The Productive Solopreneur — On minimalism
How to apply minimalism to everyday life and business
The idea that drives a minimalist lifestyle is to own less so that most important things can have the space they deserve. Minimalism has been applied to design, art, architecture, to mention a few — Can it be applied to business/ work though?
This blog is a part of “The Productive Solopreneur”, a series of articles about tools that help Solopreneurs to stay sane and productive. If you are more into technical stuff, read “AppEconomy” series instead.
With some exceptions, Our brain is not wired to multitask. From a computing perspective, the brain concentrates on one smaller(granular), achievable tasks at a time. When you put millions of such smaller actions on a smaller timeline, big things such as running while breathing, or singing while drumming seems easy to achieve, but are in fact a feat!
Focusing on one single smaller achievable task is the subject matter of Getting Things Done (GTD) productivity process. Needless to say that I consider it a “minimalist” approach to work.
A decluttered calendar frees time that can be used towards leisure, learning or getting other more important things — such as bonding with your kids — done.
In business, as in life, time is money. The time you spend organizing, tidying things up — or simply wasting time searching for lost car keys in the morning — technically all that is a waste of money.
Getting rids of things that distract you, makes you save time to spend on things matter the most, or things that need to be done. A clean paper-free desk makes it easy to concentrate on your tasks at hand. The smaller your guard-robe, the smaller the time tidying things up, the faster you find your clothes before heading to work.
This kind of Minimalism helps to spend more time and money on things that really matter. Moreover, the fewer things you buy, the more money you save.
Despite using an old DOS running machine — without internet and just a good ol’ WordStar 4.0 word processor, the spell-checkers and auto-correct hater author managed to pull of a ~2 million words — close to ~200 hours worth of audiobook — in a best seller epic fantasy novel, whose first book gave the name to one of the best hit series on HBO.
In case you are still wondering, the epic fantasy novel is “The Song of Ice and Fire” written by George RR Martin ~ first book in the series is “A Game of Thrones” which, obviously, inspired the name “Game of Thrones” , the HBO’s fantasy drama television series.
As you can see, information overload doesn’t necessarily translate into productivity. But rather consumes time and doesn’t help to learn and master new things.
Suggestions on blogs that caught my attention:
- The Minimalists ~ The guys behind this blog not only walk the walk but also share their insights via Facebook Page, Instagram and they have a documentary movie available on Netflix, bearing the same name.
- Becoming minimalist ~ a family man who manages to keep things easier. He uses most of the time saved for writing and being closer to his family.
- Be more with less and Nourishing minimalism ~ are other notable blogs full of resources on work, life, and business.
Reading list on consumerism reduction
- Buy experiences, not things
- Why wanting experience things makes us so much happier than buying them
- People who spend money on experiences instead of things are much happier
- The Story of stuff referenced and annotated script by Annie Leonard
- Viewpoint: The hazards of too much stuff
Credits
- The interview in which George RR Martin reveals his set up ~ TechCrunch
- Wikipedia entry on “A Song of Ice and Fire”.
