Ari Meisel - Less Doing, More Living: Make Everything in Life Easier

Praise for Less Doing, More Living

Ive seen many programs for improving lives (and created a few myself). Ari Meisels philosophy in Less Doing, More Living is a true gemsimple, fun, and technologically up-to-date for the twenty-first century. This book will help you easily remove the stresses of day-to-day living and find that, in this removal, youll have more time to enjoy the activities and people that you love.

Less Doing is an awesome book because it is a hands-on guide that teaches you how to quickly implement the art of strategic lazinessdoing only the most important stuff, and doing it well enough to get what you want. The stuff in this book will help you kick more ass, whether youre an entrepreneur, a student, or anywhere in between.

Ari Meisels book is a KISS read packed with tons of valuable insights and tools to simplify your life, streamline your tasks, and allow you to focus on the right things with the right tools.

Ari Meisels Less Doing, More Living is a fittingly efficient read designed to help you optimize your life per nine fundamental principles. I came away inspired to further streamline my workflow, declutter my (dreaded) paper inbox, and obliterate my to-do list thanks to a host of great tech tool and time strategy recommendations.

Im going to send an automated reminder to myself to reread Ari Meisels super-helpful book every month. Its got an absurd number of tips that make my life easier.

This smart and practical work illustrates Meisels approach to efficiency and effectiveness in all aspects of life. Its a road map of tools and tricks to help you be better at what you do in less time, regardless of your discipline, so that you can have more free time to spend however you like.

Efficiency is a lost art nowadays, and Ari Meisel has armed you with an effective tool for increasing productivity in the midst of the chaos. Every aspect of your life can become better with just a few simple and implementable changes that youll be shocked by how easy they are to do. Free yourself to do what you were meant to do so you can live the way you want to live. Start doing less and living more today!

JEREMY P. TARCHER/PENGUIN

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Copyright 2014 by Ari Meisel

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Meisel, Ari.

Less doing, more living : make everything in life easier / Ari Meisel.

p. cm.

ISBN 978-0-698-15131-4

1. Life skills. 2. Time management. 3. Stress management. I. Title.

HQ2037.M45 2014 2013042587

646.7dc23

For my three sons, Benjamin, Sebastien, and Lucas,

who make me want to do better every day.

And for my wife, Anna,

sans toi je suis comme un navire sans capitaine .

Contents

Introduction

Welcome to Less Doing, More Living ! Im Ari Meisel. Before we begin, Id like to give you a little background on me and on my Less Doing philosophy.

Ive been an entrepreneur for most of my life. I started my first company at the age of twelve, doing website design. By the time I started college, I had also started a few other tech companies and, after college, I started working in construction.

When I visited a friend in upstate New York, I got the idea of creating a loft district in Binghamton. I spent the next three years working in construction. I built the lofts, a bar, and a few other spaces. Then I returned to New York City, where I started specializing in green building materials. Ive invented two green building materials, written a book on green building materials, and spent most of the last eight years building and consulting.

In 2006, I was diagnosed with Crohns disease, a very painful and incurable inflammatory disease of the digestive tract. My case was severe. I was in and out of the hospital, and I was taking sixteen pills a day. I nearly died.

After reaching a personal low point in the hospital, I decided to do everything in my power to strengthen my body, which by then was very weak. Through a combination of yoga, nutrition, natural supplements, and rigorous exercise like Ironman and CrossFit, I was able to fight back the symptoms of Crohns until I was finally able to suspend my medication. Eventually, I was declared free of all traces of the incurable disease, and I completed Ironman France in June 2011 in thirteen hours and forty-five minutes.

I have since spoken at seminars and at a regional TED Talk about my struggle against a seemingly insurmountable opponent. What I discovered is that nutrition and fitness are not the whole story. Even with those things under control, stress was still a big part of my illness. Its a big part of many other autoimmune illnesses and inflammatory conditions, too, not to mention life in general. So before I could completely solve my problem, I needed a way to address stress.

Through the process of data collection, self-tracking, and analysis, I became an Achievement Architect, a coaching service that Ive developed through a long process of experimentation, analytics, and personal tracking. Less Doing is my approach to dealing with the daily stresses of life by optimizing, automating, and outsourcing all of my tasks in life and business. Now Id like to share that gift with you.

WHAT IS LESS DOING?

The idea of Less Doing is to reclaim your time andmore importantyour mind, so you can do the things you want to do. Even little bits of time are important. It all adds up. By applying the practice of Less Doing to your life, you can free up the time and mental space to do the things you care about most.

The three keys to Less Doing are:

• Optimize
• Automate
• Outsource

These keys apply to health, productivity, or any other type of problem or goal.

For any challenge, the first thing to do is optimize it. Break it down to its bare minimum, simplify it, and eliminate everything thats not completely necessary. Once youve boiled the task down to its essentials, the goal is to break whats left into bite-sized tasks that can be replicated and possibly delegated.