Simplicity

“Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a million, count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumb nail.” Thoreau, Walden. Simplicity is one of my life’s rules. Simplicity has many implications. Some examples, I try not to multi-task. I try to do one thing and when it is finished, I move on to the next task. I try to keep a clean desk by finishing whatever paperwork is laying on my desk. Certainly, there are things that I cannot complete immediately, and they must lay on the desk for a while. However, I try not to put off tasks. There are often difficult phone calls or correspondence to write and I try to do those tasks the first thing of the day, so they aren’t laying on my desk and in my mind for the remainder of the day or week. I don’t have a lot of clothes but what I do have is very functional. I try to keep a simple, but functional, rhythm of my day. I’m learning that simplicity requires my willingness to say, “No.” Too many “Yeses” and my life seems to lose its simplicity.