This picture was taken in the recent aftermath of the tornado in Oklahoma.

Pause and think those words for a minute.

I live out in earthquake country so we don’t get the tornadoes, but no matter where you live or whatever natural disaster might affect your area, you could lose it all at any time.   Or you could gain the perspective to understand what is truly important in your life.

The things in your life are just things.  They will come, they will go, and rarely will any of them matter at all.

This week’s TSA is to focus your perspective on what is truly important in your life.  When you find out who they are, give them a hug.

Ben…

Truly Simple Actions The goal of the TSA project is to improve your life and help make this world a better place, one simple action at a time.  Take time this week to do this one simple thing. Previous TSA’s:

Specifically I try to listen when I say the word should.  I say should a lot.

I should do this, or do that.  I should go here, or go there.  I should help that person.  I should, I should, I should.  I say it a lot, but don’t always do what it is that I said I should do.

So recently I’ve set a trigger for myself for when I catch myself saying should, I pause and do that thing that that I just said I should do.  A lot of the time its a spur of the moment type of though that requires immediate action.

“I should stop and help that person broken down the side of the road”

“I should fix that squeaking thing that’s driving me nuts”

“I should stop at the store on the way home to make dinner”

“I should go running”

I used to let all these should’s come in and pass through my head leaving a long “someday” to do list of things I should do, or worse a long list of things I should have done.

Now with that trigger set, I find myself turning around a lot more and going back to do those things.  If I hear should, I turn that into a must and do it right then if the should calls for it.

Do you find yourself saying “I should…” a lot?  Do you find yourself regretting not doing those things?

Your Truly Simple Action this week is to listen to yourself.  See if you find yourself saying should and start to listen and recognize the pattern.  Then start pausing when you hear yourself saying it and taking immediate action on that should.

Ben…

Truly Simple Actions The goal of the TSA project is to improve your life and help make this world a better place, one simple action at a time.  Take time this week to do this one simple thing. Previous TSA’s:

I am not going through hell right now, but I am nearing the finishing of a huge project that I am eager and ready to be finished.  I’ve been working on a major remodel of our rental house for the past 2 months on nights and weekends and I am ready for it to be done.

I love the work of remodeling and fixing, but its taking all my time away from my family and friends and other things I’d like to be doing so I am ready for it to be done, but its not done yet.  I can see the finish line.  Its almost there.  Just a little bit more, but I am tired.  Tired of running to Home Depot several times a day.  Tired of being away both day and night.  I am just ready for it to be done.  So what do you do when you are in a a situation that you can’t get out of?  You get into it.

Dive in head first.  Get behind the project and make it move forward.  Every day, just a little further until its done.  I am near the finish line and I will finish strong.

I am almost there.  I will keep going and finish strong.

Your Truly Simple Action this week is to finish strong on that project that you are stuck in that you may not want to be in anymore.  Finish it.  Get it done so you can stand back and look at the great work you’ve done.  Get it finished so you can move on to all those new things you want to start.

Ben…

Truly Simple Actions The goal of the TSA project is to improve your life and help make this world a better place, one simple action at a time.  Take time this week to do this one simple thing. Previous TSA’s:

This could be as simple as putting things away around the house, or fixing that broken item that’s been broken for a while.

Just quietly do something nice for someone around you when they are not looking.

Don’t say a word.

Just wait for them to notice and smile and feel good when they do.

Ben…

Truly Simple Actions The goal of the TSA project is to improve your life and help make this world a better place, one simple action at a time.  Take time this week to do this one simple thing. Previous TSA’s:

I was chatting with my friend Rhett the other day and he mentioned that he liked my post on 5 Ways to Simplify Your Email and he also mentioned he just upgraded his phone and despite the people transferring over all his info, he still lost half his contacts.

Keeping up with friends and family these days has never been easier.  We have Facebook, and Twitter and all sorts of ways to text, call or reach out to our loved ones.  I created a Facebook group for my dads side of the family ,as it is very large and spread out, so we could all keep in touch.  I love all the ways technology makes it easy for us to keep up with those we care about.

That said, it can be a total nightmare when you lose your phone if that is the only place all your contacts are kept.  So this post is first about keeping your contacts in a safe place so they are not at risk to be lost forever if you lose your or upgrade your phone.  The best way I have found to do this is to keep all of my contacts in my email (gmail) account and then sync those to my phone.  That way when I get a new phone I can just sync all of my contacts at once and I can never lose them.  They are always online and I can access them anywhere I have internet.

So the first part of this Truly Simple Action for this week is to get all of your contacts out of your phone and into an online service where they can be kept safe.  I recommend Gmail, but other email clients may work as well.

You can do this one by one, but that does not sound like a fun way to spend an afternoon, so lets let the computer do the work.  If you have an IOS device, here is a simple guide to getting your contacts to sync between your phone/tablet and gmail.  If you have an Android phone or tablet, since those are already running a Google OS, it should work by default, but here is some info to help if you need it.

Once your contacts are in sync you can create one on the phone and it should sync over to gmail to keep it safe in the cloud.  Isn’t that nice?  Be careful, because the sync works both ways.  If you delete a contact on your phone, it will delete on gmail too.  Once they are all on gmail, you can get on your computer and do a little contact cleanup as it is much easier to do with a keyboard and mouse vs trying to do it all on a little touch screen phone.

