the philosophy which has brought happiness to him and his wife and to hundreds of others who have been so fortunate as to feel the impact of their personalities.

The card reads as follows: "The way to happiness: keep your heart free from hate, your mind free from worry. Live simply, expect little, give much. Fill your life with love. Scatter sunshine. Forget self, think of others. Do as you would be done by. Try this for a week and you will be surprised."

As you read these words you may say, "There is nothing new in that." Indeed, there is something new in it if you have never tried it. When you start to practice it you will find the newest, freshest, most astonishing method of happy and successful living you have ever used. What is the value of having known these principles all your life if you have never made use of them? Such inefficiency in living is tragic. For a man to have lived in poverty when all the time right on his doorstep is gold indicates an unintelligent approach to life. This simple philosophy is the way to happiness.

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Thanks for reading - see you next week!