‫I want to say a bit about simplifying your life, because our brains are not really designed for multitasking
‫and they're not designed for having a whole list of jobs, they're designed to do one thing at a time.
‫So if you can simplify your life, it will make you happier.
‫So the first thing is try to finish more jobs than you start.
‫I'm terrible about this.
‫I've got to admit, I keep generating more and more ideas.
‫But it does feel good when you get closure on something.
‫So try to get closure on most of your projects.
‫If you can only have one project on the go at a time, that would be ideal.
‫You've probably got to have two or three but don't have too many because the more projects you have,
‫the more stress you will have and the less happiness trying to get rid of all loose ends.
‫Particularly if they're stressing you.
‫So if there's somebody you need to phone or something you're putting off, then get all those loose
‫ends closed off.
‫If you can.
‫And then your physical environment is similar.
‫So throw stuff away from your house.
‫The more minimalist you can make your house, the better.
‫Or at least tidy things up, put them away in boxes.
‫Out of sight is out of mind.
‫I absolutely loved the book by Marie Kondo.
‫I think it was called The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up.
‫And I think that's a brilliant book, even if you think the tidying up got nothing to do with you.
‫I would urge you to read that book because it's really quite philosophical.
‫And she says if it doesn't bring you joy, throw it away.
‫And I think that's really interesting, isn't it?
‫If you've got some old pair of shoes that you love, keep them.
‫If you've got some old pair of shoes that actually they don't bring you Joy.
‫Get rid of them.
‫I remember watching one of her videos and she's rolling up pairs of pants and putting them in this drawer
‫in the bedroom.
‫And when they're all neatly rolled up and they're in there as a line because one of her rules is you
‫don't put things on top of things because then you don't know what's under that.
‫You have them all in a line of rolled up ones.
‫When she's finished, she goes and you can see she gets this amazing joy just from rolling up pants.
‫So the point is, if your environment is really neat and tidy and organized and everything has a place
‫and everything is in its right place, I think that's a really good foundation for feeling happiness.
‫You can get happiness even from that first act of doing it, but then you can build on that and you
‫can do all the other stuff that you want to do without having the stress of not being able to find a
‫pair of pants.
‫So I really would urge you to read Marie Condo's book or watch some of her videos and to get your living
‫and working environment as neat and tidy as you can.
‫It is a component of happiness for sure.