Organize IT

Priorities in life don’t just come out of thin air. They are influenced by an whole bunch of elements, circumstances and lifestyle choices, such as your financial situation and your age. For instance, an eighteen year old student with a weekend job is going to have an whole different set of priorities than a thirty year old married person with kids who is area manager in a large company. When it comes to identifying the priorities in life a good place to start is with these six elements discussed below. Where do you fit with each one? How have these circumstances effected the way you think about things? Share your thoughts in the comments!

We all have ups and downs in life, that’s part of being human and something we can’t change (and arguably wouldn’t even want to if we could). It can frankly suck when we feel down and unhappy, but without these dips we wouldn’t be able to appreciate the highs in life, or indeed have the motivation to reach for these highs in the first place. While we can’t level out our emotional rollercoasters, I’ve found there are plenty of things you can do to make sure those dips and drops aren’t quite so severe. All it takes is a proactive and productive approach to the problem. Below are the six main habits I’ve adopted to achieve just that.

On Monday I wrote a critique of the idea of simplifying your life as part of my ever controversial self-help myths series. I got a great response to that so decided to continue the theme throughout the week. On Wednesday, I described how, considering that simplicity goes against the way society is evolving, are we merely resisting the inevitable? And now, to top the week off, here are some of my top quotes on the subject. What are your favorites?

The process of simplifying ones lifestyle is very much a response to the increasingly complex lives that people find themselves in nowadays. When you have hundreds of emails a day, dozens of social contacts to manage and a deluge of information and entertainment to process, it’s all too easy to lose sight of what’s really important. Whether you’re finding ways of functioning more efficiently or you’re just cutting out all the excess in your life, the intention is always the same. We’re all looking for ways to cope with our complicated and hectic lifestyles.

It seems that simplifying your life is the big personal-growth trend right now, pushed by sites like Zen Habits. Personal productivity has had it’s day in the spotlight, now it’s the turn of simplifying, streamlining, identifying the essential, or whatever you want to call it. Goodbye David Allen and say hello Leo Babauta (or maybe not). We’ve gone from focusing on being super-efficient to being super-effective, almost like a bunch of fashionistas going from black to grey… and back again. However, simplifying your life isn’t, ironically, as simple as you might think. Consider the following problems with it: