Please get pleasure from this transcript of a particular episode of The Tim Ferriss Present, that includes three shut buddies and long-time listener favorites—Derek Sivers, Seth Godin, and Martha Beck.
As we head into the brand new yr, many people really feel like we’re drowning in invisible complexity.
So I wished 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 find out how Derek makes use of a radical method to dwelling from first rules as an alternative of default settings.
(2) From Seth Godin — how a handful of exhausting guidelines can flip a messy skilled life into one thing easy and centered in your finest work.
(3) From Martha Beck — how making one radical dedication compelled her by rising pains however led to a less complicated life constructed round peace and which means.
Please get pleasure from!
How you can 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 need a easy life. They need a straightforward life. However a easy life might be exhausting. My life modified once I realized what easy actually means. Easy comes from simplex. The alternative of complicated. Advanced comes from complicated, the verb meaning to intertwine.
That is vital. Bear in mind this, expensive listener, your life is complicated when it’s intertwined with dependencies. You’re 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 meaning 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 might be 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 a number of the belongings you personal.
However that makes life tougher. And, hardest of all, it means letting go of massive 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 rely upon you. You’ll say no to virtually every little thing. It’s form of a tragic mantra. No, no, nope, nope, sorry, no, nope. Possibly you don’t actually need a easy life.
Possibly your deepest pleasure comes from all of your entanglements, buddies who rely upon you, providers 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 toddler and a interest and a pet and a house, and I doubt you wish to eliminate all however a kind of.
So you’ve got completely different features, 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, once I’m with my boy, my cellphone is off.
I’m unreachable, and if I consider the rest, then, like meditation, I let it go, and I carry my full consideration again to him. Inside every of your features, you might be quickly easy. Your cellphone is the enemy of this because it intertwines every little 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 group, no writer, no contracts. No one 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 laptop 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 vital, and I do with out it. It’s tougher upfront to make what I want, however long run, it makes every little thing objectively less complicated, simpler to grasp, keep, 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 would like. 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 present homes filled with shit I don’t want.
So I purchased a chunk 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 little thing. Do I actually need lights? Do I actually need curtains? Do I actually need a kitchen?
Do I actually need an indoor toilet? As an alternative of assuming I do, I attempt dwelling with out it in follow, as an alternative of simply in principle. It’s no by default and a really reluctant sure, solely when confirmed to be crucial. In all three of my examples right here, life can be simpler up entrance if I stated 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 take care of, simpler to alter. Like a hermit crab. The much less you’re sure to, the better it’s to develop. It’s pondering long run versus brief time period deep completely satisfied versus shallow completely satisfied. It makes me deeply completely satisfied to shed some comforts in return for a easy life, easy code, easy house.
It’s simple at first to make your life complicated, but it surely’s a long-term entice. It’s exhausting at first to make your life easy, but it surely’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 creator of 21 Bestsellers, a each day blogger and entrepreneur, and a instructor, and I’m thrilled to be with you at present speaking concerning the exhausting work of simplifying. I begin with the concept it’s exhausting 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, reap the benefits 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. Notably the who. Begin with who. This work you might be doing, who’s it making an attempt to please? When you’re making an attempt to make the inventory worth go up, make the inventory worth 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 exhausting selections, troublesome decisions about who it’s for, after which ignore everybody else.
So in the event you write a e book. Somebody offers you a one star evaluate on Amazon. They’re telling you nothing about how good the e book is. All they’re telling you is that it wasn’t for them. No cause to learn that. They weren’t in your listing of who it’s for time and again. Once 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 concerning the grey areas. As a result of it’s when there are grey areas when now we have to continually analyze left or proper up or down a bit bit extra or a bit bit much less, issues get sophisticated. 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. Once 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. Once you run outta cash otherwise you run outta time, you might be performed. This makes you rather more centered if you settle for a finances, if you settle for.
A deadline as a result of you’ve got 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 received’t be capable of do this. Sure, I can take this on once 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 simply type of waffle your means 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 massive organizations, this will prevent 30 hours every week.
At the same time as a soloist, as a freelancer, it forces us into readability. Say what it is advisable say and transfer on. Conversations are nice. I’m in favor of conversations, however conferences, conferences virtually all the time make issues sophisticated.
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 may’t shortcut your option to success by spending extra time than everybody else. You’re gonna run out of time anyway. So once I add all this up, it means no social media until it serves the venture. No studying of opinions until you’re doing it in a means that’s going to make your work truly higher.
Don’t take a gig the place you possibly can’t do a very good job and be completely satisfied 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’ve loads of horsepower, loads of concepts, loads of vitality to do extraordinary work, however then the techniques make issues sophisticated.
Resist the simple path of constructing it extra sophisticated. Once you make it easy, you place your self on the hook. On the hook to indicate as much as do what you stated you have been gonna do, and to do it with grace and care work that issues for individuals who care. Right here’s the factor, no person indicators up for a sophisticated life. No one indicators as much as discover themselves losing a number of time in a swamp of problems.
We get there drip by drip, little by little. Compromise by compromise. We get there making an attempt to play it secure, spreading issues out as an alternative of being particular.
So a number 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 by myself. 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 will 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, belongings you bought nice at due to the belongings you simply gave up, or determining what you stand for.
