Leo Babauta - Thriving On Less: Simplifying In A Tough Economy (2020 Founders House Edition)

Contents

Simplifying in a Tough Economy

2020 Founders House Edition

Leo Babauta

Leo Babauta released Thriving on Less as a free companion eBook for his book The Power of Less in 2008, at the start of the Great Recession. It was a serious economic crisis and millions of people lost their jobs and incomes. Many were forced to face the fact that they were living way beyond their means. Babauta, a well-known writer whos blog, Zenhabits.net, has been a means to introduce simplity, minimalism, mindfulness, and other assorted subjects to thousands of readers.

For those who read it at the time, it provided many practical tips and strategies to downscale the way you lived to better cope with the economic contract that was rocking the nationand the world.

Twelve years later, we face a similar economic disaster, but one that has come as the result of a global pandemic which forced the economy to grind to halt in order to slow the spread of the COVID-19 virus.

As before, with this new edition of Thriving On Less, we at Founders House hope to distill a bit of the same practical ideas offered by Leo Babauta to help you better weather this economic storm. We hope you find something helpful for your life in these brief pages.

Sincerely,

Shaun Kilgore

Founders House Publishing

June 2020

In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.- Albert Einstein

The recent economic recession has a lot of people worried, about their jobs, their businesses, their homes and their bills. When your income is dropping or in jeopardy and you still have a mountain of bills to pay, things can get pretty scary.

However, tough economic times do not have to be a time of struggles! If you look for the opportunity in the middle of difficulty, as Mr. Einstein suggested, then tough economic times become an opportunity to transform your life.

The problems of our economy stem from unchecked consumerismpeople buying houses too expensive for their incomes, getting into too much debt by spending too much, living a lifestyle of more and more with the idea that things will only continue to get better. Unfortunately, this kind of consumerism is unsustainable, both at a global and a personal level. Eventually, the bills have to be paid and things will be corrected to a more sustainable level.

What does this mean for you, personally? It means that in order to survive in a tough economy, you must adjust your lifestyle to a more sustainable level. But to thrive in a tough economy, you can go even further: simplify your life to make room for the truly important. Clear away the clutter and the excess spending to make room for the essential: the people and things you love the most, that youre most passionate about.

Such a simplified lifestyle can be truly wonderfulyoull finally have time for the things you really love, for relaxation, for outdoor activities, for exercise, for reading or finding peace and quiet, for the loved ones in your life, for the things youre most passionate about. This is what it means to thriveto live a life full of the things you want in them, and not more. To live a better quality of life without having to spend and buy and consume.

In this book Ill show you how to start on the road to that simple lifestyle. Even better, Ill show you how you can thrive on less, change your habits to create a more sustainable lifestyle, get out of debt, and be in a great position to live well in any economic times.

Reduce the complexity of life by eliminating the needless wants of life, and the labors of life reduce themselves. - Edwin Way Teale

Not too many years ago , my life was full of clutter. There was the clutter of too many possessions, piled up in every corner of my home and office, bought one at a time on

impulsive decisions and stacked up until I realized that I had way too much and that it

was way too stressful to have so much clutter. And there was no room to ... live.

There was the clutter of too many commitments, filling up my schedule until I had no room for the things I really wanted to do, no room to accomplish my goals, no room for my family. These commitments piled up one at a time until again, I realized I had way too much and that I was way too stressed out. There was no room for the life I wanted.

There was the clutter of too much to do, too many tasks on my to-do list, too many emails to

process each day, too much paperwork piling up in stacks on my desk, too many calls to take and make, too many meetings. It all piles up and you wonder how youll ever get it all done and how you ever got so much to do.

Then I decided that too much was too much, and that I wanted to simplify. It was a long process (one that continues to this day, to a lesser extent), but over the course of weeks and months, I reduced the amount of clutter, the number of commitments, the amount of things I had to do each day. I simplified my life, and it was one of the best decisions Ive ever made.

Today, things are much simpler: my desk and my home are uncluttered and serene, my life is less hectic with room for the things I love, and I am living the life Ive always wanted.

Its not an incredible secret, or anything thats terribly difficult to do. Sure, it means making some tough decisions to cut things out in favor of the truly important, but if you dont cut those things out, youre still making those decisions by not taking actionyoure deciding to let the unimportant fill your life so you dont have room for what you love and value. Instead, you need to take a close look at your life and make those tough decisions. Youll be happy you did.

And heres something really great about a simple lifestyle: it doesnt cost a lot of money!

If you reduce the clutter in your home, you can actually make a little money if you sell some of the stuff (donate the rest to charity). And learn not to fill your home up with clutter, and youll be spending less on buying possessions as well.

If you simplify your schedule to make room for the things you love, youll be running around less, youll be less stressed, and youll have less need for the de-stressing activities that many of us undertake after a long day or week of work: shopping, drinking, partying, going out to expensive entertainment, and so on. You can relax and have fun in other ways that dont cost a lot of money.

After simplifying your life, you will realize that a life full of the things you love and value does not cost a lot of money at all. Sure, youll still have to spend on the essentials, but beyond that youll save tons of money.

Imagine that: a truly great life that costs almost nothing. Lets find out how to get there.

The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak. - Hans Hofmann

The first step in simplifying, and living with less, is to identify the essentialthat which you want to keep in your life. Then eliminate as much of the nonessential as possible.

I go into much more detail on this process in my book, The Power of Less , but basically you want to create a Short List of 4-5 things in your life that you value mostpeople you love or things youre passionate about, things you want in your life. These are your essentials.

To give you an idea of what I mean, heres my Short List: spending time with my family, writing, reading and running. Those are the things I want to make room for in my life.