Eight Ways to Simplify Your Life Online

Facebook recently announced that they have passed 500 million users, making them larger than the population of Canada, the US, and Mexico combined, and sparking a new wave of articles celebrating, censuring, and critiquing the site and the "new world" it represents. Many of the articles have very legitimate points, in particular the ones that analyze its cost on our society. But as a young twenty-something whose primary communication tool is the Internet in general and Facebook in particular, what am I to do if I want to simplify my online life without losing track of my friends who pretty much only use Facebook to organize events and keep in touch?

At the bottom line, of course, it all comes down to self-discipline-- knowing when to say you have spent enough time online. However, simple steps abound by which you can get your life online back under control.

With that in mind, I have compiled a list of eight ideas for doing exactly that. The first five are directly related to how you use Facebook, the latter three are more broadly applicable.

1. Hide and Seek. One of Facebook's most helpful new(er) features is the capacity to hide things in your newsfeed. If your friends are playing Farmville and the notifications keep showing up all over your feed, just click "Hide"! If you change your mind (you probably won't), you can always go find it and reverse the decision. You can also hide people that you are not interested in seeing in your newsfeed, but consider the following:
2. It is okay to de-friend people. Really. If you are so uninterested in them that you hide them and never go to their profile page, consider a purge of your friends list. Chances are good that most of them won't notice, but if they do, they can always re-friend you later. Or, if removing someone as a Facebook friend is really too hard for you to do...
3. Make lists. Another delightful new-ish feature on Facebook is the ability to make lists of your friends, creating an effective filter for whatever groups of people you choose. My favorite thing about the lists? You can make one of all the people you might want to talk to on Facebook chat, and set it up so that you appear online only to those people. Goodbye to hearing from that old classmate you've never really wanted to keep in touch with anyway.
4. Cut down your use of applications. Seriously, are these games (FrontierVille, Mafia Wars, etc) really why you signed up for Facebook? Are the bumper stickers and quizzes and pieces of flair? If so, disregard this item. If not, go in to your applications list and remove them. All you need are the basics...plus maybe one or two apps that you really enjoy, don't suck a lot of time, or otherwise enrich your online life (for me, those two are Scrabble and Selective Tweets; I've uninstalled everything else).
5. On Notice. You can get a lot of different notifications on Facebook. Tagged photos, comments, wall posts, links, accepted friend requests...but you don't have to let them take over your regular email inbox. Unsubscribe.
6. Feed the addiction carefully. Google Reader has become one of my favorite online tools. I set up feeds to it for blogs, entertainment, and general news. I love the ability to flip through it quickly, and to select particular articles that I want to read more in-depth. It's also a good way to share articles (as is Twitter). That being said, it is important to be very self-controlled with how many feeds you subscribe to. Set a cap and stick to it.
7. Limit your time. This is the piece of advice given every time someone writes suggestions about using the Internet, but it's a good one. Set a limit on how much time you are going to spend on a given site. There are some instances where this is easier to pull off than others. For example, I generally limit myself to half an hour on my Google Reader at a given point in the day. This includes reading the posts that I select as worth a closer read. That's relatively easy to do. Facebook, on the other hand, is one of the biggest time-suckers on the Internet, and defining time on there can be much more of a challenge. This is why you have to learn how to know when to...
8. Shut it down. I mean this in two regards. First and most important is to know when to shut off your internet or your computer entirely. If you need to focus, if you are getting a headache, if you know you've spent hours staring at a screen without getting anything accomplished, just power it down. If you have an extended period coming up where you are going to need to be very productive (final exams time in college, for example), it is also worth considering deactivating your online accounts like Facebook and Twitter, or getting a friend to change your password so you can't waste time on them.

As a millennial, I love all my various ways of connecting with people online. But I have also grown to recognize increasingly the importance of managing that online life in a responsible manner in proportion with the amount of time I spend with people in person and doing other important things. Self-discipline with the Internet can be hard to acquire, but it is well worth the effort it takes to develop.

Reposting from Zen Habits

Apologies again for the drought in posting. Striving to live simply is an ongoing battle, and this summer that has especially been true in terms of commitments. Working two jobs and seeing friends is a great thing but it does consume a good deal of time!

I just wanted to call to your attention this excellent guest post on my favorite simple living site, Zen Habits: How to Simplify When You Love Your Stuff. It aligns very nicely with my philosophy on purging vs purchasing items: if you have space and it adds to your happiness or helps you to follow your passions, then that's okay. The point of simplifying is to have more space in your life for the things you love, not to remove the things you love from your life. The link to the full article is here; excerpted below (all credit to the author).

Living simply and detaching from material things will make you happier. There is real research and lots of anecdotal evidence to support the truth of this. But is it possible that some material things can add to our happiness, sense of contentment and joy in life? If so, how do you go about deciding what’s good stuff and what’s bad?

Perhaps the deciding factor is motivation. Do the things that you own or wish to buy support your ego, or do they enliven your soul? Some material things can afford you a sense of warmth, coziness, beauty, fond memories, or comfort. There are other things that offer only that fleeting rush of acquisition.

The Rain, Walking, and Other Musings

3 June 2010

It rained today.

Not the kind of gentle drizzle that lasts all day, nor the sudden skies-opened-up downpour that you know will last no more than five or ten minutes...nor still the off-and-on sun showers that serve only to confuse and tease you. No, this was the kind of storm that starts quietly and builds...the kind that you can watch as it grows, if you are fortunate, into a full-on thunderstorm that lasts for an hour or two.

I watched it build initially from my office window around 4:30. I watched the clouds roll in and turn a day that had been bright and sunny from the moment I woke up into a gloomy twilight. I say "gloomy" there-- it evokes an accurate image, to be sure, but when I left the office and headed into the open air, I did not feel an atmosphere of gloom at all.

The initial stage of my commute home is a 20-minute walk across the Francis Scott Key Bridge, which crosses the Potomac River and the C&O Canal, and then takes me through part of Georgetown's semi-famous M Street shopping district. Though part of me had hoped that the rain would hold off until I reached my bus stop, the drizzle was just beginning as I walked out the door of my building. I briefly contemplated altering my route so I would be inside on some mode of public transportation, but quickly decided against it and proceeded on my way.

I relate easily to this quote from Henry David Thoreau's essay "Walking":

"I think that I cannot preserve my health and spirits, unless I spend four hours a day at least-- and it is commonly more than that-- sauntering through the woods and over the hills and fields, absolutely free from all worldly engagements. You may safely say, A penny for your thoughts, or a thousand pounds. When sometimes I am reminded that the mechanics and shopkeepers stay in their shops not only all the forenoon, but all the afternoon too, sitting with crossed legs, so many of them-- as if the legs were meant to sit upon, and not to stand or walk upon-- I think that they deserve some credit for not having all committed suicide long ago."

