30 Things I Quit or Simplified

Do less. Enjoy the moment.

Aug 23, 2024

Random Observation/Comment #850: Proactively quitting things is incredibly fun.

//Generated with Midjourney and faceswapped with Insight Faceswapper. It doesn’t really relate to the topic. I just like this photo.

Why this List?

My philosophy is perfect simplicity. It's unattainable, but the pursuit is what’s important.

Simplifying your life and quitting certain habits can lead to a significant increase in happiness and well-being. We often accumulate unnecessary habits, items, and commitments that clutter our lives and minds. This causes stress and reduces our ability to focus on what truly matters. By identifying and letting go of these burdens, we can create space for joy, creativity, and meaningful connections.

Don't focus on things that are outside your control - Avoid dependencies with others. For example, achieving someone else's validation of success is not an objective metric. There’s too many variables out of your control.
Overthinking - I haven't been one to over analyze. I'm a person of action and activity.
Unhealthy habits - You only have one body and your "health span" is very different from your life span. Create systems that keep yourself active.
Fads and hype - I love testing new tools, but it takes some time for the system to lead to routines.
Fashion - I've simplified this to “don’t look like a bum”. Let me wear some crypto shirts, shorts, clip on sunglasses, phish cap, and bone conducting headphones.
Sleeping late - I get so much stuff done before work or before the fam wakes up.
Drinking bad alcohol - Getting drunk is fun, but I don't need to do it with cheap hooch. If I'm poisoning myself, it's going to be with good poison.
Being around people, places, or things that are negative - The positive people that share ideas and spread positive gossip celebrating others’ successes are great company.
Unproductive meetings - The last 7 minutes of a meeting needs reflection on the action or output. Even for coffee chats, I try to make a connection or try to schedule a follow-up call.
Consuming more than you create - Magic happens when you put the ideas into motion. Learning and absorbing is necessary, but what do you do with that knowledge?
Comparison to others - Will I still covet Santosh's gadgets? Yes, but only because they're awesome and objectively better. No one thinks about yourself more than you.
Retail therapy - I do love a Prime Day though. I like the idea of keeping lists of things I want to buy and then waiting for discounted times to buy them. We did return a majority of the things we ordered, so we’re probably sinning for adding to climate change with transport costs.
Seeing constraints as a bad thing - Without constraints, we’re left to too many degrees of freedom. We could do anything. We wind up doing nothing. I would rather tighten the requirements than make a life product that does everything.
Mistaking movement for progress - This is one of the reasons I hate trading. You can create all of this analysis and work a whole day paying attention to this global game and then lose a bunch of money. I don’t like doing negative work in a day.
Living a cluttered life (physically) - Quarterly cleaning. Clean surfaces. Throw things away. Use a shredder and donate.
200 Phone apps (digital clutter) - Your phone is such a distraction. Turn off all your notifications and make sure the phone is helping you live your life better (instead of poisoning it with short form addiction)
Holding grudges - You’ve been planning your next chess move, but I’m not even playing this boring game with you. I’m off having fun and enjoying life, not thinking of a witty response in some weird relationship. I don’t have time to hold a grudge.
People pleasing - The only people I try to please are those who eat the food I cook. I’ll eventually get over it.
Living in the past - Similar to grudge holding, I really don’t have time to regret some stupid decision from the past. I have learned from them. We’ll be more careful in the future.
Postponing joy-enabling investments - I will more likely than not get the tech gadget and play around with new features.
Complaining or negative self talk - If there’s a mess then we clean it up. If there’s something wrong, we can deal with it. Be an anchor.
Over commitment and multi-tasking - I’d rather be fully committed to doing something and getting it done in a sprint. Imagine a whole day working on one project vs a quarter of the day working on 4 projects back-to-back. I often schedule all my blog posts for a month in a few hours. the first week of the month and then do light edits.
Side hustles - I still have passion projects, but I've turned off all pressure to make them profitable.
Living life passively - Be active with your opportunities and change! Set aside time to plan epic things and then epic things will happen.
Being a perfectionist - The optimization of time, quality, and cost come to mind. I will often do things faster and cheaper with above medium quality because the last 20% kills my joy of doing the task.
Excessive news consumption - I think current events and media is a manipulation weapon. It takes up so much energy and introduces so much emotion when we can really be more peaceful with the simple things.
Physical mail - Why can't I just unsubscribe to everything?
100 chargers - Why do I have so many chargers yet I can’t find one when I need it?
Most video games - This is a controversial one. I think life is a detailed RPG where I’m aimlessly completing side quests and leveling up my character. Perhaps the game is a simulation to level up humanity’s advancements and I’m just one of many probabilities of success. Is it more important to forward the mission of the species or attain personal ascension? At the end of the day, the side quests was all that mattered.
Long vacations - The family has decided that anything over 10 days is too long. We would rather do 6 shorter trips a year than 4 long ones.