The power of simplicity isn’t that it creates a perfect life. It’s about creating a lighter one. A clearer one. A life that feels aligned instead of crowded, purposeful instead of rushed, and grounded instead of scattered.
Simplicity Is a Choice
“I believe that simplicity is having only what you truly need to be happy.” ~ Patty Kreamer
Donna didn’t think of herself as unhappy. She thought of herself as busy. When life felt quiet, she shopped. When the house felt empty, she filled it. When her thoughts turned lonely, she distracted herself with something new. A new purchase, a new project, a new distraction.
Her home slowly filled with knick-knacks and “just in case” items. Her calendar filled with errands and obligations. Her mind filled with a steady, unspoken message: “I am not enough. I need more.” More things. More activity. More proof that she mattered. But none of it really worked. The loneliness didn’t leave. It just changed shape.
Then, almost by accident, Donna discovered simplicity. Not minimalism. Not deprivation. Simplicity.
She stopped asking, “What else can I add?” And started asking, “What actually matters?” She cleared a small space. She slowed a few decisions. She said no once or twice when she would have said yes before. And something unexpected happened. The noise faded. The pressure eased. The loneliness softened. Not because her life had become smaller, but because it had become clearer.
That’s when Donna realized something powerful: Simplicity isn’t about having less. It’s about making room for what matters most.
And that is at the heart of Excelerated Simplicity™: choosing clarity over clutter, meaning over motion, and intention over impulse.
Chaos Comes from Living Unconsciously
Life gets complicated when we stop choosing and start reacting. And if we’re honest, most of us know exactly how that happens. We get busy. Tired. Overloaded. We tell ourselves we’ll think things through “later.” We put off decisions because they feel heavy, emotional, or just plain uncomfortable.
Sometimes the choices are painful, like sorting through a deceased parent’s belongings. Sometimes they’re intimidating, like making a decision we don’t feel qualified to make. And sometimes we’re just worn down enough that reacting feels easier than choosing.
So we go on autopilot. We keep doing what we’ve always done. We keep adding instead of evaluating. We keep moving instead of noticing. And slowly, quietly, chaos takes root. The subtle kind. The kind that shows up as cluttered spaces, crowded schedules, and a constant low-level sense of pressure. Much of our stress doesn’t come from what’s happening to us. It comes from how little intention we bring to what’s happening within us.
Simplicity begins with awareness. With the gentle decision to wake up to your own life. That doesn’t require perfection. It requires presence. Becoming more conscious means slowing down just enough to notice:
- What you’re thinking
- What you’re feeling
- What you’re choosing
- And what you’re avoiding
This is where mindfulness becomes practical, not mystical. Mindfulness simply means paying attention on purpose. It’s learning to notice your inner world without immediately judging it or trying to fix it. It creates a brief pause between impulse and action, making choice possible again. You don’t need a silent retreat or an hour-long meditation to begin. You just need willingness.
It can begin with simple practices like these:
- taking three slow breaths
- writing one honest sentence in a journal
- pausing before you say yes
- noticing tension in your body
These are acts of simplicity. Excelerated Simplicity™ begins right here: With awareness. With choice. With the courage to live on purpose instead of on autopilot.
Simplicity Brings Clarity
In The Power of Simplicity, Patty Kreamer encourages us to live on purpose rather than react. That one shift changes everything. When you know what truly matters to you, decisions get easier. You don’t have to analyze every option to death. You simply ask, “Does this support what I care about most?” If it does, it stays. If it doesn’t, it goes.
That’s clarity. And clarity is incredibly freeing.
Living with purpose means aligning your actions, habits, and environment with your deeper values. It means your calendar reflects what’s important to you. Your home supports how you want to live. Your energy flows toward what actually nourishes you.
Simplicity makes this possible by removing the noise. It strips away the unnecessary so the essential can finally be seen.
Most of our daily stress doesn’t come from big disasters. It comes from small, constant friction:
- not being able to find what we need
- feeling overcommitted
- juggling too many unfinished tasks
- carrying too many emotional “open loops”
And here’s the truth we often miss: Clutter isn’t just physical.
It shows up as:
- emotional swirl
- overcrowded calendars
- mental overload
- decision fatigue
When life feels complicated, it’s usually because too much is competing for our attention at once. Simplicity restores order. Not by making life smaller, but by making it clearer.
When you simplify:
- your mind calms
- your focus sharpens
- your choices strengthen
- your energy returns
You gain capacity for what actually matters:
- deeper relationships
- purpose-aligned work
- peace of mind
- personal well-being
Simplicity doesn’t remove anything meaningful. It gives you space to finally live what you already know is meaningful.
The Power of the PAUSE
“Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.” ~ Viktor E. Frankl
When you purchase a new item, take on a new obligation, or buy another “gazingus pen”, you are frequently acting out of habit, responding automatically to a stimulus without much thought. But as Viktor Frankl wisely observes, we have a moment to pause and choose our response.
Josh Davis refers to such moments as decision points, “the few moments during each day when you have the opportunity and ability to choose how you spend your time” [1] (or your money or your mental and emotional energy). And, he tells us, we tend to rush through these decision points. We don’t recognize the space between stimulus and response because we want to move on to the next task. But Patty Kreamer provides a tool we can use – the power of PAUSE. It’s that space of time, the decision point, after an event occurs and before we react.
