I finished last week by asking what a year of simplifying would look like for me? What would a year of letting go and letting be give me, and take from me? How would a year of simplicity impact my writing…what would it mean in my writerly world? In my ordinary everyday world?
I didn’t have an answer, but I walked away from the page wondering about it and wanting to
make that commitment. For twelve months, at least.
My calendar for 2026 is subtitled A year of beautiful things… which gives me a bit of a clue as to how to go about this. Beautiful things are very often simple things. Like pebbles. Like breakwaters.
We’re at the end of the second week of December as I write this first follow-up. My manic mind immediately exploded with all manner of ideas, which of course just layered on additional complexity completely defeating the object of the exercise.
Which raises the question: what, exactly, is the object of the exercise?
I am not sure I have a definitive desired outcome. Mostly I’m curious to see how much I can simplify my life and what impact that might have.
Already simple?
Cards on the table: in many ways my life is already simple by most people’s definitions. Here’s a little list of things that I do not have: elderly parents, children of any age, a job, a partner (lover, spouse or business), a business. There’s a raft of worry and complexity taken away right there. I’m not saying that the impact of that situation is necessarily entirely or always positive, but it does remove obligations and necessities and it does deliver a lot of (apparent) control back into my own decision-making hands.
A few other things I do not have: an air-fryer, a microwave oven, a tumble dryer, a coffee machine, a motor vehicle.
Here's a little list of things I do have: a home, a garden, a beach hut, a pension, savings, reasonably good health (for my age), friends, a decent education, interests, hobbies, passions, a desire to learn and grow. Again, these have varied impacts but mostly they also feed into my ability to decide what to do with my time.
A few other things I have: too many clothes, possibly (if it’s possible) too many books, too many writing projects on the go, a smart phone, two hybrid (laptop/tablet) devices, a printer/scanner. A digital camera – and probably an older digital camera that hasn’t seen the light of day for some time. Peripherals from a recently dismantled PC.
Here’s another thing: I take none of the above for granted. I am deeply grateful and I know that any situation can be demolished overnight. This is merely my starting point.
This much I know: the layers of complexity in my life are largely of my own making. That has always been the case. I am an over-thinker, over-planner, over-engineer. I also have a lot more ‘stuff’ than I actually need. And for someone who has always claimed to have no ambition (but is apparently ‘achievement oriented’ on any motivation axis) I have an over-laden works-in-progress / works-in-planning heap. I don’t have a to-do list: I have a whole notebook!
The lists are not exhaustive. One of my w.i.p. projects is the curation of a more extensive list by way of a memoir of what I have and why I’m keeping it / not keeping it. You see – this is the kind of overlap that my brain creates when I start long-term projects, but short-term ones also feel necessary. Maybe that’s an age thing. Or maybe it’s just a me thing. It's definitely not a simple thing.
In any case: that’s the starting point. The generalised baseline. If it sounds like chaos, then you get why I want to do this. If it doesn't, then maybe you get why it feels like a bit of a challenge.
Simpler: not minimalist
The next important question is: how far do I want to go with this?
Not all the way! I may not be Madonna’s material girl, but nor am I a sack-cloth-and-ashes chick. I live in the real world. I actually like living in suburbia and doing most of the things I do. I am not about to throw it all up and go live on a remote island. I am not looking to become self-sufficient, unless the world goes even more mad and that situation is forced upon me. So what am I talking about here? What do I mean by simplicity, simpler and/or simplifying?
The honest answer is that I am not entirely sure. It is actually part of what I want to find out along the way.
When I first started blogging years ago, like everyone else at the time I had a few false starts about what I wanted my focus to be. In the end I settled on my main idea of wanting to live more slowly and more creatively. In some ways that is happening, but in other ways I fear I may be filling in the spaciousness inappropriately. So this next year is an attempt to return to that original impulse.
It is about creating that slowness and the space for the creativity.
Simpler is about removing the unnecessary and the inappropriate.
But it has to be done in the context of people and activities that were not in my life back then but which really matter to me now…whether or not they meet the ‘simpler’ criteria.
I’ve said it before and will repeat it here: I’m sure that William Morris was talking about metaphorical as well as actual houses when he said that we should retain nothing that we did not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful. I believe that those criteria justify the retention of what is not, ostensibly, simple.
It's my excuse, anyway, although I will add that when it comes to useful, I probably need to add the suffix '-enough'. Case in point. I don’t have a microwave. I did. Clive bought me one, once upon a Christmas. I didn't ask for it and I didn’t use it. So in my definition of useful, I mean useful-enough. I want to scrap “capable of providing a useful function” and replace with “actually being used”. I don't deny that a microwave oven is a useful thing per se, but it wasn't to me. Anything we, as individuals, do not actually use is not “useful” – it is merely “potential”. Unused potential is a waste of space, is layering complexity. It nags at the mind. It can be cleared out, in theory at least. Just a thought!
