#837: How to Simplify Your Life in 2026 — New Tips from Derek Sivers, Seth Godin, and Martha Beck

0:00 Hello, boys and girls, ladies and germs. This is Tim Ferris. Welcome to another episode of the Tim Ferris Show. This time around, we have a different format from my normal long form interviews. You can find eight hundred plus of those at Tim.blog slash podcast, but this time around I thought I would do something very self serving. There's something on my mind. As we head into the new year. Many of us Me too. Feel like we're drowning in invisible complexity. Or perhaps we simplified and simplified, but

0:31 Lo and behold. Without fail, complexity starts to creep back in. This happens, right? It's like going to the gym. You can't just go once, you need to constantly refine. and revert to simplify, simplify, simplify. So I wanted to hit pause. on long form interviews. We'll have more coming, but ask a simple question. What are the one to three decisions that I could make That would dramatically simplify my life in twenty twenty six, this upcoming year, right? In January, hopefully. To explore that, I invited three close friends and longtime listener favorites, Derek Sivers, Seth Godin, and Martha Beck, to share.

1:07 What they have done in their lives that has worked already. So from Derek Sivers, you'll learn how Derek uses a radical approach to living from first principles instead of default settings from Seth Godin, how a handful of hard rules can turn a messy professional life into something simple and focused on your best work, and from Martha Beck. How making one radical commitment forced her through growing pains, but led to a vastly simpler life built around peace. And meaning. And if you like this episode, I'll do more of these because certainly I want to beg, borrow, and steal from people like Derek. Seth. And Martha. And I've applied this a lot in my own life. In 2020, I used a guiding tenet that I learned really polished, I would say, from two other podcast guests, Greg McEwen and

1:54 author of Essentialism and Jim Collins, author of many, many mega bestsellers. And here it is, look for single decisions that remove hundreds or thousands of other decisions. This was one of the most important lessons that Jim, Jim Collins, learned from legendary management theorist Peter Drucker, also an amazing author in his own right, the effective executive, I still recommend to anyone and everyone. As Jim recounted on our first podcast, And I'll quote here, don't make a hundred decisions when one will do. Peter believed that you tend to think that you're making a lot of different decisions, but then actually, if you kind of strip it away, you begin to realize that a whole lot of decisions that look like different decisions are really part of the same category. Of Decision.

2:41 And I've applied this in my own life in a lot of different places. So my startup vacation slash retirement that I took from 2015 to 2018, I asked myself across the board yet again, what can I categorically and completely remove, even temporarily, to create space for seeing the bigger picture, exploring. Finding gems. I've applied that to doing no public speaking for years. at a time. In twenty twenty, for instance, I committed to not reading any new books whatsoever, which I extended indefinitely. And you can read about that decision, which talks about some of the principles involved also at Tim.blog slash new books. That single decision solved. What seemed like

3:24 Maybe a dozen disparate time consuming. problems and I'm looking for more of those. So Without further ado, please enjoy now. Tips and stories from Derek Seth. And Martha.

3:37 Optimal minimal. At this altitude, I can run flat out for a half mile before my hands start shaking. And then else you personal question. No, it's in my own. I'm a cybernetic organism, living tissue over metal and doscelling. Hi, I'm Derek Sivers, and I'm fascinated with the implications of simplicity.

4:07 Most people don't want a simple life. They want an easy life. But a simple life can be hard. My life changed when I learned what simple really means. Simple comes from simple.

4:23 The opposite of complex. Complex comes from complex, the verb that means to intertwine. This is important. Remember this. Dear listener.

4:35 Your life is complex when it is intertwined with dependencies. You are depending on things and things are depending on you. Your life is simple. when it is not complex. It's not intertwined with other things.

4:53 But that means depending on less. Notice how easy it was to make your life complex. Just say Sign Me Up. Just click Buy Now. Just say, you're hired.

5:07 Congratulations, you just made your life easier. But now It's objectively more complex, but Untangling that means quitting.

5:19 Firing. Unsubscribing Uninstalling, disconnecting, breaking ties, breaking commitments, and getting rid of a lot of the things you own. But that makes life harder. And hardest of all

5:34 It means letting go of big parts of your identity. No more Superman self-image. It's admitting. You can't do it all, said You'll disappoint people that depend on you.