You see, my job keeps me inside pretty much all day staring at a computer screen. It's not a bad gig overall, but I find it hard to be so sedentary-- which is rather strange actually, since I don't lead an incredibly active lifestyle to begin with. I find it hard to be trapped, so I have grown to relish my morning and evening commutes, particularly the walking component. And I have walked it-- and will walk it-- in virtually all types of weather short of a hurricane.

I don't find walking in the rain to be such a bad thing. Personally my main concerns are for the books, notebooks, and technology that I inevitably carry in my backpack; I could care less about what I'm wearing, although after a certain amount of drenching a dry pair of pants and socks become a highly appealing prospect. I have been caught in enough downpours to always carry an umbrella in my bag, even if it's sunny out, so I generally feel free to take it out and saunter along in bad weather, largely unconcerned with the precipitation around me.

I fell into a state of near-total bliss walking along this afternoon in the rain. As the world rushed by around me-- pedestrians running for cover, cars plowing through puddles and getting mired in traffic-- I strolled along, unhurried, looking down at the water below and absorbing the water falling from above.

Once I crossed into Georgetown-- at 5:00pm, normally a beehive of pedestrian activity, mainly tourists shopping-- I was somewhat startled to find that the sidewalks were as clear as though M Street had shut down (though the normal traffic snarl continued). My fellow walkers-- perhaps more ill prepared than I, or perhaps simply more sane-- had run for the nearest store, restaurant, or overhang to wait out the weather. I can't say that I blame them; at this point the rain was falling more heavily and thunder had started to rumble in the distance as the storm really moved in.

It's amazing how getting caught in a downpour can make some people friendlier. People see you in a similar boat and they are more inclined to smile and make conversation, if only briefly. It's a short respite from the usual bubbles that DC residents find themselves in for most of their lives.

The storm lasted about an hour. As I sit here drafting this post in a Starbucks near my home, sporadically nursing a hot chocolate, the rain is starting to slow. Knowing the weather here, in an hour or so it'll be sunny again, hopefully turning into a pleasant and mild evening. I have every reason to expect that it will be so.

The nature of DC in the summer is such that thunderstorms are virtually guaranteed at least every couple of days. They are necessary to cool the air and break the humidity, if only temporarily. Nature needs a respite; so too do we humans. Many of us dread getting caught in a downpour, but what I have grown to realize is that, looked at in the proper way, the rain can be a break, a necessary and not unpleasant interruption that reminds us to really be aware of our surroundings. I didn't have my iPod on while I was walking in the rain-- in part because I didn't want it to get wet but also because it meant I was more aware of my surroundings. Perhaps this is an overly poetic way to look at a drenching, but the opportunity to really be present in life and in the world around you is one that I admit I rarely take advantage of, so I was glad for this experience.

The Age of (Dis)Connection

Certainly I am not the only blogger to note, with some degree of consternation, the increasing level of disconnect in our society. This was especially well demonstrated last week here in Washington, DC, where a man was found dead on a Metro train about five hours after he died, after the train had gone out of commission and was in the rail yard. As Petula Dvorak pointed out in her recent column in the Washington Post, no doubt hundreds of people passed him on the train without bothering to notice if he was still breathing, or report something amiss if they did note it. After all, train sleepers are common; why should we wake them?

As someone who rides the Metro or the bus on an almost daily basis, I often fall victim to this phenomenon myself. Though I seldom sleep, being a little paranoid about missing my stop, I am one of many riders who gets on public transportation and, despite being surrounded by people, falls into my own little world. Truth be told it's one of the things I like best about my commute-- the chance to be quietly inside my own head with little disturbance from other people-- but it does raise an interesting question: what human interaction do I sacrifice by spending my commute time in virtual isolation?

It really is *virtual* isolation, too. The people are there-- right next to me, behind me, in front of me-- sometimes too close for comfort (who among us who travels on public transportation has not been in a position where they are crammed together like sardines?). It would be all too easy to communicate and build connections. But instead of being present where we are and reaching out to the people around us, we retreat into our technology. Some people still use older models of "technology," it's true-- you actually do still see quite a few people perusing books and magazines-- but most have headphones in their ears connected to their iPod, or are cruising the Internet on their Blackberry or iPhone, or are immersed in their Kindle. I've even seen some people on the Metro with their laptops out.

Really? Listening to music I can kind of justify (granted, that's largely because I do it), but laptops and Blackberries? We really can't disconnect from work long enough to get home or to the office without needing to pull out our electronic devices to look at one more thing? It goes almost without saying-- clearly we are in an era that is simultaneously the most connected and disconnected in history. That means that we can't get away from work or any other part of our digital lives, and most of the time we don't even want to. Technology is our security blanket that helps us to filter the world down to where we really only let in what we want to. We'll communicate with our friends with various modes of technology and eventually find them in person, but the rest of the world? That's a scary place-- we've got to keep them out.

Leo posted a great piece over at mnmlist.com the other day on "the beauty of a digital vacation," his day off from nearly all technology. I like to take them too every once in a while, although I call them a "digital Sabbath." I feel like I don't take them as often as I should, but it can be great to disconnect from technology and embrace the rest of the world as it comes, just being present where you are. Who knows? If more people took out their headphones and just looked around on the Metro, maybe something could have been done to help Rickey Van Hauten last week. If nothing else, maybe somebody would have noticed that he wasn't breathing before he was discovered in the rail yard.

The Ups and Downs of Google

Full disclosure up front: I'm a huge fan of Google. I have used, to one degree or another, Gmail, Gchat, Google Docs, Google Maps, Google Calendar, Google Reader, Google Scholar, Google Chrome, and Picasa...and that's aside from the core search engine. I haven't tried a Google-enabled phone, but that is due to my resistance to "smart" phones (more on that another time). And if I had to pick a technology company to take over running the world, and the only choices were Apple and Google, at this point Google would win hands down. All that being said, I will readily admit that like any other technology, Google can both benefit and hurt efforts to simplify.

