Often people build too much complexity into their lives, and complexity can pull from their joy and happiness. It can drain the strength that enables them to be their best and impact others.

Living simply brings a balance to our lives. It’s more than just a trend called minimalism that might carry its torch for a while and then fade away, as most trends do. I believe we can all benefit from bringing more simplicity to our lives for the long haul.

I read somewhere that living simply creates space to live our truth. I like that. It becomes a matter of capacity. How full is your cup (your space)? When we fill up our calendars, our minds, our cabinets, our closets, and even our down time to the point of overflow, we don’t have the space to live out the things that are most important. We become defined by what we do and what we have instead of who we are. Simplicity does create space—space I call “margin time”—for things like serving others, reading, investing time with our families.

So how full is your cup? If it’s overflowing, this chapter is for you. You may be stuck in that mode simply because you lack awareness or you have a fuzzy vision, or because of poor decisions you’ve made. My tagline is “Change your thinking, change your results.” I believe you can make your life richer and fuller by strategically bringing simplicity to your awareness and taking actions to make it a reality.

On a personal note, with every book I write, I do my best to think through whether I’m personally living out what I’m writing. Ninety-nine percent of the time I can answer with a resounding yes! Occasionally, though, I ask myself if I can make an impact on my own life by doing more of whatever I’m writing about. Throughout all of my books and teachings, you’ll find that I have put in place many processes to simplify my life; however, there’s always room for improvement, and Strategic Simplicity has become more and more important to me in recent years. As I write this, I can think of several areas in which further simplification would enable me to do more of the things that are important to me. I think every reader needs to have that same kind of reflection.

We’ve divided this work into three sections, and I believe you can be strategic about all three:

• Defining Simplicity (the What)
• The Benefits of a Simple Life (the Why)
• Strategic Actions for Achieving Simplicity (the How)

My life’s mission is zeroed in on encouraging people, coaching them to think, and helping them get more of the right RESULTS (the results they want) even faster! My hope is that this article provides you with a synopsis of what I have found to be essential to the original mini book will do exactly that for you.