Cash Poor

The distinct difficulty I have as a typically time-poor urbanite is that I am not as cash-rich as the articles tell me I should be every time they flag up yet another way to simplify and save time by delegating or automating parts of my life. I’d love to be able to delegate all the boring bits, but I can’t afford it.

Part of trying to simplify my life is that I’d like to stop wasting money on things that are neither useful nor necessary nor beautiful. I’m doing this in the quite possibly unfounded hope that it will diminish the panic I invariably feel at the end of a contract, before I have another one lined up. (There are times when I hate being freelance).

Most ways to save money seem to involve sacrificing time, and vice versa. This is NOT helping. So are there any simple ways around the problem?

Making my own lunch to take to work isn’t all that time-consuming – as I don’t generally wear make-up (cycling to work renders it pointless), I can afford the 5 minutes. It’s cheaper and simpler than spending ages staring at the shelves in the sandwich shop going “um…” Given the amount of mayo in the average sandwich shop offering, it’s probably healthier too.

A common money-saving tip is to shop around. Timewise, all I can say is thank God for price comparison sites.

I’ve started using a top sheet under my duvet. This may seem completely unnecessary but it means I can launder less often, because I only have to change the sheets on a weekly, not the whole bed. And sheets are a lot less bulky to wash, saving time and money at the laundrette (a major plus given the price rises at my local laundromats).

Of course, the first tip they give you for saving money is Budget: write one and stick to it. Um. And spend exactly how much time tracking my expenditure? I do this as part of my job, so I know how time consuming it can be to do it properly.

But the truth is, if you do it in a spreadsheet program, you don’t need to be an IT or maths genius to set up the formulas. And once those are in, it will pretty much do itself as long as you enter the outgoings. I’ve simplified these so all cash transactions fall under “ATM” and then I don’t need to track every last cappuccino. Then it takes 5 minutes a day, if that, and at the end of the month, all I need to do is clear one column and hey presto – it’s reset itself.

TIME POOR OR TIME COMPLICATED?

There are 24 hours in a day. If I sleep for 8, as per average recommendations, and work for 8, and commute for 30 minutes each way, I then have 24-17=7 hours left in which to do everything else: cook, eat, clean, socialise, relax, shop, exercise… It seems doable. On paper it seems very practical, but the problem is that we cannot consolidate our schedules in practice the way we consolidate them when listing our activities for the day.

We’re used to this – life in the big city has been time-poor and cash rich for many years, according to the lifestyle articles in newspapers and magazines. And while I’ve always been time-poor, I wonder about the extent to which most of us are cash rich. Life in the big city is busy and expensive, and it seems there is nothing we can do about that – to save time, or rather, to free it up for other things, we can buy services from other people to clean, cook, shop, launder, plan – you name it, just about.  The rise of jobs like the VA (Virtual Assistant) was inconceivable even ten years ago – the technology that enables it wasn’t available. We try to cram everything into the 67 hours a week we have spare (this assumes 16 hours of sleep over the weekend and a 5 day/ 40 hour working week. Most of us have a lot less free time than this, which only makes it harder). And the sordid truth is that the less cash you have, the less time you have, because you can’t afford the services that would help free up your time. We’re so busy we’re constantly playing catch up with our own breath. So is there a simple way to free up more time (without cutting back working hours)?

We can cut back on wasted time by making our commute more useful (reading, studying, walking or cycling).

We can try to see friends over lunch – although most of us already use lunch to run errands and eat at our desks

The trouble with all of these options is that they require us to multi-task, and that seems to contradict simplifying. And I have to wonder about the quality of the time and attention each task then gets – after all, one of the things I love so much about biking is that concentration has to be absolute – you can’t split your attention because you will come off. And that hurts.

So multi-tasking aside, what can we do?We can restrict our digital lives to reasonable amounts. What did we do before smart phones and broadband, other than stick to plans and consolidate our correspondence to one chunk of time?

This is what I’m trying to do, and so far it seems to be working out. I’ll keep you posted.

Zen and the Art of Minimalism

Minimalism is often confused, in the Western mind, with Zen Buddhism. I’ve done this myself, so I sought some kind of clarity.

