“Art is the elimination of the unnecessary” — Picasso
Are you near your closet?
Take a look at your shirts / dresses / pants hanging there.
Now count them all. I got 29 for mine. Have a look.
Now run that count again but this time count ONLY the ones you have worn in the past three months. I got 11.
So what are those extra 18 items doing there? They are wasting:
1) Space in my closet
2) Worst yet — space in my mind
You see when I look at my closet in the morning all I see are choices, and while a million combinations run through my head, in the end I just end up picking the ones I always wear.
But the REAL PROBLEM is that in our day — we only have so much energy to give towards making choices.
You may have heard of it — its called Ego Depletion.
We have to choose what to wear, what to eat three times a day, whether to go to the gym or join friends at dinner, whether to hold our fart until the bathroom or unleash the apocalypse on a group of innocent bystanders.
A thousand choices each and every day.
Year over year.
That’s why you feel amazing when you get rid of stuff or knock items off your to do list. You’ve gone past and eliminated a bunch of choices you need to make in the future.
Okay this guy wasted 30 seconds of my time telling me to clean out my closet and his name sounds funny, I’m closing this window.
But wait, young grasshopper.
There is more.
Do you want to accomplish more in the next 3 months than you have in the last three years?
Do you want to impress your friends and family by learning to play the guitar or speak Spanish when you next visit Cancun?
Here’s the answer: Build a positive daily routine.
You may know this, I certainly thought I did, but deep down I hadn’t INTERNALIZED it!
If you don’t have a morning routine — you haven’t internalized it.
If your days don’t seem boring in how routine they are — you haven’t internalized it.
If you haven’t seen a change in the last 6 months — in your health, earnings or general learning — you haven’t internalized it
So, let’s go through what it takes to build a positive daily routine.
Ruthlessly Eliminate
Do you know that feeling when you quit that job you absolutely hated? Or simply when you knocked off an item that had been hanging around on your todo list forever?
Yea that feeling.
Like my clothing that I ended up going through and reducing, extend this to your entire life.
- Eliminate job tasks that you hate (or outsource them).
- Stop going to events you don’t want to. Just say no.
- Eliminate material possessions (as much as possible).
- Eliminate friends (stop hanging out with them, don’t kill them nutcase)
You’ll feel amazing — eliminating all those future choices and energy sapping activities will rejuvenate you and you’ll be able to fill your life with things more directly aligned with your goals.
Align Daily Habits with Long-Term Goals
You may have some long-term goals but struggle to prioritize them with your busy schedule.
I know this is the problem I constantly ran into.
My solution was to pack all my habits into a morning routine when I had the most energy and focus.
I chose to do these habits first thing before checking email, making phone calls, anything. Here is my routine:
- 7:00 — Wake
- 7:05 — Meditate
- 7:20 — Stretching
- 7:35 — Breakfast: 2 eggs and oatmeal with fruit
- 8:00 — Learn Spanish
- 8:30 — Gym
- 9:30 — Shower and mid-morning shake
Overtime, these habits build up to your long-term goals and the process can almost seem effortless!
Conclusion
Start today by going through your closet and throwing out all the clothing you don’t wear.
For me that served as a catalyst to continue removing unnecessary things from my life.
From there, create a morning routine and some habits that are aligned with your long-term goals and then just wait for the magic.
Imran Esmail writes at Escape Your Desk Job where through stories and case studies he shares methods you can use to cut out distractions, implement sustainable habits and ultimately build the life you’ve always wanted.
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