The benefits are, perhaps, the most obvious. Google creates very smart technology that can be tremendously useful as you attempt to streamline your life. Want a baseline of zero in your email inbox? Gmail's huge memory and "archive" and easy search features ensures that you can remove every message from your main inbox without losing them. Want a more streamlined web browsing experience, without the need for tons of add-ons? Google Chrome offers the capacity to search the web from your URL address box. Enjoy reading tons of news sources and blogs every day? Why click around to all your favorites when you can compile them in Google Reader and view them all in one place? ...You get the point. If you want to streamline much of your computing experience, Google has a lot of technology that can help.

...Or does it? By making condensing and streamlining so easy, Google has also created enormous temptations that work against simplicity. You will almost never need to delete an email because Gmail provides such a large memory for storage (don't be fooled-- 'archiving' and 'deleting' are not the same thing). The ease of skimming in Google Reader means that it is incredibly tempting to just keep adding more and more RSS Feeds. Gchat is a good IM program that will run in your email window as well as on your desktop, but that just makes it distracting in more places...especially the AIM syncing capabilities of the email window. If Google Calendar works well for you as an organizing tool with its ability to send you reminders on your computer and mobile device, mightn't that just give you more motivation to add more events to your life?

Bottom line: Like just about anything else, Google programs are best used in moderation. It is important to find the median where Google is helping you to streamline your life without overly complicating it. Remember to delete those truly unnecessary emails from time to time. Let the blank spaces on your Google Calendar remain blank. Sign out of Gchat and talk to the people around you. Pare down to just the core feeds you love on Google Reader so you aren't overwhelmed, and limit yourself to actually reading no more than a few articles at a time. Google programs can be a tremendous aid to simplification and organization, but only if used appropriately for that purpose, rather than becoming yet another distraction.

We Are Sharks: Lessons from "Up in the Air," Part II

Ryan Bingham (George Clooney) is a loner. Oh, sure, he enjoys the sporadic company of other people and rarely lacks someone to talk to, but he avoids any kind of extended attachment. He has more or less alienated his family, and is unmarried and decidedly transient. And naturally, like many commitment-phobes all over the world, he has rationalized this fear/life choice into a coherent philosophy:

Now I want you to fill it with people. Start with casual acquaintances, friends of friends, folks around the office... and then you move into the people you trust with your most intimate secrets. Your brothers, your sisters, your children, your parents and finally your husband, your wife, your boyfriend, your girlfriend. You get them into that backpack, feel the weight of that bag. Make no mistake your relationships are the heaviest components in your life. All those negotiations and arguments and secrets, the compromises. The slower we move the faster we die. Make no mistake, moving is living. Some animals were meant to carry each other to live symbiotically over a lifetime. Star crossed lovers, monogamous swans. We are not swans. We are sharks.

It may surprise some of you when I say that I think he is right. Relationships are the heaviest part of our lives. They are demanding of our attention and resources and they can be very severe stressors. They may wish to prevent you from doing whatever you want to, or they may do this totally without intending to, because you deliberately factor in your relationship with this person or these people when you're making a decision. I can certainly verify from personal experience that this is true. I've made the decision to spend this coming summer in DC, but it wasn't done without giving some considerable and agonizing thought for what I would lose in time with my family and with my friends at home.

Does the weight of the relationships on our lives really make them a bad thing, though, as Ryan implies during his talk in the movie? There are arguments either way, I suppose-- Ryan makes a cogent argument above for why they are a problem. And certainly if you want to live a life like his, traveling almost nonstop, they would be a huge issue. I have to wonder if it would even be possible-- much less desirable-- to have a family and maintain that lifestyle. Probably not.

But for the rest of us, who are a little more anchored down in our lives, I would submit that in this talk, Ryan is wrong to suggest that relationships are inherently bad. On the contrary, relationships of any variety are the only thing that are really worth putting that much effort into. Done right, they can last a lifetime, and the security of knowing someone is there for you no matter what is worth the risks inherent in opening your heart to them. [Although my personal caveat to that is that you should be careful who you really trust, because not everyone deserves something that important.]

In college, balancing relationships and work can be just as tricky as juggling them in the work world. At my university, there are so many things to do-- part-time jobs, internships, homework, clubs-- that making time to build relationships can be hard. Personally, although I do work hard on academic stuff, I try to keep my priorities on the people around me, where I think they really belong. When work really needs to get done, it's going to get done, but it can be well worth it to spend a couple of hours talking to a friend and then stay up writing until 3am. As Tom Petty said, the work never ends, but college does. I've got a little over a year left myself, and some of my closest friends are leaving at the end of this year. I plan to enjoy every second with them that I can, because, as Ryan admits later in the movie, "Life's better with company."

Moving is Living: Lessons from "Up in the Air," Part I

Full disclosure up front: "Up in the Air" was my pick for the Best Picture at the Academy Awards tonight. I am aware that it didn't win, but it was my favorite of all the nominated movies that I've seen. (Oh, don't even get me started on "Avatar"...see my other blog for that)

For those who don't know, "Up in the Air" is the story of traveling businessman Ryan Bingham (played brilliantly by George Clooney). Ryan travels all over the US firing people for bosses who don't have the guts to do it themselves. He's happy with his itinerant lifestyle, which affords him considerable freedom, until he meets two women who slowly begin to make him wonder about the true richness that his life offers. I won't give away anything-- just see the movie.

In addition to his job firing people, Ryan brings in money by doing motivational speaking engagements around the country. His main shtick is called, "What's In Your Backpack?" and we see it on several occasions. In the first part, he discusses how much stuff weighs us down, and in the second he discusses how much people weigh us down. In this post and the next one, I'd like to offer my thoughts on what Ryan has to say about these topics.

Here's the first half of his talk:

How much does your life weigh? Imagine for a second that you're carrying a backpack. I want you to pack it with all the stuff that you have in your life... you start with the little things. The shelves, the drawers, the knickknacks, then you start adding larger stuff. Clothes, tabletop appliances, lamps, your TV... the backpack should be getting pretty heavy now. You go bigger. Your couch, your car, your home... I want you to stuff it all into that backpack.

To put it briefly, I think Ryan has a point here with all this talk about the stuff in our lives weighing us down. That's why I started on this whole quest for simplicity. I'd been in college for a couple of years, was aware that my life in two places had accumulated a great deal of stuff, and realized that there was less and less room to store all that stuff when it was in one place. So I started to downsize...slowly at first, a couple of unnecessary objects here, a pair of ripped socks there...then huge projects like my drawers of papers. As I have said before, this process is still ongoing-- downsizing 20 years of your life is something that either gets done in a couple of intense weeks or over time. I've opted for the latter.

What I've noticed as I have gradually simplified and decluttered my room at home, though, is that I have enjoyed being in here a lot more as its gotten more spacious and Zen-like. Not to say that I didn't love being in my room before-- it's always been MY space, which I customize to fit my preferences and manage to simply be myself.

