I Got Tired of My Own Life. So I Started Removing Things.
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A few years ago, I opened my closet one morning and just stood there. I couldn't find anything to wear — not because I had too little, but because I had too much. Shirts I hadn't touched in years. Shoes still in the box. Jackets for occasions that never seemed to come. And in that moment, staring at a closet stuffed with things I didn't use, I had this quiet realization:
My entire life looked like that closet.
Too many commitments I didn't care about. Too many apps, too many subscriptions, too many group chats. Too many half-finished projects and half-meant promises. A schedule so packed that I couldn't remember the last time I did something just because I wanted to.
I wasn't living a full life. I was living a cluttered one.
That morning marked the beginning of something I'm still doing today — slowly, imperfectly, and honestly with a lot of resistance — learning how to simplify.
Why We Overcomplicate Everything (Without Meaning To)
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Nobody wakes up one day and decides to make their life unbearably complicated. It happens gradually, almost invisibly.
You say yes to one more thing because saying no feels rude. You keep the gym membership you never use because canceling feels like admitting defeat. You hold onto clothes, furniture, relationships, habits, and obligations that stopped serving you a long time ago — because letting go takes energy, and you're already running low.
There's also a cultural story we've all absorbed about more being better. More options mean more freedom, right? More stuff means more security. More connections mean more opportunity. We are surrounded by systems — advertising, social media, consumer culture — that are specifically designed to make us want more, sign up for more, accumulate more.
And then we wonder why we feel overwhelmed.
Here's what I've come to believe after years of wrestling with this: complexity is not the same as richness. A life crammed with things, people, and obligations isn't a full life. It's a busy one. And those two things feel similar from the outside but feel completely different from the inside.
What Simplifying Actually Means
Before I get into the practical stuff, I want to clear something up — because when people hear "simplify your life," they often picture some extreme version of it. A tiny house. A capsule wardrobe of twelve items. Moving off the grid and growing their own food.
And if that's your dream, go for it. But that's not what most of us need.
Simplifying your life just means this: getting intentional about what you let in. It means looking at your time, your space, your energy, and your relationships — and asking honestly whether the things filling them are actually giving something back.
It's not about having less for the sake of having less. It's about making room for what actually matters to you by clearing out what doesn't.
That looks different for everyone. For some people it means decluttering their home. For others it means cutting back on social obligations. For others it means quitting three of the five side projects they've been halfheartedly working on for a year. There's no one-size-fits-all version of simple. There's just your version.
Start With the Physical: Your Space Reflects Your Headspace
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I know it sounds almost too basic, but the first place I'd tell anyone to start is their physical environment. Not because stuff is the root of all problems, but because it's tangible, it's immediate, and the results are fast enough to be motivating.
There's a reason the whole decluttering conversation exploded the way it did over the last decade. It's not just a trend — there's real psychology behind it. Studies show that cluttered environments increase cortisol levels, make it harder to focus, and contribute to that low-grade sense of being overwhelmed that many of us have normalized.
When I finally cleared out my closet — properly, ruthlessly, donating bags and bags of things I'd been keeping "just in case" — something shifted. The space felt lighter. And weirdly, so did I.
Here's how I approached it, and how I'd suggest you start:
Pick one area. Just one. Not your whole house, not your whole room — one drawer, one shelf, one corner. The goal isn't to transform everything in a weekend. The goal is to finish something and feel the difference.
Ask the real question. Not "do I like this?" but "do I actually use this, and does it add something to my life right now?" Nostalgia is powerful. So is guilt. A lot of what we keep is stuff we feel obligated to keep. That's worth noticing.
Let go without ceremony. You don't need to thank each item, you don't need to photograph everything, you don't need to sell it all online (unless you want to). Donate it, pass it on, or throw it away. The decision is the hard part — the logistics are easy.
Once you clear physical space, you'll naturally start thinking about what else might be worth clearing.
Then Look at Your Time
This one's harder. Physical stuff is easy to see. Time is sneaky.
Take an honest look at a typical week. Where does your time actually go? Not where you think it goes or where you wish it went — where it actually goes. The scrolling, the meetings that could've been emails, the obligations you agreed to six months ago that you now dread, the hobbies you keep saying you'll get back to but haven't touched in a year.
Most of us are spending enormous amounts of time on things we never consciously chose.
The simplest exercise I know: at the end of each day for one week, jot down the three things that took the most time. Then ask — was that worth it? Did that align with anything I actually care about? You'll start to see patterns pretty quickly.
From there, it's about slowly renegotiating your time. Saying no to the next thing that doesn't fit. Letting one commitment expire without renewing it. Protecting one evening a week that's genuinely unscheduled.
You don't have to overhaul your calendar in one go. You just have to stop automatically saying yes.
The Relationships and Noise Question
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I'll tread carefully here because this is personal territory — but it's worth saying.
Not every relationship adds to your life. Not every social circle, every group chat, every acquaintance you feel obligated to keep up with is giving you energy. Some are draining it. And in a simplified life, you're more intentional about that.
This doesn't mean cutting people off ruthlessly or becoming a hermit. It means noticing which connections genuinely nourish you — which conversations leave you feeling better, which people you feel most yourself around — and investing more in those. And quietly investing less in the ones that consistently leave you feeling drained, anxious, or like you're performing a version of yourself you don't really like.
The same goes for information. The news cycle, social media, the endless flood of content — it's not neutral. It takes up mental space. One of the most freeing things I ever did was decide that I didn't need to be informed about everything, all the time. I could choose what I let in. That choice alone changed how my brain felt by the end of the day.
What You Find on the Other Side
I won't pretend simplifying is always comfortable. There's grief in letting things go, even things you didn't love. There's anxiety in saying no when you've spent years being a yes-person. There's identity stuff wrapped up in our stuff — the guitar you never play but bought because you were going to become a guitar person, the books you display but haven't read, the version of yourself attached to all of it.
But here's what I've found, slowly and genuinely: on the other side of all that, there's room. Room to breathe. Room to think. Room to notice what you actually want, separate from what you've been told you should want.
You start having time for things you forgot you loved. You start finishing things instead of collecting things. You start feeling present in your own life instead of perpetually behind in it.
Simple isn't empty. Simple is clear. And clear is something most of us are desperately craving without quite knowing how to name it.
Start with one drawer. See how it feels. Go from there.
You don't have to simplify everything at once. You just have to start somewhere — and notice what happens when you do.