I once met a couple who lost everything in the '93 Northridge Earthquake. They both told me "how thankful there were as a result of losing everything." They weren't bogged down with clutter, decisions, cleaning or maintaining all their "stuff." Of course what they missed was all their financial paperwork and family photos, but that's really all. Since then, they've pretty much emotionally recovered and today maintain a simpler life learning the lessons of losing everything, and valuing nothing, except their family.
43 Folders, Merlin Mann's popular site about "personal productivity, life hacks and simple ways to make your life a little better" talked about Paul Ford's guest commentary on NPR Wednesday. Ford, an editor at Harper's magazine and author of the novel Gary Benchley, Rock Star, was overwealmed by information and overloaded by spending way too much time on the Internet. He recently went back to basics, and did some surprising re-engineering of his pc to avoid the distracting bells and whistles of life, and focus back on his writing and thinking for himself.
43 Folders article about Paul Ford
NPR, Distracted No More, Going Back To Basics - hear the audio