Now that all your contacts are safe, part two of this Truly Simple Action this week is to use them.  Go through your contact list and reach out to a few old friends this week.  Out of the blue, just send them a note or give them a quick call and tell them how awesome they are.  Such a simple idea, but sometimes we don’t do it enough.  The awesome feeling both you and they will get from this will amaze you.

So keep your contacts safe, and use them.

Ben…

Truly Simple Actions The goal of the TSA project is to improve your life and help make this world a better place, one simple action at a time.  Take time this week to do this one simple thing. Previous TSA’s:

And it is awesome that we have these choices, and we need to choose wisely.

So your Truly Simple Action of the week is to make good choices with your money.  Buy experiences and not stuff.

If you want to be happy, buy experiences and not stuff.  This has been studied quite a bit recently to show that those people who spend their money toward experiences and not accumulating things are happier.

It makes sense.  So instead of that next big thing you want to buy, look toward how you could spend those dollars on an experience.  Take a trip.  Plan an adventure.  Go camping with your friends.

The stuff you want will be there later and will probably be cheaper.  The experiences you miss may not come around again.

If you are in debt you need to work to pay those off.  This isn’t permission to max out the credit card on some trip to Jamaica.   But if you are just spending cash willy nilly on crap you don’t need, stop it and buy some real memories with that money.

I’ve got to run to the post office and send the IRS some more money now.

Ben…

Truly Simple Actions The goal of the TSA project is to improve your life and help make this world a better place, one simple action at a time.  Take time this week to do this one simple thing. Previous TSA’s:

I had a truly horrible weekend.  I don’t have many bad days.  I am usually extremely happy and very easy going, but sometimes things all go awry, and I know exactly why this happens.

One of my strengths is that I am able to get an amazing amount accomplished.  This also stems from one of my greatest weaknesses which is unreasonable expectations.  I expect a lot from myself and I set out to accomplish it all.  When this goes well it goes great.  I kick ass and get more done that most people.  When it goes wrong, it goes horribly wrong and frustrates me more than anything.  As per last week’s TSA, I have been doing too much lately and it has come back to bite me in the ass.  The combination of too much going on with not enough hours in the day has set me up for some frustration as of late.

I need to slow down.  I need to not let my expectations frustrate me in the face of the reality of how long things really take to complete.  I need to try to do less and be OK with it.

If any of this sounds familiar, let this note to myself be a reminder to you to slow down.  If you are in the same boat as me I would love to hear how you deal with this?  Telling myself to slow down is easy.  Putting it into practice is really difficult for me.

So your Truly Simple Action this week is to slow down, but I want you to tell me how you do this.  How do you pause and reset your expectations toward reality and let things take the time they should take?

I would love to hear from you on this.  Please tell me in the comments below.

Ben…

Truly Simple Actions The goal of the TSA project is to improve your life and help make this world a better place, one simple action at a time.  Take time this week to do this one simple thing. Previous TSA’s:

The negative side affects are clear as I do not like being exhausted or spending so much time away from my wife and family.  The benefit from being busy and doing too much is that it forces you to focus on the priorities and find the things in your life that you waste your time on.  In the last several weeks I have barely watched an hour of TV.  I haven’t played video games or wasted time online in weeks.

If you want to find the areas in your life that you waste your time, take on too much.  Fill your schedule with way too many projects that have deadlines and you will quickly realize what you you waste your time on and what you can cut out.

All that said, I miss my wife, walking my dog, spending more time with friends, and will be happy when all these projects are done and behind me.

Ben…

Truly Simple Actions The goal of the TSA project is to improve your life and help make this world a better place, one simple action at a time.  Take time this week to do this one simple thing. Previous TSA’s:

Big lofty goals like this one are nice, but they are too big and lofty and can easily be forgotten as you don’t do any meaningful action to work towards them.  If you’ve read any of this site, you know we are all about the meaningful action so today we take some.

Your Truly Simple Action for this week is to clean up just one area in your house.

Pick an area.  Any area.

Clean out that junk drawer.  Organize your closet.  Get rid of some junk you don’t need and make some money doing it.

Just pick one area that is cluttered and aim to tackle that area this week.  Start small.  Don’t aim to clean out the whole house because you will never do it.  Just pick one small area and get it done.  This will not only feel awesome, but set the path toward your goal of being organized.

It’s a good idea to pick an area that you see often.  This is good for two reasons.  First you no longer have to look at that cluttered area once you’ve cleaned it up.  All those nagging reminders of, “oh yeah, I need to clean that up”, will be replaced with awesome feelings of accomplishment.   Second, those positive feelings of seeing that cleaned area combined with the great feeling of accomplishment for getting it done with lead toward more opportunities to clean and get organized.

So that is it.  So simple.  Just clean one area.  Its not hard.  You have time.

Write down on a sticky note right now the area that is popping into your head to clean.  Put that note somewhere you’ll see it.  Schedule a day in your calendar to clean that area.  Do it tonight.  Just get it done and let those positive ripple effects start to happen.

Ben…

Truly Simple Actions The goal of the TSA project is to improve your life and help make this world a better place, one simple action at a time.  Take time this week to do this one simple thing. Previous TSA’s: