Please take pleasure in this transcript of a particular episode of The Tim Ferriss Present, that includes three shut pals and long-time listener favorites—Derek Sivers, Seth Godin, and Martha Beck.
As we head into the brand new 12 months, many people really feel like we’re drowning in invisible complexity.
So I needed to hit pause and ask a easy query:
What are 1-3 selections that would dramatically simplify my life in 2026?
(1) From Derek Sivers — you’ll learn the way Derek makes use of a radical strategy to dwelling from first rules as an alternative of default settings.
(2) From Seth Godin — how a handful of onerous guidelines can flip a messy skilled life into one thing easy and centered in your greatest work.
(3) From Martha Beck — how making one radical dedication pressured her by rising pains however led to a less complicated life constructed round peace and which means.
Please take pleasure in!
Find out how to Simplify Your Life in 2026 — New Ideas from Derek Sivers, Seth Godin, and Martha Beck
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Derek Sivers
Hello, I’m Derek Sivers, and I’m fascinated with the implications of simplicity. Most individuals don’t desire a easy life. They need a straightforward life. However a easy life could be onerous. My life modified after I realized what easy actually means. Easy comes from simplex. The other of complicated. Advanced comes from complicated, the verb which means to intertwine.
That is necessary. Bear in mind this, pricey listener, your life is complicated when it’s intertwined with dependencies. You might be relying on issues and issues are relying on you. Your life is easy when it’s not complicated. It’s not intertwined with different issues, however which means relying on much less. Discover how simple it was to make your life complicated.
Simply say signal me up. Simply click on purchase now. Simply say you’re employed. Congratulations. You simply made your life simpler. However now it’s objectively extra complicated. Untangling. Which means quitting, firing, unsubscribing, uninstalling, disconnecting, breaking ties, breaking commitments, and eliminating loads of the stuff you personal.
However that makes life tougher. And, hardest of all, it means letting go of huge elements of your identification. No extra superman self-image. It’s admitting you possibly can’t do all of it. You’ll disappoint people who depend upon you. You’ll say no to virtually every thing. It’s sort of a tragic mantra. No, no, nope, nope, sorry, no, nope. Perhaps you don’t actually desire a easy life.
Perhaps your deepest pleasure comes from all of your entanglements, pals who depend upon you, companies and subscriptions and help and pets and instruments of titans that make your life simpler. You in all probability have a profession and a partner and a baby and a interest and a pet and a house, and I doubt you wish to eliminate all however a type of.
So you’ve totally different elements, and that’s that. However you possibly can nonetheless simplify your life inside every identification. As an alternative of intertwining them, untangle them, and hold them separate. When centered on one, give it your full consideration and make the remainder disappear. Like in my case, after I’m with my boy, my telephone is off.
I’m unreachable, and if I consider anything, then, like meditation, I let it go, and I deliver my full consideration again to him. Inside every of your elements, you could be briefly easy. Your telephone is the enemy of this because it intertwines every thing. Anyway, sufficient preface. Tim, you requested for my three main simplifications.
Primary, no subscriptions. No Spotify, no Netflix, no memberships, no month-to-month obligations, no mortgage, no staff, no crew, no writer, no contracts. No person relying on me besides my boy. All of us draw the road someplace.
Quantity two, programming. For me, this was large, however most of your viewers can’t relate, so I’ll make this fast.
For my fellow programmers, I simplified my pc programming code, so it has no dependencies, no exterior libraries. If one thing actually issues to me, I code it myself. If I don’t wish to code it myself, then it should not be that necessary, and I do with out it. It’s tougher upfront to make what I want, however long run, it makes every thing objectively less complicated, simpler to know, preserve, and alter.
Lengthy-term, it feels higher, and emotions matter. To my fellow programmers listening, go discover my code on GitHub and e mail me if you need. I really like speaking tech.
Quantity three, constructing a home from scratch. I discussed this briefly on our final podcast, and I bought so many emails about it. I didn’t like dwelling in current homes filled with shit I don’t want.
So I purchased a bit of off-grid land within the forest in New Zealand. Then my son and I began dwelling full-time in a tiny cabin there to see what we actually want. Ranging from scratch makes you query the need of every thing. Do I actually need lights? Do I actually need curtains? Do I actually need a kitchen?
Do I actually need an indoor lavatory? As an alternative of assuming I do, I strive dwelling with out it in apply, as an alternative of simply in principle. It’s no by default and a really reluctant sure, solely when confirmed to be needed. In all three of my examples right here, life can be simpler up entrance if I mentioned sure as an alternative of no. However long-term, my life is objectively less complicated with out them.
