There is a quote that hangs in our house that says, “Some things need doing better than they’ve ever been done before. Some things just need doing. And some things don’t need doing at all. Know the difference.” Did you ever consider that there might be things that you could eliminate in your day that would simplify your life?
When I think of simplicity, I think of how my own life is made easier by eliminating distractions. Each day I have to place necessities over wants, so I can find focus on what the most important things are at that particular time. When I get home after a long day at school I know in the back of my mind I have a load of homework waiting in my backpack. But at the same time, I also think about the things I would love to do like: take a shower or a nap, play video games, be outside, or any number of other fun activities. But the backpack usually ends up winning. This is because over time I’ve learned to train my brain to prioritize. I’ve learned through experience that when you’re doing something fun, time tends to go fast and it’s easy to lose focus of something that might be really important. When I reflect on this quote, all my needs and wants seem to fall easily into place. My focus is simple - what I want most is peace of mind. Knowing I gave my homework first priority is the only way I can achieve this goal.
Here is a video of what some people wish to eliminate from their life to make them simpler.
Thursday, September 29, 2011
Thursday, September 22, 2011
Simplicity
I really connected with the article “Simplicity,” from wisdomcommon.org. While I was reading the article all I could think about was how I am forced to simplify my personal time each day by not getting “lost in a clutter of distractions.”
For instance, for as long as I can remember my parents have made me be responsible for getting myself up and ready for school each morning. I like to sleep as late as possible, but I know I have to accomplish several tasks before I need to be out the door and in the car heading for school. So over the years I have learned the hard way to let go of things like hitting the snooze button, watching cartoons and playing with my dog. All of these things are distractions that steal time from my routine. The last thing I want to hear all the way to school is my mom nagging about what I could have done to be ready on time. My mom would agree with the author, Matthieu Ricard “Simplicity helps us to maintain clarity of mind and purpose.” So, I would say my mom is one of my incentives for simplifying. The other bonus is that if I do maintain my focus, which is difficult, (and doesn’t happen every day), I get done early and then do something fun with that extra time.
The same thing happens when I come home from school. I feel like time is my opponent. The clock is ticking away and I have to fit in homework, dinner and chores before I can relax and go to bed. So I am forced to simplify. As the author says,”…with an attitude of simplicity we strive to keep ourselves focused on the essential core…” When I think about simplifying, I think of my priorities and then everything falls into place. As I’ve gotten older and have gotten more homework and more responsibilities, usually time wins. So I would agree with Jim Horning when he said, “Nothing is as simple as we hope it will be.”
For instance, for as long as I can remember my parents have made me be responsible for getting myself up and ready for school each morning. I like to sleep as late as possible, but I know I have to accomplish several tasks before I need to be out the door and in the car heading for school. So over the years I have learned the hard way to let go of things like hitting the snooze button, watching cartoons and playing with my dog. All of these things are distractions that steal time from my routine. The last thing I want to hear all the way to school is my mom nagging about what I could have done to be ready on time. My mom would agree with the author, Matthieu Ricard “Simplicity helps us to maintain clarity of mind and purpose.” So, I would say my mom is one of my incentives for simplifying. The other bonus is that if I do maintain my focus, which is difficult, (and doesn’t happen every day), I get done early and then do something fun with that extra time.
The same thing happens when I come home from school. I feel like time is my opponent. The clock is ticking away and I have to fit in homework, dinner and chores before I can relax and go to bed. So I am forced to simplify. As the author says,”…with an attitude of simplicity we strive to keep ourselves focused on the essential core…” When I think about simplifying, I think of my priorities and then everything falls into place. As I’ve gotten older and have gotten more homework and more responsibilities, usually time wins. So I would agree with Jim Horning when he said, “Nothing is as simple as we hope it will be.”
Wednesday, September 21, 2011
This I Believe
I believe in karma. Do good things, good things happen. Do bad things, bad things happen. My parents are strong believers in this and as I get older my belief in karma grows stronger. I am still an underaged driver but I’d like to take the family car out for a joy ride. But! Karma would be around the corner, and my engine to my ATV would somehow break and I would not be able to drive around my house. So you know I would never do that. Driving is too important to me. But on the other hand, karma might make me pick up a lost $10 bill on the ground in the parking lot of a grocery store, and give it to the veteran standing at the door in hopes that karma would return a favor someday. Over the years, I have begun to realize that these rewards can be great or maybe those are just my expectations.