Before I started downsizing, though, I was starting to feel that my space was too crowded for me to enjoy. As Ryan implies, having a lot of stuff weighs you down. So while I do not especially advocate his rather extreme perspective on the matter-- "light it all on fire"-- I can readily verify the idea that decluttering can have the general effect of lightening you: providing a more peaceful atmosphere, loosening the mental stranglehold we have on our possessions, refocusing on the things that really matter most.

Digital Purge

Part of the reason I started this blog was to have a place where I could write about my pursuit of an uncluttered life. I started out with my bedroom feeling so crowded with "stuff" that I wasn't really getting to enjoy any of it. So last summer I did a major purge of old papers, clothes, and random acquired objects, as well as doing my annual clean-out and re-shelve of my books. Over my winter break I cleared out old CDs and more random acquired objects. And I gotta say, this process of simplifying feels great. I feel like almost all of the objects I now have in my room (at home; the dorm room is a whole separate beast) have a purpose for being there; they are all things that provide pleasure or some other utility.

However, I realized that I haven't written much about purging digital clutter. In today's highly technological age, it's just as easy to find your computer crammed with unnecessary documents and programs as it is to find a Dunkin' Donuts in New England (for non-New Englanders, pick a business in your area that's on every street corner). Technological data is pervasive.

In some regards, that's terribly convenient for aspiring "unclutterers" like myself-- digitizing data and even memories is an effective way to ditch physical clutter (like my efforts to reduce my CD collection by moving the ones that I want to keep onto my computer in mp3 format). However, all that being said, collecting too much stuff in digital format is also qualifies as clutter.

Oh sure, it may be way less noticeable-- after all, it's still on your hard drive, and even if you have an external drive you probably still only have three physical objects. But have you ever tried to find a particular document that you needed, only to have it take upwards of half an hour because you got bogged down while looking? Or looked for an email but-- even with the help of Gmail's wonderful search capabilities-- gotten lost in the maelstrom that is your inbox?

Don't worry about it-- you're in good company here. My computer's hard drive is incredibly full, and I hardly know where to begin cleaning it out. Last summer I went through my "My Documents" folder and organized everything, deleting the things that were obviously no longer necessary and arranging the remaining documents by topic. That made a big difference in my ability to locate these items. I've also made some strides toward simplifying my email inbox, getting it down to a "baseline-zero" level (more on that later), unsubscribing from most newsletters, and deleting some old and totally unnecessary emails.

However, there's still a long way to go. I expect I will write again soon on the downside of Google and more topics related to technological simplification. In the meantime, let me just leave off on the idea that technological simplification can be just as psychologically rewarding as physical simplification. Same basic principle-- everything's easier to find, and it leaves more space for what you truly enjoy.

Studying Millennials

I'm going to take the liberty of making a rare (for this blog) foray into the political realm. This afternoon I noted an article on a New York Times blog that cited a Pew Research Center report on the Millennial generation in asserting that those born after 1980 seem to be more pro-government than our recent generational predecessors. Happily, the blog also linked to the Pew Center's report, a 150-page PDF file entitled, "Millennials: Confident, Connected, Open to Change." Sadly I don't have the time right now to read it all through, but I look forward to perusing it and seeing what the "experts" are saying about my generation.

Lenten Discipline: Be Present

Yesterday was Ash Wednesday, the official first day of Lent. During this forty day period, many Christians choose to "give up" something in a fast designed to remind them of Christ's sacrifice.

I used to try to give something up for Lent. The problem was, I usually wound up just resenting and ultimately breaking that Lenten fast-- probably because I was younger and my thoughts and motivations for doing it were not strong enough to keep me going. Eventually I simply "gave up" giving things up for Lent.

Last year, I decided to transform my Lenten fast into a Lenten discipline that would help me to focus my mind on the faith issues that matter at this time of year. I committed to journaling on a daily basis, a practice which focused and calmed my mind, giving me an all-around better experience. I appreciated Lent as never before, and still continue the practice of journaling to this day.

This year, I have committed to try to really "be present" in everything I do, especially when I am with other people. In our busy and hyper-technological society, there is a tendency both to watch the clock for when you have to run off to the next meeting or class or whatever, and to spend more time texting other people than paying attention to the real person you're with. I have always tried to fight against this tendency, but I think it would be beneficial for me to focus on this as a commitment during Lent. I'm still in the process of figuring out exactly what it's going to mean, but it will probably involve silencing my phone when I am talking to someone, and it may well mean giving up listening to my iPod on the Metro.

I picked this Lenten discipline last night, and circumstances immediately put it to the test. Just as I was about to get ready for bed, my friend A. came tearing into my room. He had just had a fight with one of his close friends and needed someone to listen and help him cool down. I closed my book, listened, and he left in a much calmer state. Then I walked down the hall to brush my teeth, and ran into my friend T., who was having a bad night. I listened to her rant, then went and got ready for bed. Just as I was about to go to sleep, my friend J. texted me, asking to borrow my sleeping bag for someone who needed a place to stay that night. Being responsive to all these people and being present for them was very rewarding, and I'm glad I got to do it, as always. I just hope that last night isn't going to become a model for the next forty days, or I am going to be incredibly sleep-deprived within a fortnight!

Blogging Delinquency- and Just One Thing

I know, I know-- I have been a terribly delinquent blogger. Despite the fact that I promised myself (and my readership) that I would post at least once a week, and despite having tons of free time during DC's "Snowpocalypse" last week, it's been a while since I've blogged. My apologies.

Here is my brief offering for today, courtesy of Rick Hanson's "Just One Thing" newsletter. I'll post a link to the full article when it's online, but today Dr. Hanson urged his readers to enact a practice of taking more breaks. (Maybe like the one I took from blogging?)

The modern, pedal-to-the-metal lifestyle produces chronic stress and tension, and related physical and mental health issues. It also crowds out creative pursuits, friendships, recreation, spiritual life, and time for children and mates. As a therapist, I often see families where one or both parents work 50+ hours a week; the job is an elephant in the living room, crowding everything else to the margins.

Imagine for a moment that you are sitting comfortably somewhere during the last year of your life, and looking back and reflecting. Do you think you are going to wish you had spent more time on the job or doing housework?

Or wish you had spent more time relaxing, hanging out with friends, and looking at the stars?

Because our ancestors actually spent more than twice as much time relaxing as we do today, in between running away from saber-tooth tigers I guess. Go figure.

