Four Steps to Simplifying Your Life

Excess and clutter are the enemies of clean and effective living. As we go through life we tend to acquire material things and to-do lists that eventually weigh us down and keep us from being the best we can be.

At times, it's a good idea to take an inventory of your life and do some housecleaning. A good guideline for simplifying things is to follow the 4 Ds:

Detach: If it doesn't add meaning to your life, then you need to let it go. The first step in freeing yourself from the things that clutter and complicate your days is to simply make the emotional break from them. Once you make the conscious decision to detach from the things that drain you of your time and energy, you are on your way to a simple and more powerful way of living.

Dispose: Anything that has piled up that you have no realistic chance of getting around to, like those back issues of magazines, need to be disposed. Any items that belong to another era of your life, but has no real sentimental value, needs to be let go. A good rule of thumb is that if you haven't used something in two years, you need to seriously evaluate whether you need it all. Any clutter you can dispose of helps you move more lightly through life.

Donate: I'm sure if you look around with an appraising eye you will find all sorts of things that would be much more valuable to someone else than they are to you. Every now and then, I realize there are shoes and shirts in my closet that I haven't worn in ages and I donate them to charity. Go through your possessions, especially the ones you think you may want one day, and think about what it could mean to someone else today.

Delegate: It didn't take much time after we bought our first home for me to realize that I particularly dislike yard work. So instead of grumbling about it every week, I just committed to putting in a little extra time at the work that I did enjoy so that I could afford to pay someone else to do it.

There are probably a number of things that you do right now that you don't particularly enjoy and could delegate to someone else; an individual who would appreciate the opportunity to step up and prove their ability. You don't have to do it all by yourself is a lesson that I wish I had learned earlier in my career. The people that I have hired and put my trust in can be relied upon and will always act in the best interest of me and our organization with the proper guidance.

That is a very liberating feeling, because it allows me to do what a good leader should be focused on doing - providing the vision that takes me and the team to the next level.