Much less comforts, however much less complexity. Much less dependencies, much less obligations, much less to keep up, simpler to alter. Like a hermit crab. The much less you’re certain to, the simpler it’s to develop. It’s pondering long run versus quick time period deep blissful versus shallow blissful. It makes me deeply blissful to shed some comforts in return for a easy life, easy code, easy dwelling.
It’s simple at first to make your life complicated, nevertheless it’s a long-term entice. It’s onerous at first to make your life easy, nevertheless it’s a deeper long-term profit for the peace of thoughts, self-reliance, management, and freedom to alter.
Seth Godin
Hey, it’s Seth Godin. I’m an writer of 21 Bestsellers, a every day blogger and entrepreneur, and a instructor, and I’m thrilled to be with you at present speaking in regards to the onerous work of simplifying. I begin with the concept it’s onerous work as a result of if it was simple, you’d’ve performed it already. We’re surrounded by techniques, invisible techniques, persistent techniques, techniques that push us to be caught the place we’re. And if we’re going to leverage our company, make the most of our freedom and alter the techniques round us, it helps to start by acknowledging it’s not simple.
So there are some things that I want to share. Easy methods to simplify, however they weren’t simple. The primary one is that this actual readability about what it’s for and who it’s for. Significantly the who. Begin with who. This work you’re doing, who’s it attempting to please? When you’re attempting to make the inventory value go up, make the inventory value go up.
Don’t be shocked that the child down the road isn’t impressed with what you do for a dwelling. If you’re writing one thing for individuals who communicate English, don’t be upset if somebody who speaks Italian can’t learn what you wrote. Make onerous selections, troublesome selections about who it’s for, after which ignore everybody else.
So in the event you write a ebook. Somebody provides you a one star assessment on Amazon. They’re telling you nothing about how good the ebook is. All they’re telling you is that it wasn’t for them. No purpose to learn that. They weren’t in your record of who it’s for repeatedly. After I come again to the self-discipline of being clear about who I’m right here to serve, I can then spotlight whether or not I’ve made a very good determination or not about that who. Then I can return to work.
Quantity two, discovering readability in regards to the grey areas. As a result of it’s when there are grey areas when we have now to continuously analyze left or proper up or down just a little bit extra or just a little bit much less, issues get difficult. I start with this. Budgets and deadlines. Select to be knowledgeable.
By no means go over finances, by no means miss a deadline. That’s easy. Whenever you run outta cash otherwise you run outta time, you’re performed. You don’t should weedle or plead or negotiate or rob Peter to pay Paul. Whenever you run outta cash otherwise you run outta time, you’re performed. This makes you far more centered while you settle for a finances, while you settle for.
A deadline as a result of you’ve a code, you’re not gonna miss both one.
Second, yeses and nos. Make your sure imply sure. Make your no imply no. Say your no fairly clearly with out offending individuals, however with readability, get it over with. No, I gained’t be capable of do this. Sure, I can take this on after we are clear about what’s a sure.
And what’s a no? Life will get a lot less complicated. It doesn’t get simpler. It’s simpler to only type of waffle your manner by and see what occurs. However with the simplicity comes leverage comes readability, after which we are able to get to work.
The third one, a tiny one. Don’t go to a gathering if a memo will suffice. In large organizations, this will prevent 30 hours every week.
Whilst a soloist, as a freelancer, it forces us into readability. Say what you might want to say and transfer on. Conversations are nice. I’m in favor of conversations, however conferences, conferences virtually at all times make issues difficult.
And the final one I’ll share with you is private boundaries, which is a model of budgets and deadlines.
We make a promise to ourselves. When are we on the hook for work and when are we not? You’ll be able to’t shortcut your approach to success by spending extra time than everybody else. You might be gonna run out of time anyway. So after I add all this up, it means no social media except it serves the challenge. No studying of evaluations except you’re doing it in a manner that’s going to make your work really higher.
Don’t take a gig the place you possibly can’t do a very good job and be blissful about doing it. And inform the identical story to everybody. It makes it a lot simpler to maintain your life organized and that makes it easy. We have now loads of horsepower, loads of concepts, loads of power to do extraordinary work, however then the techniques make issues difficult.