5:48 You'll say no. To almost everything. It's kind of a sad mantra. No No,

5:56 No. No Sorry, no. Nope. But maybe you don't really want a simple life.

6:05 Maybe your deepest joy comes from all your entanglements. Friends who depend on you, services and subscriptions and assistance and pets and tools of titans that make your life easier. you probably have a career. And a spouse. And a child, and a hobby, and a pet, and a home, and I doubt

6:27 You want to get rid of all but one of those. So You have different aspects, and that's that. But you can still simplify your life within each identity. Instead of intertwining them, untangle them, and keep them separate,

6:44 When focused on one, give it your full attention and make the rest disappear. Like in my case, when I'm with my boy, my phone is off. I'm unreachable. And if I think of anything else, then like meditation, I let it go. and I bring my full attention back to him. Within each of your aspects you can be temporarily simple. Your phone is the enemy of this since it intertwines everything.

7:10 Anyway. Enough preface. Tim? You asked for my three Major

7:16 Simplifications. Number one. No subscriptions. No Spotify, no Netflix, no memberships, no monthly obligations, no mortgage, No employees, no team, no publisher,

7:32 No contracts. Nobody depending on me. Except my boy. We all draw the line somewhere. Number two

7:42 Programming For me this was huge, but most of your audience can't relate, so I'll make this quick for my fellow programmers. I simplified my computer programming code so it has no dependencies, no external libraries. If something really matters to me, I code it myself. If I don't want to code it myself, then it must not be that important.

8:05 And I do without it. It's harder up front to make what I need. But long term, it makes everything objectively simpler. easier to understand, maintain, and change. Long term, it feels better and feelings matter.

8:22 To my fellow programmers listening, go find my code on GitHub and email me if you want. I love talking tech. Number three. Building a house from scratch. I mentioned this briefly on our last podcast, and I got so many emails about it. I didn't like living in existing houses full of shit I don't need.

8:43 So I bought a piece of off grid land and In the forest in New Zealand. Then my son and I started living full time in a tiny cabin there. To see what we really need. Starting from scratch.

8:56 makes you question the necessity of everything. Do I really need lights? Do I really need curtains? Do I really need a kitchen? Do I really need an indoor bathroom?

9:09 Instead of assuming I do, I try living without it in practice. Instead of just in theory. It's no by default. And a very reluctant yes only when proven to be necessary.

9:25 In all three of my examples here, life would be easier up front. If I said yes instead of no But long term. My life is objectively simpler without them. Less comforts.

9:40 But less complexity. Less dependencies, less obligations, less to maintain. Easier to change. Like a hermit crab. The less you're bound to

9:53 The easier it is to grow. It's thinking long term versus short term. Deep happy versus shallow happy It makes me deeply happy to shed some comforts in return for a simple life, simple code, simple home. It's easy at first.

10:12 To make your life complex. But it's a long term trap. It's hard at first to make your life simple. But it's a deeper long term benefit. For the peace of mind.

10:25 Self reliance. Control and freedom to change. Hey, it's Seth Godin. I'm an author of Twenty One Bestsellers, a Daily Blogger.

10:37 An entrepreneur? And a teacher. And I'm thrilled to be with you today talking about The hard work. Of

10:45 Simplifying. I start with the idea that it's hard work. Because if it was easy. You would have done it already. We are surrounded by systems, invisible systems.

10:58 Persistent systems. Systems. That push us. To be stuck. Where we are.

11:04 And if we're going to Leverage our agency. Take advantage of our freedom. And change. The systems around us.

11:12 It helps to begin by acknowledging. It's not easy. So there are a few things. That I would like to share. Simple. Ways.

11:21 To simplify. But they weren't easy. The first one is this. Real clarity. About

11:28 What? It's four. And who it's for, particularly the who. Start. With who?

11:35 This work You are doing. Who is it? Trying to please. If you're trying to make the stock price go up, make the stock price go up.

11:44 But don't be surprised. Yeah. The kid down the street isn't impressed. Is what you do for a living. If

11:51 You are writing something. For people who speak English. Don't be upset if someone who speaks Italian Can't read what you wrote. Make

12:01 Hard decisions, difficult choices. About who it's for. And then Ignore Everyone else.

