“Do less. Get more done.”
The Power of Less was written by Leo Babauta, who blogs regularly at ZenHabits.net. Having read a few of his articles, I was excited to read this book believing therein I would find fresh minimalist insight.
It was an entertaining read, but I am sad to say that I was somewhat disappointed. Though the foundation of the book is solid, it fails to deliver what it sets out to encourage the reader to do. An easy read at 170 pages, I found myself skipping through many unnecessary chapters. Much of the content is redundant.
To summarize, the message of the book is prioritizing. Re-evaluate how you spend your time and eliminate anything unnecessary to your happiness or success. Set a few clear goals, break them down into smaller tasks, and focus on them until you complete them.
Occasionally, this book seeks to explain why simplicity is such an effective element in improving one’s quality of life. The main criticism I have about this book is that I feel anyone reading it would likely already understand that simplicity has benefits. If they didn’t, they wouldn’t be reading it in the first place.
The one gem that I did take away from this book was the helpfulness of creating a list of your goals. The idea is to make a list of everything you hope to accomplish. Then, you set subgoals to help you stay on track. I keep this goal sheet as a word document on my desktop and look it over from time to time to track my progress and make sure I’m still working towards the life I want. One of my recent goals is to set up a proper workspace in my home. The breakdown looks like this:
Goal: Set up a proper workspace in my home
1. Clean out my spare bedroom
a. Sort my paperwork
- i. Shred what I don’t need
- ii. Recycle what I'm able to
b. Bring in Xbox and Nintendo games to vintage gaming store
c. Sort and give away items to local thrift store
2. Move my desk out of the living room
3. Purchase a chair similar to the ones at the local coffee shop, where I’m the most prolific
a. Put aside $100 biweekly to purchase a chair in July
b. Measure door frame to ensure that chair will fit
When large goals are broken down into half hour tasks, they seem less daunting. My goal of setting up a proper workspace is a subgoal. My main goal is to live a better life. To accomplish that, I would like to find more fulfilling work. To be honest, I’m not in a huge rush to ditch my job, but I definitely feel better about myself when I’m working towards it. I need a proper workspace to be more productive in my writing and website creation endeavours. Setting up a proper space is a step in that direction.
In short: Prioritize. Simplify. Focus. Don’t waste time on work that doesn’t need to be done, and don’t waste money on stuff you don’t need. Yes, I do actually need to buy a chair, I'm currently writing in a noisy kitchen, but no, you probably don't need to buy this book.
If you already have a basic understanding of these concepts, please see below for three great alternate reading suggestions relative to minimalism and simplicity in respect to your life, work and home:
For a balanced counterpoint to this review, please check out the forums on the author’s blog at ZenHabits.net/forum.
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