Dr. Hanson also offers a number of tips for taking more breaks. These include:

• Give yourself permission.
• Renounce everything else.
• Take lots of micro-breaks.
• Shift gears.
• Get out.
• Unplug.
• Make your body happy.
• Go on a mental holiday.
• Keep your stress needle out of the red zone.
• Be grateful.

Good advice, indeed-- hard to follow, though. This will be something I will be thinking more about, as I am currently in the process of deciding what my Lenten discipline is going to be this year. I try to pick something that I've always intended to do, and something that will help me focus my mind on where I think it should be. Will update when I decide.

CollegeHacker, Part 1

Lifehacker is a popular and immensely useful site for people looking for "tips, shortcuts, and downloads that help you get things done smarter and more efficiently." Zen Habits, on the other hand, is about "finding simplicity in the daily chaos of our lives," via articles and tips like the ones I posted last week. Between the two of them, there's a lot of useful philosophy on how to live a more simple and effective life, and a wide variety of handy tips. I read Zen Habits whenever there's a new post and often peruse the archives when bored, and I check Lifehacker...well, actually I don't check Lifehacker that often. I usually wind up overwhelmed by all the articles they are posting on the front page and I haven't figured out how to escape that yet. Still, I have found some good stuff on there, like these recent pieces on The Cordless Dorm and the Top 10 Tools for Better Reading, Online and Off.

What I've discovered, however, is that not all of the ideas offered by these two blogs are directly applicable to my life as a college student...at least, not without some modification. That cordless dorm piece on Lifehacker is very much an exception...and not being obsessive about the number of cords on my desk, it's not hugely relevant to me. Still, I find a great deal of validity in many of the principles offered by Zen Habits and blogs like it, and have for the last two years been experimenting with how I can best modify some of those principles to suit my uniquely collegiate lifestyle. Here are some of the things I've come up with:

1) The Morning Routine. This is probably the number one case-in-point for a concept that I got from Zen Habits and adapted to suit my needs. Since I tend to go to bed rather late, I usually wake up about an hour and a half to two hours before my first class (or internship), then shower, do my stretches, eat breakfast, get dressed, and check email/Facebook/weather/Google Reader. I have grown to immensely value the chance to get my morning off to a relaxed, peaceful start, rather than jumping out of bed, throwing on whatever is closest, and rushing out the door. Since my first classes are never until 10am, it's usually only painful to do this on Wednesday, which is the day I have to be out the door by 7:45am to go to my internship.

2) Exercise. Obviously, this habit is not unique to any blog that I could point you to. Doctors, nutritionists, and many other professionals have been pointing us to the need to get exercise for longer than I could say. Leo's brand of exercise is a lot more intense than mine. I've never been much for gyms, or really for exercise in general, but I have decided to make a renewed attempt to do some form of exercise on a near-daily basis. To accomplish this, I instituted what I call my "daily constitutional," a walk around the neighborhoods near my school. A couple of days a week, the daily constitutional will consist of walking back from the Metro after my internship, but the rest of the time I walk a loop just for the sheer pleasure of this. My rule about this, though, is that I can't listen to my iPod or talk on the phone for more than a couple of minutes while walking. It's all about getting exercise and fresh air, and has become a very nice time for me to center myself in the world around me, outside classrooms and offices and the dorm.

3) Take this Sabbath Day. OK, I don't actually mean that literally. For me, Sundays are often my busiest day of the week. I am one of the planners for Sunday evening worship at the campus chapel, I sing in the choir or play my instrument, and I often help to lead the service. On top of that, there's always homework to do for the upcoming days. But what I started doing last semester is taking one day off each month to completely decompress. No homework, reading for class, group meetings-- just R&R. It's the greatest feeling in the world-- especially if you plan your life so that you can afford to take that one day off without falling hugely behind in your work (which tends to make your Sabbath Day more stressful than it's really worth).

Ten Favorite Zen Habits Articles

One of my major inspirations for writing this blog was my consumption of Zen Habits by Leo Babauta. Leo's ideas and tips have helped me along my own path toward simplifying and improving my life, and although I find that not everything he recommends works for me (after all, he's a married father of six who lives in Guam and I'm a college student in Washington, DC), many of his ideas can be adapted to suit my life better. I plan to write more soon about how I have adapted some of Leo's ideas to work for me, but for now here are some Zen Habits pieces that I regularly peruse when I am looking for an inspirational pick-me-up.

1) Handbook for Life: 52 Tips for Happiness and Productivity. Just like it sounds, this piece offers a number of helpful tips for streamlining your life, and making it happier, simpler, and more productive (three concepts that, in my opinion, are closely linked).

2) 55 Ways to Get More Energy. Everybody has those days-- or times of day-- where your energy just fails and all you want to do is take a nap. How do you get around that when you really need to stay awake and do work? Guest author Greg Go offers some awesome tips.

3) 10 Simple Ways to Live a Less Stressful Life. I am increasingly of the opinion that stress is an overrated part of life. While it has some benefits when present at a reasonable level, our normal high-stress lives are both unhelpful and dangerous. I am quite jealous of Leo, who lives on Guam and works from home, but he does know a lot about how to reduce stress from his previous high-stress job. These ten ideas are useful because they are basic enough to work in almost anybody's life, with maybe some modifications. Reducing stress is a valuable lesson.

4) 12 Ways to Decompress After High Stress. So even after reading #3, some stress still managed to creep into your life? Don't worry, it happens. It's inevitable, actually. But I agree with Leo here-- it is imperative to decompress and let your body rejuvenate after a period of insane stress. Here he presents 12 ideas on how to do that.

5) 12 Ideas for Establishing a Calming Routine. A good way to maintain calm in your life is to establish routines that help you to center yourself on a daily basis. Whether you prefer your quiet time in the morning or the evening or both, it's worth looking into.

6) Feeling Down? 7 Ways to Pick Yourself Back Up! 'Nough said. These are very practical tips for pulling yourself out of a standard day-to-day melancholy.

7) How to Actually Execute Your To-Do List: or, Why Writing It Down Doesn't Actually Get It Done. My name is Carolyn and I am a list-maker. I admit it freely. I rely on lists to keep myself organized, but for years I had issues actually doing the stuff on the tasks list. I've since gotten a lot better at "just doing it," and articles like this one helped a lot with that. Goes through a lot of the common obstacles to getting things done, and offers tips on overcoming them.

8) Let the World Pass You By. I live in Washington, DC, which is one of the biggest go-getter places I've ever been. What ever happened to just sitting and watching the world go by? Leo reflects on the same idea.