12:10 So if you write a book And someone gives you a one star review on Amazon, they're telling you nothing. About how good the book is. All they're telling you. Is that it wasn't for them.

12:22 No reason to read that. They weren't on your list. Of who It's four. Again and again.

12:29 When I come back to the discipline. About who I am here to serve. I can then highlight whether I've made a good decision or not.

12:39 About. That who And then I can go back. To work. Number two.

12:47 Finding clarity about the grey areas. Because it's when there are grey areas. When we have to constantly analyze left or right. Up or down, a little bit more. Or a little bit less.

13:00 Things get Complicated. I begin with this. Budgets. And deadlines.

13:07 Choose to be a professional. Never. Go over budget. Never. Miss a deadline.

13:14 That's simple. When you run out of money Or you run out of time. You're done. You don't have to

13:22 Weedle. Or plead. Or negotiate. Or rob Peter to pay Paul. When you run out of money.

13:28 We run out of time. You're done. This makes you Much more focused when you accept A budget. When you accept

13:37 A deadline. Because you have a code. You're not gonna miss either one. Second Yeses.

13:46 And knows. Make your yes mean yes. Make your know me know. Say your no. Quite clearly.

13:53 Without offending people. But with clarity. Get it over with. No. I won't be able to do that. Yes.

14:01 I can take this on. When we are clear. About what's a yes. And what to know? Life

14:09 Gets much simpler. Doesn't get easier. It's easier. To just sort of waffle your way through and see what happens. But With

14:19 The simplicity Comes clarity. And then we can get to work. The third one, a tiny one.

14:28 Don't go to a meeting if a memo will suffice. In big organizations this can save you thirty hours a week. But even As a soloist, as a freelancer. It forces us into clarity.

14:42 Say what you need to say. And move on. Conversations are great. I'm in favor of conversations, but meetings? Meetings almost always make things.

14:51 Complicated. And the last one I'll share with you. Is personal. Time boundaries. Which is a version of budgets and deadlines.

15:00 We make a promise to ourselves. When are we on the hook for work and when are we not? You can't Shortcut your way. Just success.

15:10 By spending more time. And everyone else. You're gonna run out of time anyway. So when I add all this up It means.

15:19 No social media. Unless it serves the project. No reading of reviews. Unless You're doing it.

15:26 In a way that's going to make your work actually better. Don't take a gig. Well you can't Do a good job. And be happy.

15:33 About doing it. And tell me The same story. To everyone. It makes it much easier.

15:40 To keep your life organized. And that makes it. Simple. We have Fenty.

15:47 Plenty of ideas. Plenty of energy. To do extraordinary work. But then

15:55 The systems make things. Complicated. Resist the easy path. When you make it simple.

16:04 You put yourself on the hook. I'm a hook to show up. To do what you said you were gonna do. And to do it with grace and care. Work that matters.

16:14 For people who care. Here's the thing. Nobody signs up. For a complicated life. Nobody signs up.

16:21 to find themselves wasting a lot of time. In a swamp. Of complications. We get there. Drip by drip.

16:29 Bit by bit. Compromise by compromise. We get there. Trying to play it safe. Spreading things out.

16:36 Instead of being specific. So A few really specific examples from me. So you can think about The ramifications and repercussions of deciding.

16:47 To play it simple. For example I don't go to meetings. I don't watch television on my own. I don't look at Facebook.

16:55 Or Twitter. If you get rid of these four things. How many hours a day? would be freed up. It would make your life simpler. Also the stakes

17:05 Would be Much. higher. Because You'd have to put yourself on the hook.

17:10 For specific things. Things. You got great at Because of the things. You just

17:16 Gave up. Or Figuring out what you stand for. When I got to business school I looked at the cases that they were giving people. There were about eight pages of prose and eight pages of spreadsheets.

17:30 And I realized Professors. Needed. To have students who when they called on them To analyze the case.

17:38 Would give them a The kind of feedback. That they needed. To keep. The discussion going.

17:44 So I decided on that first day to simplify my life. And never Do A spreadsheet. That if a professor called on me and asked me for a numerical analysis

17:55 I would simply say. I didn't have one. It wouldn't take long for professors to realize. That they could embarrass me if they wanted to. But then the class wouldn't flow.