After a few hours of research all over the web, I came up with this: Zen appears to have merged from the meeting of Taoism and Buddhism in China, and thence migrated to Japan.

The principle distinction of Zen from other forms of Buddhism is not about simplicity or minimalism – it’s the idea that there can be a "special transmission outside scriptures, not founded on words or letters" through which nirvana can be reached. So Zen is about means of spiritual enlightenment, not about a lack of material possessions.

Not to say it advocates materialism – few faiths do, because the whole purpose of faith is to lend weight to the non-material, gravitas and importance to the invisible and the intangible. Like all Buddhist paths, it advocates a focus on the spirit and the goal of spiritual transcendence from the physical, material cycle of reincarnations.

Minimalism is a term born out the arts world – it came from movements in the visual arts. So how the heck did the two get so tangled up together?

Japan has always intrgued the western world with its simplicity of execution and of conception – the traditional design of a Japanese house, the traditional menu and the disciplined (deceptive) simplicity of the haiku – these all appear to the west to advocate simplicity, and it’s easier for the west to ignore the fact that the peasants of any culutre tend to live and eat simply because they have no choice or resources to do otherwise.

Buddhists, too, tend to live simply – they are trying to free themselves of the distractions of the material world in order to achieve transcendence, nirvana.

But this is a spiritual choice, and a lifestyle, not an artistic expression. Minimalism has become a catch all term for the idea of simple, clean lines and a Spartan aesthetic. It doesn’t have anything to do with Zen Buddhism, except in cases of popular ignorance.

My subscription to Zen Habits (http://zenhabits.net/) aside, this is not about Zen – I am not seeking nirvana, nor am I a Buddhist. This is about creating a simpler, more disciplined, more Spartan aesthetic for my life in the midst of one of the world’s most complex environments – a sprawling, bustling capital city.

SPRING CLEANING

Spring has sprung, the grass has risen and the clocks have changed.  The light is stronger every day, which means I can now see all the dust and debris of the winter. I’m absolutely certain this is where the whole idea of spring-cleaning comes from – there is light and warmth enough to go outside and do the damn washing that’s been mounting up over the cold dark winter fo smoky fires and multiple blankets.

Yes, we don’t (thank God) live like that anymore in the urban west, but I think it’s the root of the concept.

In the spirit of tradition, therefore, I am doing some spring-cleaning. I have ruthlessly (well – relatively) cleared out my wardrobe of clothes I don’t wear, donated to charity a load of books I won’t re-read, and I am now contemplating eBay as a way to get rid of the bigger ticket junk that is preventing me from reaching my filing system (literally. It’s in front of it, because that’s the only place it fits) and which I only still possess because it was expensive and has a resale value – I hope.

The trouble with clearing out and decluttering, I have discovered anew, is that when the shelves are clear, you can’t pretend not to see the dust. And boy, oh boy, is London ever a dusty old town. I clean and sweep and two days later – dustballs the size of tumbleweed are rolling insolently across the floor any time the breeze blows in.

I have still to clear out my desk of pens that don’t work and ancient post-its to self, but that will need courage in the face of my stationery addiction. I know. What can I say? I prefer stationery suppliers to fashion stores (they don’t involve fitting rooms).

But I am also determined that this year, this season, I will manage to clear out the rest of my life. After all, why should the seasonal revamp stop with my living space? I’ve been trying – not overly successfully – to do this all year, but with the longer days and nicer weather, I am running out of excuses.

The aim of this blog is to help me focus on editing my life – and that’s editing in the film sense, not the journalist one. In film, unlike writing, it’s not about rewrites/reshoots. In film, you do NOT want to have to do “pick ups” – they’re expensive, time-consuming to set up, a nightmare for continuity and a general migraine for production - which is why you always shoot too much in the first place.