The challenge
Like many people I get pulled into the ways of being and doing that society determines for us, rather than those we choose for ourselves. How (even who) we should be, what we should wear, watch, read, think… there’s a maelstrom outside of us that we allow to dictate the rhythm of our days and if we are not careful in our curation of our time that will dictate our very life.
And it is contagious, it is insidious. We don’t see it happening. We think we’re making our own choices, because we don’t stop to question ourselves…about how much do we want this thing, why do we want it, even if we want it at all…
As a daily-journal-practitioner I question myself all the time – but I don’t always come up with the
answers. Sometimes it takes a deeper, more focussed, dive.
We need to look both at the bigger picture and at the microscopic view. How did we get where we are and how well does it continue to serve who we want to be?
Sometimes we forget that a good idea might have a short life-span. When that is the case, we should embrace it fully, go for it, and then be willing and able to recognise when it has lived its season.
A case in point for me is the notion of going away at least once a month, every month, even
if only for one night.
It was brilliant! I did it for a couple of years or so. It fed into many other things I had on the go. I met up with friends and family. I wrote stuff. I went to places I otherwise would not have done. I found places I wanted to go back to. I went back to some of them.
What I didn’t recognise was that the framework was merely a thing and not a permanent lifestyle choice. It took exhaustion and a week of lying on the sofa in front of the TV with a stinking cold for me to realise: been there, done that…job done. More accurately: job doesn’t still feel like it needs doing. Time to strip that one out…at least for now.
Recognise that as well: seasonal things circle back round.
The challenge then is to strip out the things that are unnecessary or inappropriate, neither beautiful nor useful, however wedded or committed to them I thought I was; it is also to allow that I might change my mind again – or that there might come a better time to return to them.
The challenge is to live in alignment with who I am now. To figure out my own version of simple and accept that it too might change or fluctuate.
Knowing the why
The next question is why am I even bothering? Just in case you’re wondering…I’ve also sat with the ‘why?’ question around the whole idea.
I wrote something here…and then I deleted it.
I started to write that I am doing this because I believe... and then realised that’s not strictly true. It’s not about a belief. It’s about a theory. This is an experiment. I am doing this to test a hypothesis. I am testing my notion that living a simpler life will:
- Be slower, feel more spacious
- Allow for more creativity, more creations
- Reduce my impact on the planet
- Allow more ‘connection’ in my life – with people and with the planet (& beyond)
- Make me healthier and happier
Early results from actions taken to date, support the theory, but not every change will do that. So a word of caution: there is a feedback loop here of the kind that would invalidate any truly scientific experiment, but my life, my rules (!) and maybe I believe that science sometimes needs to allow
for the emotional / spiritual dimensions that might produce such loops.
I can say that. I’m not a scientist.
The loop in question is that if anything I try on this road results in a feeling of Yay! It’s really simplified my life…and I hate it! then I am going to stop and abandon or even undo.
Whatever the only vaguely defined desired outcomes here are, I can tell you this much: they do not include making myself miserable. The world does not need more unhappy people. Simplicity for its own sake does not interest me.
Some of my interest might be best understood from the other end: looking at where added complexity does not add value. I am hugely frustrated when I witness the world (by which I mean humans) doing things simply because we can, rather than because the benefit outweighs the cost, or even when the very concept is actually a fundamentally bad idea.
A bit judgey? Yep. Guilty as charged.
You might find a lot of that over the next year. Not sorry.
In truth, how my life and views compare to other people's is not remotely relevant. For me, I am aware that there is still a lot of clutter in my life – literal and metaphorical – and I want it gone. It is also about my own uncertainty as to what is ‘clutter’ and what is of value. That will be part of the exploration. It is about what I have and what I do and what I think and who I am. It is intended to be a deep dive for me – but my hope is that my sharing it, simply, as I do it, might provoke ideas, options, rejections, reconsiderations, ifs, buts and maybes for anyone who reads along.
Measuring progress and outcomes
Pah! to all of that. I spent too many years with targets and trying to understand the difference between an output and an outcome, and KPIs and all the rest of the effing carp that stops people
focussing on actually doing the job…and I was angry for so many of those years…angrier than I realised at the time…so…despite the received wisdom mentioned at the beginning…I am not going to even attempt to look at how far I move from my baseline in any analytical way.
I’m just going to share what I do over the next twelve months and, in the midst of it, how it makes me feel. I’ll know whether it’s helping or not, and I will share that too. But bear this in mind: what works for me might well just irk you up, and what really peeves me might be your salvation…so you know, just give it a mug-of-tea’s worth of thought, and half-a-go, and decide for yourself.
Or not. You can always just smile knowingly and carry on. You may already know what I'm about to find out.
~ / ~
