However Vast the Darkness: Thoughts on Simplifying One's Day & the Meaning of Life

Hello Lovelies,

One of my main goals in simplifying my day & life is this: "Do more of what makes you happy".

So... I have started to simplify my day and joined the June 2013 ZenHabits challenge. Part of my simplifying project consists in simplifying my online life, too.

I started emptying my email inbox, 35 emails at a time, 70 per day. My inbox currently has over 11 000 unsorted emails in it! I file away the important messages, answer immediately the really important and urgent ones, and toss the rest. I have subscribed to a gazillion newsletters over the years, as I surf the net daily since 1997... I unsuscribe from one newsletter a day. I still need to do the math as to know when exactly my inbox will be finally 100% clean & empty.

After that, I plan to go on a light media fast once i complete the June challenge, at the beginning of July 2013 (more on that later).

Simplifying my online life means that I started to clean and empty my email box, as I said before, but also cleaned my computer desktop icons - now I only have 10 of them, along with a new beautiful abstract painting desktop wallpaper from Ghostly, found via apartmenttherapy.com. It looks like this (you right-click the image in order to save it as a desktop wallpaper):

I also organized my many, many digital files, all the photos I have been taking digitally since 2003! While cleaning my photo files, I found this gem, and wanted to share the wisdom with you lovelies.

Excerpt from a Playboy interview with Stanley Kubrick:

Enjoy!
-Naomi of TeaButterfly.

I Want a Simpler Life but... Where Do I Start?

Hello Lovelies,

original image via - text added by me.

This blogpost is a bit of a note-to-self kind, but i am publishing it here so it might be useful to others, too.

Well, do you want, just like me, a simpler, slower, more filfilling, zen-like & do-what-you-love kind of life? Do you want to actually live your dream life? OK, me too! ;-)

...But the task of simplifying may seem daunting and well... not so simple! We're often at a loss as to where do we even begin!

That is why I did a little research online and found out 3 must-read simplicity resources.

First, I highly recommend ypu read a short, simple personal story, so you can get the picture. This is simply because, if you know what your dream is, you can start & achieve it! Or, as Jennifer and Aby put it: "Living Your Dream Life Begins with Knowing What You Want."

a beautiful reminder to just "stop & smell the roses", via

You can then have a look at a very thorough zen guide to simple living that answers simply the difficult question of "where do I start?". I suggest you pick a maximum of 5 points (out of this list) - simply choose the ones that are particularly appealing to you, and start working on them... now!
I, for instance, love points #9 #13 #14 #15 of the ZenHabits guide mentioned above.

So, in a nutshell, determine what is your biggest dream/goal and read/act accordingly.

Roughly the same thing as the ZenHabits guide, but in French, the "Par où commencer ?" guide to personal development.

In closing, my motto, beautifully calligraphed:

image via

Enjoy!

 -Naomi of TeaButterfly.

PS: if you're willing to dig deeper, there are literally tons of reading material on and offline including these pinterest boards of mine:

* visual candy to help you get organized at home
* articles (less visual) to read about "getting things done"
* visual inspiration : what a simple life looks like

And, finally, the Brain Pickings site has a whole range of articles on the subject of "do what you love" for a living. You can start by this one: "How to Find Your Purpose and Do What You Love"