Simplicity must be possible.

grant — Mon, 19 May 2008 12:20:28 -0400

Two stories that I know I should be learning from:

Paul Graham on overcoming distractions. By creating an Internet-Only computer.
Quote:
I now leave wifi turned off on my main computer except when I need to transfer a file or edit a web page, and I have a separate laptop on the other side of the room that I use to check mail or browse the web. (Irony of ironies, it's the computer Steve Huffman wrote Reddit on. When Steve and Alexis auctioned off their old laptops for charity, I bought them for the Y Combinator museum.)

My rule is that I can spend as much time online as I want, as long as I do it on that computer. And this turns out to be enough.
NY Times on overcoming clutter. By giving everything away.
Quote:
Chasing a utopian vision of a self-sustaining life on the land as partisans of a movement some call voluntary simplicity, they are donating virtually all their possessions to charity and hitting the road at the end of May.

“It’s amazing the amount of things a family can acquire,” said Mrs. Harris, 28, attributing their good life to “the ridiculous amount of money” her husband earned as a computer network engineer in this early Wi-Fi mecca.

The Harrises now hope to end up as organic homesteaders in Vermont.

I can't quite see myself going as far as homesteading... but I always get that uncanny feeling when I read stories like these that it really IS that simple to make a change.

”Simplicity must be possible.” was written by grant balfour for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on May 19, 2008. Except as noted, it's ©2010 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"

Bruce Lee: Productivity Dragon

grant — Fri, 09 May 2008 16:33:30 -0400

The aptly named "Positivity Blog" recently had a rather compelling overview of Bruce Lee, Productivity Guru.

Like our own dear Merlin, Mr. Lee was from the Bay Area and took a lifelong interest in the fundamental rules underlying systems; unlike Mr. Mann, Bruce Lee could break Chuck Norris in half but never once listened to Zen Arcade.

What's more impressive, though, is how much of the Little Dragon's martial arts philosophy can be applied to pretty much everything. I'm especially fond of #4 on Positivity's list (“Take no thought of who is right or wrong or who is better than. Be not for or against.”), but probably need to work most on #2:

Quote:

“It’s not the daily increase but daily decrease. Hack away at the unessential.”

“If you spend too much time thinking about a thing, you’ll never get it done.”

If you want to improve your life then it’s tempting to want to add more.

...Removing clutter and activities, tasks and thoughts that are not so important frees up time and energy for you to do more of what you really want to do. And as the clutter in your outer world decreases the clutter in your inner world also has a tendency to decrease....

Adding more thoughts and thinking things over for the 111th time may create a sense of security. It’s also a good way to procrastinate and to avoid taking that leap you know you should take. And the more you think, the harder it gets to act.

I'm not going to argue with that.

”Bruce Lee: Productivity Dragon” was written by grant balfour for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on May 09, 2008. Except as noted, it's ©2010 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"

inspiration

Simplicity must be possible.

Bruce Lee: Productivity Dragon