PAUSE is an acronym, made up of: Purpose Assess Understand Stabilize Execute [2]
Purpose = How does the new item, the new commitment, or the Nth gazingus pen fit into our overall plan? What purpose will it serve?
Assess = Examine your home, your office, your state of mind, and your time commitments. How will this new opportunity/obligation impact your life? “As you assess the situation and find that it is not acceptable, stop here. If it is acceptable, proceed.” [2]
Understand = Step back for a moment and understand the consequences of what you are considering. How will it change your life? Are you OK with that?
Stabilize = “This is where you take your pulse to be sure that you are not racing to any snap decisions.” [2] If it’s a workable choice, you should feel stable. If you don’t, stop.
Execute = If you reach this step, proceed with your plan or choice, confident that you have made a conscious decision, not a mindless reaction.
So at your next “decision point”, PAUSE to make a better, more mindful decision.
Small Steps Bring Results
“You don’t simplify your life in a weekend. You simplify it one decision at a time.”
When practicing Excelerated Simplicity™, small changes create big relief. Simplicity doesn’t arrive through massive purges. It grows through small, steady shifts.
You can take a weekend to purge and organize your basement, garage, closet, or bedroom, and that is a step in the right direction. It can leave you feeling lighter. But that is only the beginning, the first step.
Sure, organizing and decluttering have a role in living a simpler life. But it doesn’t end there. Every day, you have choices in what you acquire, what obligations you take on, how you spend your time. Recognizing these decision points as they arise, responding mindfully instead of mindless reaction, and PAUSEing to consider your choices are all small steps that lead to a simpler life.
Simplicity Creates Emotional Peace
“As within, so without.”
Order outside supports calm inside. In her book, Outer Order, Inner Calm, Gretchen Rubin writes: “In my study of happiness, I’ve realized that for most of us, outer order contributes to inner calm. More than it should.” [3]
Brian Tracy, author, speaker, and personal development master, calls this “The Law of Correspondence. As within, so without.” [4] Our outer world is a mirror, reflecting what is happening inside us. Look around you, and you see the manifestation of your thinking — clear and orderly or messy, confused, and cluttered.
This law works both ways. Clean up the inside, and the outside gets neater. Or declutter the outside and see the inside become calmer. And, as in most things, it is easier to act your way to new thinking than to think your way to new actions.
When life becomes simpler, the mind follows. In the final analysis, Excelerated Simplicity™ isn’t about organization; it’s about inner peace.
A Simple Way to Practice Simplicity
The Excelerated Simplicity™ Action Checklist provides one hundred actions you can take to begin living more simply.
Of course, in the spirit of simplicity, don’t try to do them all at once!
Pick one. Just one. Complete it to the best of your ability at this time. Then pick another one. Work through the actions at your own pace. Before long, you’ll notice things changing, both internally and externally. Fewer complications, more peace. That’s the objective of Excelerated Simplicity™.
The Power of Simplicity
The power of simplicity is that it returns your life to what you already know matters. And the only question is whether you’re ready to choose it.
Simplicity is not a destination you arrive at. It’s something you choose. Over and over again. In small, quiet moments. At everyday decision points. It’s choosing awareness instead of autopilot. It’s choosing clarity instead of clutter. It’s choosing intention instead of impulse.
Simplicity doesn’t demand that you give up what you love. It invites you to let go of what no longer serves you. And in that letting go, you don’t lose anything essential. You recover it. You recover your time. You recover your energy. You recover your attention. You recover your peace.
Excelerated Simplicity™ isn’t about creating a perfect life. It’s about creating a lighter one. A clearer one. A life that feels aligned instead of crowded, purposeful instead of rushed, and grounded instead of scattered.
You don’t need to change everything.
You only need to notice the next decision point and PAUSE.
You only need to ask, “Does this support what truly matters to me?”
And then choose accordingly.
The power of simplicity lies not in what you remove. It is found in what you finally make room for:
More presence.
More peace.
More meaning.
More life.
That is the gift of Excelerated Simplicity™. It’s another step on the path to embracing your Excelerated Life™!
What is one thing calling you to simplify?
What is one small step you can take to begin that process today?
Share your thoughts by leaving a comment below.
Excelerated Simplicity™ — freeing yourself from unnecessary complexity — is one practice for creating your Excelerated Life™, a life of flourishing and well-being, and a life of meaning, purpose, and service.
Read more about the Excelerated Life™.
Resources:
[1] Davis, Josh. Two Awesome Hours. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, Inc., 2015.
[2] Kreamer, Patty. The Power of Simplicity: Choosing to live your life on purpose. Pittsburgh, PA: Publish Connect, 2004.
[3] Rubin, Gretchin. Outer Order, Inner Calm. New York: Crown Publishers, 2019.
[4] Meah, Asad. “Seven Mental Laws Of Success From Brian Tracy.” Awaken The Greatness Within. AwakenTheGreatnessWithin,. Web. February 26, 2019.
https://awakenthegreatnesswithin.com/seven-mental-laws-of-success-from-brian-tracy/
This blog post includes research information and suggestions provided by ChatGPT, an AI language model developed by OpenAI. The content was generated with AI assistance and is intended to provide information and guidance. Please note that the suggestions are not official statements from OpenAI. To learn more about ChatGPT and its capabilities, you can visit the OpenAI website.