Special Edition: A Master Class in Simplicity

The best ideas, systems, and strategies to reclaim time, attention, and energy to do what really matters to you next year

It takes between two weeks to a month to learn paragliding, time that can be freed up by reducing what matters less or not at all. Photo: Raymond Klavins, Unsplash.

After having tested both free and paid subscriptions during 2022 I’ve decided to turn Fewer Better Things into a premium Master Class in Simplicity for 2023. The focus will be on how to simplify work and life by reclaiming our limited time, attention, and energy for what’s essential. Subscribe now to get all 50 newsletters next year and full access to the archive.

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In a few days a new year begins, 365 days or 8,760 hours of opportunity to create and build anything (but not everything) you want. You have to make choices, decide how and on what you want to spend your limited time, attention, and creative energy.

Geoffrey Chaucer, poet and author of The Canterbury Tales said “Time and tide waits for no man”. Rich or poor, man or woman, black or white – we all are ruled by the same universal law of the passage of time. Time is the greatest of equalizers.

We can choose to spend our time on things that lead to betterment or time on things that lead nowhere. We can create and optimize systems that accelerate our growth and wellbeing, or we can just go with the flow and watch the time pass us by.

How we decide to use our time is essential and often becomes a choice between what we want as individuals and what the world around us wants us to want. If we’d let the outside world decide, we’d be eating chips and binge watching Netflix all day.

That’s why I’ve decided to turn Fewer Better Things into a for-pay Master Class in Simplicity. I want to share the best ideas, systems, and strategies to reclaim time, attention, and energy to focus on what really matters. Reduce to accelerate growth.

After accounting for sleep, we all have access to 5,840 hours in a year to do what matters to us, to create and build, to work and grow, to learn and become. If we break down our goals into hours and then schedule them wisely we can achieve anything.

For example: if we want to run a marathon it’s recommended to run up to 10 miles per day, five days per week for 12-20 weeks. That’s 110-170 hours including warmup and stretching. A very achievable goal with lots of physical and mental benefits.

The only thing you need is self-discipline, a pair of running shoes, and stop doing anything that will make it harder to reach this goal, from drinking alcohol, eating processed foods, and staying up late to hosting self doubt and mental resistance.

My goals for 2023 (physical, mental, and financial wellness, and deeper relationships) matters so much to me that I’m prepared to sacrifice a lot of stuff that doesn’t matter as much to do whatever I can to reach them, including prioritizing rest and recovery.

Simplicity, after all, is to add the meaningful and subtract the obvious. I’ll see you on Sunday, January 8 for the first newsletter of 50 in 2023.

Happy New Year!

Per