Although I grew up listening to my parents warn each other about karma,as a kid I didn’t really believe in it much. Then along came a TV show called My Name is Earl. Earl was a guy who would steal from the locals around him. But he thought good karma had found him when he was awarded a winning lottery ticket. Soon after that happened, it was swept away from him as he was hit by a car. (No it wasn’t me on my joyride!) As he was laying in his hospital bed, he discovered karma and decided to make a list of all the people he had hurt and go to them to apologize and make things right with them. Later on he found his winning lotto ticket and then used it to help him with his road to being a better person. He turned his karma around. I really liked
Last year I lied to my parents about drinking water. I told my mom I had finished every bottle that was put in my lunch box for about 3 months. So by the time parent teacher conferences came around I had a stash of at least 50 water bottles in my locker. So when my mom went to put a note about how great she thought I was doing in school into my locker, more than two dozen half empty bottles fell to her feet. When she got home she didn’t mention the water. The next day when I opened my locker and all the water bottles were gone my heart sank. I really didn’t want to get into my car at carpool. I took a deep breath and opened the door and waited to hear my punishment--but nothing came. Just the usual, “How was your day Ty?” I’m still waiting for karma to find me. I’ve learned not to lie to my parents about anything. I believe waiting for karma to punish me is worse than anything my parents could do.
Although I grew up listening to my parents warn each other about karma,as a kid I didn’t really believe in it much. Then along came a TV show called My Name is Earl. Earl was a guy who would steal from the locals around him. But he thought good karma had found him when he was awarded a winning lottery ticket. Soon after that happened, it was swept away from him as he was hit by a car. (No it wasn’t me on my joyride!) As he was laying in his hospital bed, he discovered karma and decided to make a list of all the people he had hurt and go to them to apologize and make things right with them. Later on he found his winning lotto ticket and then used it to help him with his road to being a better person. He turned his karma around. I really liked
Last year I lied to my parents about drinking water. I told my mom I had finished every bottle that was put in my lunch box for about 3 months. So by the time parent teacher conferences came around I had a stash of at least 50 water bottles in my locker. So when my mom went to put a note about how great she thought I was doing in school into my locker, more than two dozen half empty bottles fell to her feet. When she got home she didn’t mention the water. The next day when I opened my locker and all the water bottles were gone my heart sank. I really didn’t want to get into my car at carpool. I took a deep breath and opened the door and waited to hear my punishment--but nothing came. Just the usual, “How was your day Ty?” I’m still waiting for karma to find me. I’ve learned not to lie to my parents about anything. I believe waiting for karma to punish me is worse than anything my parents could do.
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
The Beauty of Simplicity By: Linda Tischler
I'm snuggled under the covers with Jon Stewart and the remote. The "Evolution/Schmevolution" skit is funny, but it's been a long day, and I'm fading fast. The promise of technology is that I'm one click away from slumberland. I hit the power button. The picture disappears, but the TV is still glowing a creepy blue that will haunt my dreams if I don't make it go away. I try the TV button. Nothing. The CABLE button. Nothing. What the %$*&?? I kick off the blankets and trudge over to turn off the miserable box at the source. I can't help but wonder, as I lie there, now wide awake, how it is that all the things that were supposed to make our lives so easy instead made them more complex. Why is so much technology still so hard?
It is innovation's biggest paradox: We demand more and more from the stuff in our lives--more features, more function, more power--and yet we also increasingly demand that it be easy to use. And, in an Escher-like twist, the technology that's simplest to use is also, often, the most difficult to create.
Marissa Mayer lives with that conundrum every day. As Google's director of consumer Web products, she's responsible for the search site's look and feel. Mayer is a tall, blond 30-year-old with two Stanford degrees in computer science and an infectious laugh. She's also Google's high priestess of simplicity, defending the home page against all who would clutter it up. "I'm the gatekeeper," she says cheerfully. "I have to say no to a lot of people."
The technology that powers Google's search engine is, of course, anything but simple. In a fraction of a second, the software solves an equation of more than 500 million variables to rank 8 billion Web pages by importance. But the actual experience of those fancy algorithms is something that would satisfy a Shaker: a clean, white home page, typically featuring no more than 30 lean words; a cheery, six-character, primary-colored logo; and a capacious search box. It couldn't be friendlier or easier to use.
Here is how Mayer thinks about the tension between complexity of function and simplicity of design: "Google has the functionality of a really complicated Swiss Army knife, but the home page is our way of approaching it closed. It's simple, it's elegant, you can slip it in your pocket, but it's got the great doodad when you need it. A lot of our competitors are like a Swiss Army knife open--and that can be intimidating and occasionally harmful."
It would be lovely if Google's corporate mythology included an enchanting tale to account for the birth of this pristine marvel. But the original home-page design was dumb luck. In 1998, founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page were consumed with writing code for their engine. Brin just wanted to hack together something to send queries to the back end, where the cool technology resided. Google didn't have a Web master, and Brin didn't do HTML. So he designed as little as he could get away with.