I want to try to leave as much as possible on the cutting room floor without compromising “the film” – a lot of what gets filmed for any show or movie is extraneous, is there to cover the angles and to give the edit options, in case another shot doesn’t work or doesn’t cut smoothly. The editor decides which shots to use to tell the story as fully and eloquently as possible within the time allowed. Everything else ends up – well, these days, deleted or boxed up in archive. And thus, the audience sees the finished, polished, fluent version, in which every scene and every shot adds to the arc of the narrative. I would like my life to be that ordered, to feel that organised and purposeful. I know it never will because it’s life and has no neat and tidy narrative, but if life really is only what we make it, why can’t I write my own?

SIMPLES? MAYBE NOT

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about different kinds of simplicity. Simple things versus simple time, that kind of thing. Most guides to streamling your time suggest having multiple sets of things in different places – things like gym clothes, nail files, things that you use in different locations. But this entails having more possessions in total, because you wind up with duplicates of everything.

Do I really have to choose between simplicity of possessions and simplicty of time? Can’t I have both? (Trust me to want it all). And if not, why not?

It comes back to my innate reluctance to spend money on duplicates of stuff that will sit in a drawer collecting dust. Which, I freely admit, sits entirely at odds with my love of having new stuff. I am acquisitive, materialist, spendthrift and miserly at the same time. Much like most people I know. Hey, it keeps charity shops in business.

So: do I want to simplify my possessions or my schedule, and which option will better simplify my life? As I edit my wardrobe and books yet again, I face this dilemma, clueless.

If tidy cupboards mean tidy minds, and the minimalists are right that visible clutter is the enemy of concentration, clarity and peace, then it seems I must opt for simple things, and carry them with me.

I think this is the underlying principle of the iLife – to distil your physical possessions down to the contents of a carry-on, and trust in Google and The Cloud to keep your files and records safely on their servers. (This requires a faith in the corporations behind these web-based server solutions that I lack, technocynic that I am). I like the idea in principle, which does lean me towards the simple things choice, because I frequently fight the ruge to load up my bike and just go. Somewhere, anywhere – it’s about the journey, not the destination.

This is at odds with my distrust of big corporations ethics and security policies. I like to control my own files and records, I do not trust web-based server solutions not to get hacked or otherwise abused. I am impatient of boot-up, connection, down- and upload times as it is. I resent waiting for the computer to finish all its start-up routines before I can watch a simple DVD. This inclines me towards mutliple back-ups and devices, which lands me squarely in the simple time school of thinking.

Is there a way to have both simple things and simple time? Pratchett’s Lord Vetinari (bear with me) seems to be en route to achieving that  – by simplifying his wardrobe, he simplifies his time spent on deciding what to wear. By simplifying his diet, he simplifies time spent on eating. Which frees up a vast amount of time to be spent on organising people to do things the way he wants by being themselves. This must mean a certain amount of duplication of, for example, clothes, but probably his wardrobe has plenty of space left in it, because a man like that would have no patience to waste on owning superfluous garments.

He is incredibly disciplined. He is ascetic to the nth degree and limits his options to limit the waste of his time. Which does seem to be rather boring – if variety is the spice of life, then Vetinari lives on bread and water. Could someone like me ever be that ascetic and yet still comfortable? (Probably not. I like my little luxuries, and I have a far more material definition of that word than does Lord Vetinari). Every time I try to hone things, I end up shopping. Clearly, I’m doing something wrong.

Maybe it’s easier to have both simple things and simple time if you have such a sense of purpose (remaining ruler of Ankh-Morpork, for instance). Maybe a simpler sense of purpose is the place to start – which implies a degree of narrative arc that life is far too messy to supply. Alas.

SIMPLICITY AND HAPPINESS

One of the hypothoses I like to think I’m testing by simplifying my life is that simplicity leads to happiness. It’s much touted by minimalists and “Zen” philosophers, but is it true? For any given value of truth.

(I put the quotes around Zen because a little research points to a widespread confusion over what Zen is really about. The East seems to think the West has mixed it up with minimalism and is missing at least part of the point, but this isn’t a debate in which I wish to engage right here and now).

The argument goes that it’s the little moments that lift our mood – a stranger’s kindness or comedy, a pet, a child, a moment of clear sunlight, a pound coin on the pavement. Therefore, the argument extrapolates, happiness is to found in simple things, in simplicity itself.