9) Sounds of Silence: How to Find Some Quietude in Your Life. I defy even Leo to try to find quiet while living in a dorm on a university campus in a city. However, I agree with him on the value of silence, and I do my best to find my quiet time on a regular basis-- usually it winds up being on a walk on side streets late at night. But without some degree of quiet, how are you supposed to really be able to think and relax?

10) 21 Easy Hacks to Simplify Your Life. Leo's written a lot of pieces on simple living, but this is probably what I would consider his "101" course on the topic. Basic and beneficial ideas to start off anybody's move toward simple living.

Whew.

Week One of Semester Two of Junior Year is complete. Based on my experience during this first week and my projections of due dates, etc., here are some predictions about my life this semester:

1) It would be most beneficial for me to learn how to read and walk at the same time without walking into stuff.

2) Even if I can't do that, I will probably be carrying a book around with me just about everywhere, on the off chance that I have a few free minutes.

3) This is because I have two classes in which I have to read a book a week. On top of three other reading-intensive (but not quite as intense) classes.

4) Seeing my friends is, once again, going to be heavily centered around eating. Partly because we all like it, but mostly because everybody's gotta eat, so meals are the only time that people can squeeze in a bit of socializing.

5) If I'm not going to be eating with a friend, I will be eating and reading.

6) Every healthy simple living habit I have developed will simultaneously be necessary and put to the test this semester. The inclination to get up earlyish, doing my stretches, eating breakfast, taking a walk almost every day, attempting to stay away from junk food, getting to sleep at a reasonable hour-- I am going to need all these skills, but they are going to get really hard.

7) Same goes for every good academic habit I have been attempting to develop over the past three semesters.

8) Planning ahead is going to be really, really important for my papers if I don't want to pull many/any all-nighters. Also if I want to maintain and improve my GPA.

9) Extra stuff-- like meetings for the USMA (the club I'm in here), applications for summer internships, figuring out housing for next year, etc.-- are all going to be really challenging. I may have to take a careful look at which are really necessary and which are not.

10) I am definitely not going to be blogging every day or even close to that. New goal: write on here once a week. It may simply be updates like this, or thoughts related to simple living that I spent part of the week musing about. But yeah...I wouldn't be looking for posts more than once or maybe twice a week, if that week is particularly quiet.

Lululemon appears to be an athletic company of some kind, possibly focused on yoga, but they've come up with this manifesto of ideas on how to live your life. I'm not sure that I would personally go for all of them, but it's good food for thought.

the lululemon manifesto

• Drink FRESH water and as much water as you can. Water flushes unwanted toxins from your body and keeps your brain sharp.
• A daily hit of athletic-induced endorphins gives you the power to make better decisions, helps you be at peace with yourself, and offsets stress.
• Do one thing a day that scares you.
• Listen, listen, listen, and then ask strategic questions.
• Write down your short and long-term GOALS four times a year. Two personal, two business and two health goals for the next 1, 5 and 10 years. Goal setting triggers your subconscious computer.
• Life is full of setbacks. Success is determined by how you handle setbacks.
• Your outlook on life is a direct reflection of how much you like yourself.
• That which matters the most should never give way to that which matters the least.
• Stress is related to 99% of all illness.
• Jealousy works the opposite way you want it to.
• The world is changing at such a rapid rate that waiting to implement changes will leave you 2 steps behind. DO IT NOW, DO IT NOW, DO IT NOW!
• Friends are more important than money.
• Breathe deeply and appreciate the moment. Living in the moment could be the meaning of life.
• Take various vitamins. You never know what small mineral can eliminate the bottleneck to everlasting health.
• Don’t trust that an old age pension will be sufficient.
• Visualize your eventual demise. It can have an amazing effect on how you live for the moment.
• The conscious brain can only hold one thought at a time. Choose a positive thought.
• Live near the ocean and inhale the pure salt air that flows over the water, Vancouver will do nicely.
• Observe a plant before and after watering and relate these benefits to your body and brain.
• Practice yoga so you can remain active in physical sports as you age.
• Dance, sing, floss and travel.
• Children are the orgasm of life. Just like you did not know what an orgasm was before you had one, nature does not let you know how great children are until you have them.
• Successful people replace the words “wish”, “should” and “try” with “I will”.
• Creativity is maximized when you’re living in the moment.
• Nature wants us to be mediocre because we have a greater chance to survive and reproduce. Mediocre is as close to the bottom as it is to the top, and will give you a lousy life.
• lululemon athletica creates components for people to live longer, healthier and more fun lives. If we can produce products to keep people active and stress-free, we believe the world will become a much better place.
• Do not use cleaning chemicals on your kitchen counters. Someone will inevitably make a sandwich on your counter.
• SWEAT once a day to regenerate your skin.
• Communication is COMPLICATED. We are all raised in a different family with slightly different definitions of every word. An agreement is an agreement only if each party knows the conditions for satisfaction and a time is set for satisfaction to occur.
• What we do to the earth we do to ourselves.
• The pursuit of happiness is the source of all unhappiness.

Starting Spring Semester

Thus far I have been very good about my new habits-- I have successfully gotten up at a reasonable hour, always done my stretches, kept up with my nose meds, and even gotten out for several walks. The real test, however, will start tomorrow as classes get under way. If the usual tradition holds, it will be easier to stick to my good habits at the start of the semester, but hopefully I can manage to get them so ingrained that I won't lose at least the more important ones when the workload gets really crazy. Good planning for my school work is going to be key this semester as I attempt to juggle a fifteen-hour internship with a full load of classes. I am going to try to keep up with regular (at least weekly) updates to this blog, but my priorities are my classes and my health.

The last couple of days I've enjoyed settling back into dorm life and really just relaxing before classes start (although several of my classes already assigned readings that I had to work on too). Most of my friends are finally back, and it's so great to get to hang out with them. My favorite thing about living in a dorm is just getting to wander in and out of people's rooms and have extended conversations. You can't really do that in any other kind of environment-- in an apartment building, your odds of getting to know multiple other people on your floor are slim. On my floor, pretty much everyone is very friendly with everyone else. Even if you're not close friends, it's totally amicable, and there's usually lots of laughter and conversation-- sometimes too much, which gets annoying late at night or when I'm trying to work, but I am not sure that most days I would swap the camaraderie that I have here.