The accident became an icon, of course, and a key reason the company enjoys a commanding lead. Google's design has been mimicked on the search pages of MSN and Yahoo, whose portals are messy throwbacks to the "everything but the kitchen sink" school of Web design. But they're poor imitations; according to Hitwise, Google controls 59.2% of the search market, up from 45% a year ago; MSN's share is down to 5.5% and Yahoo's is 28.8%.
No surprise that a site easy enough for a technophobe to use has caught the public imagination. Like desperate Gullivers, we're pinned down by too much information and too much stuff. By one estimate, the world produced five exabytes (one quintillion bytes) of content in 2002--the same amount churned out between 25,000 b.c. and a.d. 2000. Little wonder that Real Simple has been the most successful magazine launch in a decade, and the blogosphere is abuzz over the season's hottest tech innovation--the Hipster PDA: 15 index cards held together by a binder clip.
With Google's extraordinary trajectory and the stratospheric success of Apple's iPod--itself a marvel of simplicity and, with 20 million units sold, a staggering hit--we seem to be nearing a seminal moment. Whereas endless Sunday Styles stories may have failed to get its attention, the tech industry's interest is invariably galvanized by cash. If the equation T (technology) + E (ease of use) = $ can be proven, the time may be right for the voice of the technologically challenged who can't operate their remotes to be heard.
In a 2002 poll, the Consumer Electronics Association discovered that 87% of people said ease of use is the most important thing when it comes to new technologies. "Engineers say, 'Do you know how much complexity we've managed to build in here?' But consumers say, 'I don't care. It's just supposed to work!' " says Daryl Plummer, group vice president at Gartner Group.
It is innovation's biggest paradox: We demand more and more from the stuff in our lives--more features, more function, more power--and yet we also increasingly demand that it be easy to use. And, in an Escher-like twist, the technology that's simplest to use is also, often, the most difficult to create.
Marissa Mayer lives with that conundrum every day. As Google's director of consumer Web products, she's responsible for the search site's look and feel. Mayer is a tall, blond 30-year-old with two Stanford degrees in computer science and an infectious laugh. She's also Google's high priestess of simplicity, defending the home page against all who would clutter it up. "I'm the gatekeeper," she says cheerfully. "I have to say no to a lot of people."
The technology that powers Google's search engine is, of course, anything but simple. In a fraction of a second, the software solves an equation of more than 500 million variables to rank 8 billion Web pages by importance. But the actual experience of those fancy algorithms is something that would satisfy a Shaker: a clean, white home page, typically featuring no more than 30 lean words; a cheery, six-character, primary-colored logo; and a capacious search box. It couldn't be friendlier or easier to use.
Here is how Mayer thinks about the tension between complexity of function and simplicity of design: "Google has the functionality of a really complicated Swiss Army knife, but the home page is our way of approaching it closed. It's simple, it's elegant, you can slip it in your pocket, but it's got the great doodad when you need it. A lot of our competitors are like a Swiss Army knife open--and that can be intimidating and occasionally harmful."
It would be lovely if Google's corporate mythology included an enchanting tale to account for the birth of this pristine marvel. But the original home-page design was dumb luck. In 1998, founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page were consumed with writing code for their engine. Brin just wanted to hack together something to send queries to the back end, where the cool technology resided. Google didn't have a Web master, and Brin didn't do HTML. So he designed as little as he could get away with.
The accident became an icon, of course, and a key reason the company enjoys a commanding lead. Google's design has been mimicked on the search pages of MSN and Yahoo, whose portals are messy throwbacks to the "everything but the kitchen sink" school of Web design. But they're poor imitations; according to Hitwise, Google controls 59.2% of the search market, up from 45% a year ago; MSN's share is down to 5.5% and Yahoo's is 28.8%.
No surprise that a site easy enough for a technophobe to use has caught the public imagination. Like desperate Gullivers, we're pinned down by too much information and too much stuff. By one estimate, the world produced five exabytes (one quintillion bytes) of content in 2002--the same amount churned out between 25,000 b.c. and a.d. 2000. Little wonder that Real Simple has been the most successful magazine launch in a decade, and the blogosphere is abuzz over the season's hottest tech innovation--the Hipster PDA: 15 index cards held together by a binder clip.
With Google's extraordinary trajectory and the stratospheric success of Apple's iPod--itself a marvel of simplicity and, with 20 million units sold, a staggering hit--we seem to be nearing a seminal moment. Whereas endless Sunday Styles stories may have failed to get its attention, the tech industry's interest is invariably galvanized by cash. If the equation T (technology) + E (ease of use) = $ can be proven, the time may be right for the voice of the technologically challenged who can't operate their remotes to be heard.
In a 2002 poll, the Consumer Electronics Association discovered that 87% of people said ease of use is the most important thing when it comes to new technologies. "Engineers say, 'Do you know how much complexity we've managed to build in here?' But consumers say, 'I don't care. It's just supposed to work!' " says Daryl Plummer, group vice president at Gartner Group.
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