Resist the straightforward path of constructing it extra difficult. Whenever you make it easy, you set your self on the hook. On the hook to point out as much as do what you mentioned you had been gonna do, and to do it with grace and care work that issues for individuals who care. Right here’s the factor, no one indicators up for a sophisticated life. No person indicators as much as discover themselves losing loads of time in a swamp of issues.
We get there drip by drip, little by little. Compromise by compromise. We get there attempting to play it protected, spreading issues out as an alternative of being particular.
So a couple of actually particular examples from me so you possibly can take into consideration the ramifications and repercussions of deciding to play it easy. For instance, I don’t go to conferences.
I don’t watch tv alone. I don’t take a look at Fb or Twitter.
When you eliminate these 4 issues, what number of hours a day can be freed up? It might make your life less complicated. Additionally, the stakes can be a lot greater since you’d should put your self on the hook for particular issues, stuff you bought nice at due to the stuff you simply gave up, or determining what you stand for.
After I bought to enterprise faculty, I seemed on the circumstances that they had been giving individuals. There have been about eight pages of prose and eight pages of spreadsheets, and I spotted professors wanted to have college students who, after they referred to as on them to investigate the case, would give them the sort of suggestions that they wanted to maintain the dialogue going.
I made a decision on that first day to simplify my life and by no means do a spreadsheet, that if a professor referred to as on me and requested me for a numerical evaluation, I might merely say I didn’t have one. It wouldn’t take lengthy for professors to understand that they may embarrass me in the event that they needed to, however then the category wouldn’t stream.
However in alternate for that simplification, I needed to be actually prepared and actually good at arising with one thing helpful. For the professionals part, one thing that might be referred to at the very least twice by the remainder of the dialogue. By specializing in that, by simplifying, I put myself on the hook and it ended up changing into a part of what I stood for.
Similar factor with constructing a repute for doing offbeat type of ebook tasks on the similar time saying I’ll by no means miss a deadline and I’ll by no means go over finances. Made my life less complicated. It additionally made it a bit scarier. Another instance, additionally, very prosaic. Makes issues less complicated and makes issues tougher. After I give shows and I’ve given greater than a thousand of them world wide, I’ve a really particular rider about how I do it.
I don’t change the principles. I don’t have a dialogue with the shopper saying would you like me to do it this fashion or would you like me to do it that manner? My buddy Simon Sinek, he exhibits up, he desires a flip pad. Me, I present up and I say I can’t work within the spherical as a result of no viewers member has ever mentioned, oh, it was nice that manner.
I bought to see their again half the time, and I at all times use the identical tech setup. Why? It’s not ’trigger I don’t like exploring new concepts; it’s as a result of by simplifying the way in which I do one factor, I open the door to make different issues richer, deeper, and extra difficult.
Martha Beck
Hello, I’m Martha Beck. I’m an writer, a coach, podcaster, mother, and I’m right here to inform you about one determination that radically simplified my total life.
It additionally helped me create this deep sense of which means and goal and peace that I can at all times entry now, so I extremely advocate it. It began after I was 29 years previous. I decided to comply with the expertise of pleasure above all different elements or issues. I don’t simply imply any constructive feeling. Like we are able to really feel blissful, we are able to really feel up after we’re manic, after we’re on medicine, when, uh, we purchase one thing that we don’t want and get a dopamine hit. In truth, virtually all of the issues that we flip to to really feel higher, create that jolt of dopamine and different hormones within the mind that we come to crave, after which we have now to do increasingly and extra to really feel as blissful as we did the primary time we did that. In order that’s not likely purposeful. What I’m speaking about is a type of quiet launch that resonates by each facet of our nervous techniques.
Once we join with it, all our muscular tissues calm down, and you’ll’t faux that. Whenever you consider anyone you like and also you maintain their picture in your thoughts, your muscular tissues will calm down, so long as there’s no argument occurring. And we could breathe extra deeply, particularly exhaling like that sigh of aid. Or we could smile spontaneously even when there’s no one there to see it.
And we really feel a way of lifting or opening. It’s a bodily and emotional sense of freedom. So as soon as I’d made this determination to comply with solely that sensation, my manner of charting a course by life grew to become actually radically simplified. It wasn’t at all times simple, nevertheless it was quite simple.
So the one rule was if it appears like true pleasure, go towards it, if it appears like distress and ache, go away from it. And right here’s the kicker: it doesn’t matter what. So I started following this credo, and it was like taking part in a recreation of you’re getting hotter, you’re getting cooler. If it’s extra like pleasure, I’m getting hotter. If it’s much less like pleasure, if it’s extra tense, I’m getting cooler.