Habits

I am trying to institute a number of habits this semester. In some cases, they are things I fell out of doing and want to reinstate, others are completely new. It's not an inherently easy concept, instituting habits. Some people say you need to do something for two months straight, every day, in order for an action to become a habit; others say it's 30 days; others say longer or shorter. Personally, I found last year that instituting a habit of journaling during Lent (40 days) was enough to get me in the habit, but it probably depends. This morning I started the new morning routine I want to reinstate: Get up, go do my sinus rinse and shower, put on exercise clothes, do my knee exercises, eat breakfast, check email/Facebook/weather/Google Reader/Twitter/Surviving the World, get dressed for the day. A bit of an involved routine, but a very satisfying one. The trick is going to be later in the semester when life is busier and I am not able to get to bed early, so getting out of bed early enough to do all this will be harder. Breakfast is usually the first thing to go; showering and checking the computer are non-negotiables unless I oversleep.

One thing is clear, though-- I am going to have to be quite disciplined this semester in order to get through. I have a full load of challenging classes plus a 15-hour per week internship, so the need for good work habits (and the ability to work in short bursts whenever I have time) is probably going to be key. I already have several assignments for this first upcoming week of classes; arguably these assignments (readings) are probably not urgently necessary, but I have found myself to do measurably better when I do most of the readings for a class. I count them as needed, until it's absolutely necessary to skip a reading in favor of a graded assignment. Any suggestions from my readership on how to cope with the classes + internship load and stay relatively sane would be most welcome.

On the Road

Just a quick note tonight because I am wiped. I don't know what it is about traveling that is so exhausting-- after all, unless you're the driver you really don't DO that much-- but I am always tired after a day on the road. And today was a very long day-- starting at 6:30am when I woke up to get a drive to catch an 8am bus that took me to an 11am train. I found the train to be a very peaceful way to travel-- much more leisurely than almost any other form of transportation, I think. Something like what cars might be like if you could get up and move around, and if you didn't get stuck in traffic. I enjoyed the chance to get a different viewpoint of the route down to DC-- the Rhode Island/Connecticut/New York coast along what I presume was the Long Island Sound was particularly beautiful. Train travel gives one the chance to think, or to just relax as I was able to-- spend the day reading, sleeping, listening to music, watching The West Wing, just watch the world go by. Those types of peaceful Zen-like moments will be few and far between now that the semester is starting up, and I really enjoyed the opportunity today. I'm not sure that I would want to take the train between DC and Boston that often-- it is a VERY long trip-- but I'm glad I did it this time, and it's a nice option to keep in mind for the future.

As Time Goes By

Today was my last day at home (in New Hampshire) during this break. I spent the majority of it running errands and visiting with people, so it was busier than the days have typically been. However, I did have the joy of visiting with two longtime friends and their children (woah!), and of hanging out a little bit in my two favorite businesses in town. Adelle's Coffeehouse and the Silver Moon Creperie are by far the restaurants that I frequent most often, and each has its unique vibe and atmosphere. I have no particular problem with chain restaurants-- I often go to Applebees or the Olive Garden or Friendly's-- but I like the individuality of these smaller businesses. Plus you can't replace the connection that develops with the owners and/or employees when you visit often.

It's become a bit strange, though, the way in which time goes by so fast. It's never struck me quite as much as it did today. I guess it's easier to tell when the measuring stick becomes your friend's babies. The last time I saw Baby Noah and Baby Artemis, they were approximately 6 months and 1 month, respectively. Artemis in particular was TINY. When they're that little, it's easy to tell that a great deal of time has gone by, and it blew me away. Just another one of the hazards of having two homes-- when you aren't in one of them, life keeps rolling along, and unfortunately you miss out on certain things. Things that you can't replace with a phone call or really any amount or type of technology.

Winter vacation never feels quite long enough, but my bags are all packed so I guess it's about time to sign off from this side of Boston/New York City for a while. It's time to get back to the routine (and rat race) of the District of Columbia, and put some of my mental preparations and New Year's resolutions to the test.

Traveling Light

One of the first things I realized when I decided to go away to college was that for the next four years of my life, I would have two quite tangible homes. True, one was (and is) in a dorm with several hundred other people, and I would have to wear shoes into the shower, and the quality of the food would be debatable at best, but it's a kind of home all the same. And the concept of having multiple homes remains quite bizarre in a way, even two and a half years into this whole college experiment. I'm used to going back and forth now, used to almost never having all of my belongings in one place, used to spending lots of time in airports and train stations as I attempt to get from one place to another.

Packing up tonight to go back to DC, I am surprised (and a bit ashamed of myself) for all the *stuff* I have accumulated over the last month of break. I realize that most of it is somewhat necessary-- I had to go shopping to build up a wardrobe appropriate for my internship, attire that unfortunately needs to go beyond my usual preference for jeans and a t-shirt-- but the fact that packing it is amounting to a cardboard box (which I am shipping), a suitcase, and a backpack still seems a bit much to me. Since I have only carried a backpack and duffel bag on my last couple of trips home, I have learned the immense value of traveling light. I really like carrying as little as possible; admittedly, it's having my belongings divided between two places that currently allows me to do that. But I appreciate more and more that owning less-- and carrying less-- makes life less stressful. As Leo wrote over at mnmlist, there is a "true cost of stuff" beyond what you pay when you purchase it.

Since I am in the process of downsizing-- which in some ways requires as much mental effort as physical-- it's helpful to me to envision a life where I can truly say I place a higher value on experiences and people than on things, and to picture myself traveling light, no matter whether I am going on a walk around the block or a trip around the world. Traveling light means not having to stress out because you place a low enough value on your stuff that it's not worth worrying. It's a mental benefit of a physical act, and I think it would be well worth it to reach that point.

A Time to Vision

I've noticed a trend over the past couple of years at college, but especially since last summer: I spend a lot more time looking ahead and planning during my vacations than I do during the school year.

This conclusion is perhaps fairly self-evident. Naturally I don't have as much time during the school year to look farther ahead than the next month of my life. Once the school year gets kicked into gear, I'm always having to work on the next assignment, go to the next meeting or class, write the next paper. This is not really a situation that's conducive to thinking about what I want to do in the future, beyond the classroom. I barely have time to complete necessary applications on top of my regular work levels, let alone contemplate and plan as I would like to.

That situation has made my vacation time incredibly valuable to me, but has also somewhat increased the stress levels. I enjoy having the chance to sit back, put my feet up, and think about where I've been, where I am, and where I'd like to go, but then I have to combine that with actually making some concrete plans and...well, welcome to adulthood, I guess? My vacations have become a mixture of long-term visioning (what might I be interested in doing after I graduate, etc) and medium-term planning (where am I going to live this summer and next year).

