Tim Ferris recently posted about a Dutch ROWE office implementation. It was a good read, but I was more interested by the bit at the end about his own home office and techniques for simplifying life.
“I limit misbehavior by limiting options. Notice that I have no shelves. This discourages accumulating papers and encourages both elimination and immediate digital note-taking.” … “Don’t want to eat too much chocolate? Don’t put it in your house.”
…
“Constraints — a precursor to simplicity — aren’t always a bad thing. In fact, they’re often better than increasing options.”
This reminded me of some simple “tweaks” I use in my own life to achieve optimal results. For instance, there are certain types of junk food that I just can’t resist if they’re in my cupboard, but at the grocery store, I have the discipline to simply not buy them. I buy healthy food instead. Then, when I’m at home looking for a snack, I end up eating cottage cheese and fruit, instead of cookies and potato chips. :)
Simple and effective.