18:05 But in exchange for that simplification. I had to be really ready and really good. At coming up with something useful. For the prose section. Something that would be referred to at least twice.

18:17 Through the rest of the discussion. By focusing on that, by simplifying. I put myself on the hook. And it ended up. Becoming

18:26 Part of what I stood for. Same thing with Building a reputation for doing offbeat sort of book projects. At the same time saying I will never miss a deadline. And I will never.

18:37 Go over budget. Made my life simpler. But it also made it. A bit. Scarier.

18:43 One more example. Also very prosaic. Makes things simpler. And make things harder. When I give presentations and I've given more than a thousand of them around the world I have a very specific rider.

18:57 About how I do it. I don't Change. The rules. I don't have a discussion with the client saying, Do I mean do it this way or do I mean do it that way?

19:06 My friend Simon Sinek. He shows up he wants a flip pad. Me? I show up and I say, Will not work in the round? Because no audience member has ever said, Oh

19:16 It was great that way. I got to see their back half the time. And I always use The same. Tech setup Why?

19:23 It's not because I don't like exploring new ideas. It's because By simplifying The way I do. One thing.

19:31 I opened the door. Richer? Deeper. And more.

19:36 Complicated. I Just a quick thanks to our sponsors and we'll be right back to the show. Longtime listeners know how important privacy is to me. In fact, my friends would call me Paranoid, or they used to call me paranoid, and now they think I was just depression in a sense. These days, you may have noticed, it is a lot harder.

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22:20 I Hi. I'm Martha Beck. I'm an author, a coach. Podcaster. Mom.

22:28 And I'm here to tell you about one decision. That radically simplified my entire life. It also helped me create this deep sense of meaning and purpose and peace that I can always access now. So I highly recommend it.

22:43 It started when I was twenty nine years old. I made a decision. To follow the experience of joy. Above all Other factors.

22:55 Or considerations. Yeah. I don't just mean any positive feeling. Like we can feel happy, we can feel up when we're manic, when we're on drugs. when uh we buy something that we don't need and get a dopamine hit. In fact, almost all the things that we turn to to feel better create that jolt of dopamine and other hormones in the brain that we come to crave. And then we have to Do more and more and more.

23:21 To feel as happy as we did the first time we did that. So That's not really functional. What

23:28 I'm talking about Is A sort of quiet release that resonates through every aspect of our nervous systems. Yeah. When we connect with it.

23:41 All our muscles relax. And you can't fake that. When you think of somebody you love You hold their image in your mind. Your muscles will relax.

23:50 As long as there's no argument going on. And We may Breathe more deeply. Especially exhaling.

23:58 Like that sigh of relief. Yeah. We may smile. Spontaneously. Even if there's nobody there to see it?

24:05 And we feel a sense of lifting or opening. It is a physical and emotional sense of Freedom. So

24:15 Once I'd made this decision to follow only that sensation. My way of charting a course through life became Really radically simplified. Wasn't always easy, but it was very simple. So the only rule was

24:31 If it feels like True joy go toward it. If it feels like misery and pain. Go away from it. And here's the kicker.

24:39 No matter. What? So

24:43 I began following this credo and it was like playing a game of You're getting warmer, you're getting cooler. If it's more like joy, I'm getting warmer. If it's less like joy, if it's more tense, I'm getting cooler. And I found that even when something felt daunting or frightening. It was clear and simple. You need a bit of practice. to access the sensations, but once you get there, if you can feel any

25:10 Trace of joy in the body, heart, mind, soul. It becomes really distinct. You can use it as your Getting warmer, getting colder. Measurement.

25:23 So I started doing this no matter what. That included breaking the rules of a lot of relationships I'd had. Uh I was because they didn't feel like joy. Or the way they were being played out didn't feel like joy to me. So I I would either back off

25:41 Or I'd really change the behaviour. Uh my own behavior in that situation until I felt joy. So some people dropped away from my life. Actually a lot of people did. I'll get to that in a minute. It won't happen to you. Um But after I'd been living this way for a while Even though it did create some.

26:00 short term chaos in my life. I began to feel stronger and clearer than I ever had and more At peace. I had A little cluster, a large cluster actually, of autoimmune illnesses.

26:15 For which there was no cure? They all went into remission. People started Asking me.