And I discovered that even when one thing felt daunting or scary, it was clear and easy. You want a little bit of apply to entry the sensations, however when you get there, in the event you can really feel any hint of pleasure within the physique, coronary heart, thoughts, soul. It turns into actually distinct. You need to use it as you’re getting hotter, getting colder measurement.
So I began doing this it doesn’t matter what I. That included breaking the principles of loads of relationships I’d had, as a result of they didn’t really feel like pleasure or the way in which they had been being performed out didn’t really feel like pleasure to me. So I might both again off or I’d actually change the conduct, my very own conduct in that state of affairs, till I felt pleasure.
So some individuals dropped away from my life. Truly, lots of people did. I’ll get to that in a minute. It gained’t occur to you. However after I’d been dwelling this fashion for some time, though it did create some short-term chaos in my life, I started to really feel stronger and clearer than I ever had and extra at peace.
I had just a little cluster, a big cluster really, of autoimmune diseases for which there was no remedy. All of them went into remission. Folks began asking me why this was occurring and why I at all times appeared to have superb luck. I used to be at all times in a state of affairs that was type of benevolent or beneficent to me. So I started speaking to individuals and it was teaching individuals.
I might say, okay, right here we go. That is the instruction. Pay shut consideration. If one thing feels actually nice to you, in the event you can really feel it feeding your soul and your physique and your coronary heart, possibly perform a little extra of that. But when one thing at all times drains you and leaves you feeling depressing, possibly do much less of that.
Like, this isn’t rocket science right here, however I’m, I’m gonna repeat it to make it crystal clear, as a result of weirdly individuals have bother wrapping their minds round it. So I’m gonna say to whoever’s listening, in the event you wanna do this, if an individual, a spot, a activity, even a thought, the truth is, particularly a thought, if that particular factor feels peaceable and joyful and makes your muscular tissues calm down and your face smile spontaneously, do extra of it.
Go towards that. And if one thing makes you’re feeling crunched up and depressing. And once more, this may be something from a big relationship or a profession or something in your life, all the way in which right down to essentially the most fleeting thought. If it makes you’re feeling depressing, do much less of it. It’s at all times amazed me that individuals are amazed by this.
It’s so easy, proper? However we are able to get caught in tradition and stress to do issues that don’t deliver us pleasure. So to my very own astonishment. I made a whole profession out of instructing individuals to undertake this one extremely easy however radically sincere lifestyle. So what prompted this? After I was 29, I had surgical procedure, and whereas I used to be in surgical procedure, I had a close to demise like expertise.
And there was a vivid mild that appeared. Perhaps it was my mind, possibly it was, I don’t know, some mystical being, I don’t know, however its presence crammed me with a stage of pleasure that I’d by no means remembered experiencing earlier than. And it appeared to speak with me once more. Could possibly be my unconscious. And it mentioned, your total activity in life is to dwell in a manner that feels such as you’re feeling now.
So I very all of a sudden made a complete dedication to pleasure, and I by no means went again on it. Some chaos did consequence. Every thing that wasn’t working in my life left me or I left it, and in my case, that meant my total tradition, as a result of I’d grown up in a really, very, very deeply dogmatic faith. I left that. That meant that I left my household of origin.
They stopped speaking to me. I ultimately left my marriage, my job, my profession. My home that I used to be dwelling in on the time, just about every thing that gave me my identification, but in addition created hurt or exhaustion. All these issues left with astonishing velocity. I felt grief and concern whereas this was occurring, however these feelings had been now overlaid on a type of bedrock of peace.
One thing I believe got here from the deepest a part of me, starting to belief that I might really care for it. What was onerous? What was simple? It was very onerous to maintain my promise when in relationship with others who didn’t approve.
It was onerous to face the judgment of people that didn’t associate with my new credo, however my life as a complete grew to become a lot simpler. It was really easy to inform solely the reality. Lies and secrets and techniques are very onerous on the feelings. What has been the payoff? Each single second of pure delight or deep which means I’ve skilled since, and there have been so, so, so, so many.
The payoff was discovering my approach to fantastic relationships. The payoff was doing solely the work I really like on this world, so the sense of goal, the sense of being on goal by no means leaves me. The payoff finally was coming dwelling. I spotted that dwelling was inside me, and after I went there, your entire world felt like dwelling. The payoff is rarely, ever having to go away a state of peace and I want you that have.
I want it for everybody. Hope it helps.