I’m not sure if I can agree. For a start, a lot of the simple little moments that lift my mood are relatively random, and it may be the randomness that appeals and makes them stand out rather than their simplicity.

But I do wonder whether simplifying and streamlining my life would allow me more time and energy to notice the random moments that will lift my mood. Will simplifying everything make space in my life - and my head - for more of life’s simple little pleasures? I mean the little things – walking along the river, sitting in a café people watching, seeing the dogs in the park falling over each other (literally) for the same toys and treats in the morning, hitting an open road on my bike… I hope that’s how it works. It would be a nice bonus to the endless task of simplifying.

But back to the point: if happiness isn’t necessarily simple, and simplicity isn’t necessarily happy, then is there an equation here at all?

The idea of the equation probably traces back to various mis- and reinterpretations of the old Greek saw: meden agan – Nothing in Excess, which dates back too far for accurate accreditation. The Classical world was very keen on moderation, discipline and austerity – which is where it meets (briefly) with the general understanding of Zen.

The overarching idea is that excess is ultimately not that much fun (hangovers spring to mind), which is a fair point, but how did we get to equating moderation with simplicity? Is it that moderation implies a space outside/beyond any one thing, which allows other things, including happiness, space to exist? And in order to cut down to that ideal of moderation in all things, to hack away at any excess as being unessential, we have to simplify. There is no other process, whichever name we give it.

TIDY MINDS

They say de-cluttering is good for the soul. I’m just trying to close my closet.

No, seriously, I picked up a flyer for this year’s Mind Body Spirit Expo the other day, to see more about the Italian holiday competition on the back, and spotted an advert for a de-cluttering expert. I had no idea you could make a living doing that, at least without the aid of a TV crew and a big hole in the daytime schedule. And a neat-freak commissioning editor married to a hoarder.

My headmistress in junior school used to tell us, at the end of every term, to go home and clear out our wardrobes because “tidy cupboards mean tidy minds.” We thought she was obsessed and strange, and ignored all such injunctions.

Now I can get my head around mens sano in corpore sano, because when you’re sick you’re always a bit depressed, but cupboards? Are you kidding? Or is there something to it?

This is the idea behind the philosophy of minimalism – that our minds are distracted by a busy/ cluttered/ patterned envirnoment. And then the brain races itself into a flat spin before crashing. It’s an interesting mental animation, if nothing else. I freely confess to being neat-freak enough that one of my favourite things about no longer having house-mates is that I get home to a tidy flat. No washing up evolving life in the sink, no dirty laundry inching its way to freedom under the bathroom door – just a tidy flat. Granted, by Wednesday it’s tidy because everything’s stuffed in the closet, but it looks neat, and that’s all I need.

But as the pressure on the closet door increases, I keep thinking I need to have another major clear-out. The problem, you see, with stuffing everything in the closet and leaning on the door until it shuts, is that you never (well, most people never) then go through the stuff they’ve shoved out of sight and out of mind. So the closet just gets fuller and fuller and anything you suddenly want or need is buried so deep you can’t face the necessary excavations when it’s so much easier to get a new one. Which just creates more junk to stuff out of sight in the closet – I am seeing a pattern here.

It’s just that the mere thought of emptying all that out and going through is way too energetic and time-consuming for me. The stuff in the closet is like some kind of parasite, sucking my energy before I can muster it to tackle the problem, while the problem grows on my mind and the cupboard creaks alarmingly. Every fit of good intentions peters out before I get beyond the first shelf.

The thing is, clearing is so endless. It’s like washing up – just when you think you’re done, there’s another random fork or glass. And because I know it’s endless, it seems pretty thankless, too.

And yet I know I will be rewarded, not only by a closet that closes properly, but also by a feeling of lightness and clarity that comes of being able to find things easily, and from knowing without having to check, exactly what I’ve got. It will, in effect, tidy my mind – Mrs P was right about that. With every bag of physical baggage that goes to charity or the skip, I lose the emotional baggage attached to those items, but maybe I should stop making lists of what’s missing.

After all, clearing physical space is supposed to help clear mental space for the new and the different.