26:22 why this was happening and why I always seem to have Amazing luck. I was always In a situation that was sort of benevolent or beneficent to me. Yeah. So I began talking to people and it turned into coaching people.

26:35 I would say, Okay, here we go. This is the instruction. Pay close attention. If something feels really great to you, if you can feel it.

26:46 feeding your soul and your body In your heart. Maybe do a little more of that. But

26:54 If something Always drains you. And leaves you feeling miserable. Maybe do less of that. Yeah.

27:02 Like this is not rocket science here. But I'm I'm gonna repeat it to make it crystal clear. Because weirdly People have trouble wrapping their minds around it. So

27:16 I'm gonna say to whoever's listening, if you wanna try this If a person, a place, a task is Even a thought. In fact, especially A thought.

27:26 If that specific thing feels peaceful and joyful, then And makes your muscles relax and your face smile spontaneously. Do more of it. Go toward that. And if something makes you feel

27:40 Crunched up and miserable. And again, this can be anything from a significant relationship or a career or anything in your life. All the way down to the most fleeting thought. If it makes you feel miserable. Do less Love it.

27:56 It's always amazed me that people are amazed by this. It's so simple, right? But we can get caught in culture and pressure to do things that don't bring us joy. Yeah. So To my own astonishment, I made an entire career out of teaching people to adopt this one incredibly simple.

28:17 But radically honest approach to life. So what prompted this? When I was twenty nine I had surgery and while I was in surgery I had a near death like experience and uh There was a bright light that appeared, maybe it was my brain, maybe it was I don't know, some

28:36 Mystical being. I don't know. But its presence filled me with A level of joy that I never remembered experiencing before. And it seemed to communicate with me. Again, could be my subconscious. And it said

28:50 Your entire task in life is to live in a way that feels like you're feeling now. So I very suddenly made a total commitment to joy and I never went back on it. And Some chaos did result. Everything that wasn't working in my life left me, or I left it.

29:10 And in my case that meant my entire culture because I'd grown up in a very, very, very deeply Dogmatic religion. I left that. That meant that I left my family of origin.

29:23 They stop talking to me. I eventually left my marriage, my job. My career. My house that I was living in. And at the time.

29:33 Pretty much Everything that gave me my identity, but also created harm or exhaustion. All those things left with astonishing speed. I felt grief and fear while this was happening, but those emotions were now overlaid on a sort of bedrock of peace. Something I think came from the deepest part of me beginning to trust that I would actually take care of it.

29:56 What was hard, what was easy it was very hard to keep my promise when in relationship with others who didn't approve. It was hard to face the judgment of people who didn't Go along with my new Credo. Yeah. But

30:10 My life as a whole became so much easier. It was so easy to tell only the truth. Lies and secrets are very hard on the emotions. What has been the payoff? Every single moment

30:22 of pure delight or deep meaning I've experienced since. And there have been so, so, so, so many. The payoff was finding my way to wonderful relationships. The payoff was doing only the work I love in this world. So the sense of purpose. The sense of being on purpose. Never leaves me.

30:40 The payoff ultimately was coming. Home. I realise that Home was inside me. And when I went there

30:49 The entire world. Felt like home. The payoff. Is never ever Having to leave a state of peace.

30:58 And I wish you. That experience. I wish it for everyone. Hope it helps. Hey guys, this is Tim again, just one more thing before you take off, and that is Five Bullet Friday. Would you enjoy getting a short email from me every Friday that provides a little fun before the weekend? Between one and a half and two million people subscribe to my free newsletter, my super short newsletter called Five Bullet Friday.

31:23 Easy to sign up, easy to cancel. It is basically a half page that I send out every Friday to share the coolest things I've found or discovered or have started exploring over that week. It's kinda like my diary of cool things. It often includes articles I'm reading, books I'm reading, albums perhaps. gadgets, gizmos, all sorts of tech tricks and so on that get sent to me by my friends including a lot of podcast guests and these strange esoteric things end up in my field and then I test them and then I share them with you. So if that sounds fun, again, it's very short. a little tiny bite of goodness before you head off for the weekend, something to think about. If you'd like to try it out, just go to Tim.blog slash Friday, type that into your browser, Tim.blog slash Friday, drop in your email and you'll get the very next one. Thanks for listening.

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