I sometimes wonder about the impact of this need to plan ahead on my ability to live in "the now." I try not to let it take over too much, because I am a firm believer in not letting my mind get too far ahead of my life. I know too many people whose brains are already in law school or at their future company, and I wonder how much they are really enjoying where they are right now. I don't really know, but I have to speculate about how much it's really possible to be present and appreciate where you are if you are constantly looking toward the next thing. For myself, I like being an undergrad, for all the stress that can go along with that. So I take this time to vision and plan, because it's necessary and, admittedly, quite pleasant. But in a way, I am looking forward to getting back to school and diving in to the routine-- and I aim to be present enough to appreciate the first of my last three semesters of undergrad.

Selling Yourself

Today I worked on editing my resume. I would really like to get an internship in DC this summer (okay, actually what I'd like is a job, but we take what we can get), and the application for the first one is due midway through this month, so I figured I'd better dig in and start the process.

While doing so, I started thinking the same thing I do every time I have to work on my resume or complete an application: I hate this process. The whole rigmarole around getting a job or an internship just seems absurd to me. Not entirely because I hate talking about myself-- I mean, let's be honest: I write a blog, so obviously I am okay with talking about myself. But I dislike the culture that surrounds it. I dislike the culture that says you should always look and act your best because you never know when you might meet someone who could offer you a job. I dislike "networking" to get a job instead of meeting people for the sake of the pleasure of human connection. I dislike the focus on what you do rather than who you are.

Think that's a bit of an extreme perspective? Maybe. A resume is supposed to be a brief summary of your qualifications for a given job, a summary of your experiences and skills. I can acknowledge that there is a place for that, given that an employer has a right to be interested in what your background can bring to their company or organization. I just can't help thinking that the resume hype among my generation may be leading to a mindset where what you do IS more important than who you are. I've known many millennials who do public service of varied sorts. Some do it for the benefit it brings to humanity or the personal satisfaction it brings them or out of a sense of religious conviction or civic duty; others do it to pad their resumes. Because, of course, their future goals depend on it-- colleges and companies might "look for that."

When doing a good deed becomes more about a line on a resume than helping other people, there is a problem with genuineness. It's the same with anything else you do-- extracurriculars, academics, service, worship, whatever. If you're not able to be genuine when you do something and then you add it to your resume, you're just selling yourself short.

Operation: Compact Disc

Last summer, I launched a major clean-out and decluttering attempt in my bedroom at home. It was fairly successful-- at the end of it, I hauled out three or four boxes worth of papers, plus more full of knick-knacks, and donated or sold a small stack of books. But twenty years worth of clutter does take time to fully sort through, and so I have opted to continue it a little bit during this winter break from school.

The targets: my knick-knack shelf and my CD collection.

Operation: Knick-Knack was easy. I've accumulated a number of small porcelain objects through the years via gifts from friends and family members, and I realized that they were all doing nothing but gathering dust. Meanwhile, there were too many for me to really enjoy the ones that had the most treasured memories attached to them. So I went through the shelf and pulled off all but the ten most important, and added them to the giveaway (or throw-away) box. I've never been able to do this so easily before. I think I've finally come to the point where I'm realizing that memories don't need to be attached to stuff...and it helps that I have very limited recall of most of the stuff I am getting rid of anyway.

Operation CD, on the other hand, was a bit more complicated. Confession: I am a serious musical addict. I love playing and listening to most genres of music, and my iTunes library currently holds over 15 days worth of songs. Before the days when iTunes was my primary music player, though, I collected CDs. Some came from my parents, some were gifts, some I purchased...but eventually I built up an incredibly substantial library. I should have counted, but I suspect there may have been over 100 compact discs in my room. Until yesterday, the cases filled up one CD tower, one set of three drawers, a box, and multiple stacks around the room. The CDs themselves were housed in four full CD wallets.

Clearly, even the things you love (books, music, movies) can become clutter. CDs are no longer my primary means of playing music-- I really only use them in the car. I also didn't necessarily like every, or even most, of the songs on many of the CDs I had. Some of them I don't even know how I obtained. And while it's nice to have the physical copies of the CDs (especially in the event of a hard drive crash), there's a point where you just have to say 'enough.'

So yesterday I decided to significantly reduce my CD collection, which took four stages:

1) Go through each CD wallet and sort the discs back into their original cases.

2) Decide which CDs to keep. Criteria: I must like at least three-quarters of the songs on the album, and be inclined to listen to the CD in the car. Not very scientific, but effective.

3) Sort through the CDs that I am getting rid of and rip the ones that are not on my hard drive onto my computer. Just because I don't want to keep the CD doesn't mean I don't want a digital copy of the song!

4) Put the giveaway CDs in a box and hand off to my parents. They get to decide the next step for the discs, since a lot of them belonged to them to begin with.

OK, so maybe the last stage is a bit of a cop-out. But I'm okay with that, partly because I've achieved my goal to get the CDs out of my room, and partly because they are a lot more attached to some of those discs than I am. Hopefully I can encourage them to reduce their own collection to one that really matters to them, but that's not my call to make. Meanwhile, my room looks a lot better and I can start looking for my next de-cluttering mission.

Starting Thoughts

The start of January at the start of a new decade seems like an appropriate time to start a new blog. Whether or not it is really appropriate for that blog to be about my search for simplicity and productivity remains to be seen. As a millennial (a person born between 1980-2000), I am growing up in the US in what seems to be one of the most complicated eras in human history. Consumerism remains very high, in spite of the recent recession. More products pop up every day, many to help us deal with malfunctioning *other* products. The Internet is consistently throwing out new opportunities and websites-- ways to promote ourselves, ways to keep in touch, ways to occupy our time, ways to sell and buy things, and more.

I love the Internet, and I love many things about the world in which I live. Opportunities abound in this kind of environment, and there is no reason not to keep in touch with the people you care about. But all this comes at a cost, too-- a cost to simplicity and to genuineness and (if you are not careful) to real productivity.

I am here to write about my own struggles against those costs. I want to find a way to combine the best of the age I live in, with the best of values from the past. I believe it is possible to go beyond consumerism and web dependency without going incommunicado and becoming an ascetic. It's called minimalism, and the point is to get rid of the clutter that detracts from the things we truly love.

I've already done a bit of writing on the topic, which can be found under the "Simple Living" or "Productivity" labels on my other blog. I would also encourage regular perusals of Zen Habits or a similar site for inspiration beyond what I write here. Others have been seeking much longer than I have, and it is from them that I chiefly draw my inspiration.