The Power of Simplification
Very often when someone wants to begin a new goal or an activity they get discouraged very quickly because they’ve never done it before. This is understandable: if you’ve never worked out it can seem daunting to get ready and then go to a gym and figure out what workout you’re going to do.
One way to make a task easier is to simplify it. Let’s look at 2 examples of working out:
The first person gets up 6:00 o’clock in the morning, begins searching for clothes that they can wear at the gym and their exercise shoes. Then they search for a water bottle, headphones, and a bag that they can put everything in to. Once they have everything in the bag they then have to find their car keys, drive to the gym , get changed, figure out what kind of workout they’re going to do, do the workout, and then change to get ready for the rest of the day.
The second person also gets up at 6:00 o’clock in the morning. However, the night before they’ve put their regular clothes, their water bottle, their earphones, and their written workout in a gym bag in front of the door. They have also laid out their exercise clothes and shoes at the end of the bed and put them on immediately when they wake up. They then go downstairs get their car keys, take the gym bag and go to the gym. When they arrive at the gym, they put their bag in a locker and go do the written workout that they brought with them. At the end of the workout they get ready change into the clothes they brought with them and begin their day.
Two Different Approaches to the Goal
Both people got up at 6:00 o’clock in the morning to go to the gym. However the first person inadvertently put obstacles in their way before they even left the house by not being prepared. The second person simply prepared their workout clothes and gym bag the night before. The second person simplified the whole process and created a system whereby they would be much more likely to get up and go to the gym. There is much less willpower required when you simply get up, put on your exercise clothes, pick up a bag and leave your house.
Simplify Your Speech
Simplification can also be used in the way we speak. The first person has many decisions to make in the morning and many actions before they even leave the house: they have to find gym clothes and shoes, they have to find a water bottle, they have to find earphones and then they have to find a bag to put it all into. They also have to decide what street clothes they’re going to wear when they leave the gym. You can easily see how at 6:00 o’clock in the morning it would be very daunting to go to the gym if you had all of those decisions to make before you even got out of bed.
The second person would probably simply think “I’m going to the gym”, pick up their prepared gym bag their car keys and go to the gym.
As you can see there are actually 2 steps to simplifying: step number one is preparation. In the case of going to the gym it would be preparing everything you need the night before so that you just pick it up and go. Step number 2 is viewing the action as simply one action: I’m going to the gym. Regardless of how many small steps are involved in going to the gym, the simple phrase plus preparation increases the likelihood of going to the gym dramatically.
Prepare the Night Before
Preparation the night before is a very effective method for simplifying if used correctly. Rather than preparing lunches in the morning you could make family lunches the previous evening after dinner when all of the food is still out. You could do the same with breakfast; you could load the coffee machine the night before and simply turn it on in the morning. You could have a bowl of boiled eggs in the refrigerator and take one or two as part of your breakfast.
Naturally there’s no limit to the amount of preparation you can do the night before. You can prepare your kids school bags and your work bag the night before and just pick them up and go. The same with your clothes, you can lay them out the night before and just put them on in the morning.
Once you begin simplifying, you will see that a little bit of preparation will go a long way to making your day run smoother.