Once I bought to enterprise faculty, I seemed on the instances that they have been giving individuals. There have been about eight pages of prose and eight pages of spreadsheets, and I noticed professors wanted to have college students who, after they known as on them to investigate the case, would give them the form 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 known as on me and requested me for a numerical evaluation, I’d merely say I didn’t have one. It wouldn’t take lengthy for professors to comprehend that they may embarrass me in the event that they wished to, however then the category wouldn’t move.
However in change for that simplification, I needed to be actually prepared and actually good at developing with one thing helpful. For the professionals part, one thing that may be referred to at the 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 fame for doing offbeat type of e book initiatives on the identical 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. Yet another instance, additionally, very prosaic. Makes issues less complicated and makes issues tougher. Once I give displays and I’ve given greater than a thousand of them around the globe, 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 consumer saying would you like me to do it this manner or would you like me to do it that means? My good friend Simon Sinek, he reveals up, he desires a flip pad. Me, I present up and I say I cannot work within the spherical as a result of no viewers member has ever stated, oh, it was nice that means.
I bought to see their again half the time, and I all the time 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 sophisticated.
Martha Beck
Hello, I’m Martha Beck. I’m an creator, a coach, podcaster, mother, and I’m right here to let you know about one determination that radically simplified my whole life.
It additionally helped me create this deep sense of which means and function and peace that I can all the time entry now, so I extremely suggest it. It began once I was 29 years previous. I decided to comply with the expertise of pleasure above all different components or concerns. I don’t simply imply any optimistic feeling. Like we are able to really feel completely satisfied, we are able to really feel up once we’re manic, once we’re on medicine, when, uh, we purchase one thing that we don’t want and get a dopamine hit. In reality, 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 now we have to do increasingly and extra to really feel as completely satisfied as we did the primary time we did that. In order that’s not likely useful. What I’m speaking about is a type of quiet launch that resonates by each side of our nervous techniques.
Once we join with it, all our muscle mass calm down, and you may’t faux that. Once you consider any individual you like and also you maintain their picture in your thoughts, your muscle mass will calm down, so long as there’s no argument happening. And we could breathe extra deeply, particularly exhaling like that sigh of aid. Or we could smile spontaneously even when there’s no person 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 means of charting a course by life turned actually radically simplified. It wasn’t all the time simple, but it surely was quite simple.
So the one rule was if it seems like true pleasure, go towards it, if it seems 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 enjoying a sport 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 follow 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 should utilize it as you might be getting hotter, getting colder measurement.
So I began doing this it doesn’t matter what I. That included breaking the principles of a number of relationships I’d had, as a result of they didn’t really feel like pleasure or the way in which they have been being performed out didn’t really feel like pleasure to me. So I’d both again off or I’d actually change the conduct, my very own conduct in that scenario, till I felt pleasure.
So some individuals dropped away from my life. Really, lots of people did. I’ll get to that in a minute. It received’t occur to you. However after I’d been dwelling this manner for some time, despite the fact that 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 a bit cluster, a big cluster truly, of autoimmune diseases for which there was no treatment. All of them went into remission. Individuals began asking me why this was occurring and why I all the time appeared to have wonderful luck. I used to be all the time in a scenario that was type of benevolent or beneficent to me. So I started speaking to individuals and it became teaching individuals.
I’d 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 do some extra of that. But when one thing all the time 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 that, if an individual, a spot, a activity, even a thought, in truth, particularly a thought, if that particular factor feels peaceable and joyful and makes your muscle mass 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 major relationship or a profession or something in your life, all the way in which all the way down to essentially the most fleeting thought. If it makes you’re feeling depressing, do much less of it. It’s all the time amazed me that persons are amazed by this.
It’s so easy, proper? However we are able to get caught in tradition and strain to do issues that don’t carry us pleasure. So to my very own astonishment. I made a complete profession out of instructing individuals to undertake this one extremely easy however radically trustworthy lifestyle. So what prompted this? Once 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 vibrant mild that appeared. Possibly it was my mind, possibly it was, I don’t know, some mystical being, I don’t know, however its presence stuffed 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 stated, your whole activity in life is to dwell in a means that feels such as you’re feeling now.
So I very instantly made a complete dedication to pleasure, and I by no means went again on it. Some chaos did outcome. Every little thing that wasn’t working in my life left me or I left it, and in my case, that meant my whole 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 finally left my marriage, my job, my profession. My home that I used to be dwelling in on the time, just about every little thing that gave me my identification, but in addition created hurt or exhaustion. All these issues left with astonishing pace. I felt grief and concern whereas this was occurring, however these feelings have been now overlaid on a type of bedrock of peace.
One thing I feel got here from the deepest a part of me, starting to belief that I’d truly deal with it. What was exhausting? What was simple? It was very exhausting to maintain my promise when in relationship with others who didn’t approve.
It was exhausting to face the judgment of people that didn’t associate with my new credo, however my life as an entire turned a lot simpler. It was really easy to inform solely the reality. Lies and secrets and techniques are very exhausting 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 option to great relationships. The payoff was doing solely the work I really like on this world, so the sense of function, the sense of being on function by no means leaves me. The payoff in the end was coming house. I noticed that house was inside me, and once I went there, your complete world felt like house. The payoff isn’t, ever having to go away a state of peace and I want you that have.
I want it for everybody. Hope it helps.