Whatever you are doing I can almost 100% assure you that there is an easier way to do it.

Scalability is hindered by complexity. The more complex the system, the harder it will to sustain and to scale.

Looking for ways to simplify is a gloriously fruitful way to spend some time, thought, and energy because the payoff will blossom over time.

Find a way to shave 10 minutes or 10 dollars from a regular activity, and 365 days from now you have harnessed 3650 minutes – 60 hours – that can be better spent doing something else, and saved a juicy $3650 to treat yourself or invest in other activities. The compound effect of small savings is well documented.

Time is especially precious, and is better summed up in a very different and more significant word – “life”.

You spend or trade “life” for every return.

You exchange your life energy when you trade minutes for money.

You exchange and invest life for life when you pour thought and care into your marriage and children.

You swap precious life for a payoff, whether that’s a personal dividend or a professional one.

It is wise therefore to look for areas in our ecosystem where time is leaking unnecessarily through the cracks.

A growing friend of mine and someone I greatly respect posted a very vulnerable confession today in a private group I am part of.

He very honestly shared, “I’m addressing the hindrances to my productivity: physical clutter and inefficient workflow (e.g how I record my ideas) which make it difficult to get on with the project. All quite easy to solve in once sense but also brings up emotional pain – like those hoarder TV shows.”

Physical cutter is actually a big deal, and a whole other subject, but it is the emotional and mental clutter that I want to address here. How insightful my brother was to recognise that many of our actions and habits have emotional hooks and roots.

Change may look easy from the outside, but actually changing takes real courage.

I have found that when the pain of staying the same becomes more than the pain of change, change happens.

We are hard-wired to avoid pain more than we are inclined to pursue pleasure.

Having a great vision of what can be is helpful, but rightly framing what is true right now is essential.

When we realise that it is the short minutes of a finite life we are trading for whatever payoff we gain in the exchange, it colours every transaction.

This object I’m purchasing cost me two days of life.

This shiny object I’m putting money down on the table to buy cost me 3 weeks of life.

That project you are postponing whilst scrolling your newsfeed has so far cost you 16 hours of life.

This article has cost me 34 minutes of life. It is my privilege to offer those 34 precious minutes to you, plus the bonus drops of existence it takes to post and format, and send it your way.

You are welcome. 🙂