I never stuck with it, but then I found this website.  http://ohlife.com Is a very simple little idea where they send you an email each day and ask you, “how’d your day go?”.

And you simply reply and write how your day went.  Right in your email where you are already.  Its very easy, simple, and it seems to work.  It keeps me writing because as you start to answer its question it reminds you of what you said, last week, month, year etc.  Its a nice way to get a quick little snapshot of what you were thinking, doing, or feeling at a time in place in your life and see how you feel about it now.   I write out a short little blurb each day about what’s going on, or what I’m thinking about.

Which brings me to the other problem I always had with journals is who has the time to go back through and read all of that.  This little service solves both of those problems  as it sends you bite size chunks of what you wrote each day.  I really like it and encourage you to give it a try.  It is also free.

Try http://ohlife.com today and see if you like it.

Ben…

TSA = 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:

You know you are going to need new ones in the future, so why not save yourself some money and save the landfills some old batteries and get some rechargeable ones.  It just makes sense and it’s so nice to not have to run out and buy new batteries when you need them.

EDIT: My friend Joe D. says this one is the best one.

Ben…

TSA = 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:

TrulySimple is 2 years old today and I am truly thankful to everyone who has visited the site and signed up for the newlsetter.  I don’t know what I’ve done right recently but I’ve seen the numbers to the newsletter grow like crazy, so an extra big thank you to all those sharing TrulySimple with your friends.

TrulySimple was an experiment I started over 2 years ago, where I wanted to try something new and different.  I wanted to simplify my life by getting rid of some clutter, cooking and eating better meals at home, and starting fun things like my garden.

I also wanted to share some fun ideas and great projects I’ve been working on and of course hope to spread some simple philosophies to help make your life a little better.

I hope you have enjoyed the site and I really do appreciate you visiting and taking the time to sign up for these emails.

As I hit the 2 year milestone I wanted to take a look back and share some of the most popular and favorite posts from TrulySimple.

Orange rolls cooked in oranges over a fire

I made these orange rolls in the oranges on a camping trip and its gotten a great response and some really crazy comments.  I love the internet crazies.  It’s also gotten a great response on Pinterest as well.

Truly Simple Actions

I hate the TSA and decided I would take over that acronym and make it something positive.  So I started Truly Simple Actions and set out to try to do one small positive thing each week that will make your life better.  This has been an awesome experiement and I hope you are enjoying these.

Truly the Best Blueberry Muffins Ever

These are just the best blueberry muffins ever.  That is all.  Just looking at this picture makes me want to make them again.  So yummy.

Almost Got Eaten by a Wolf

Here was a fun adventure that did not go quite as planned, but ended up being a ton of fun.  Complete with random wild life encounters.

Homemade Strawberry Jam

And I love my moms home made strawberry jam, so here is the recipe. It is amazing.

I am truly blessed and very greatful to all of you for taking the time to visit the site and read these emails.  If you have enjoyed TrulySimple I encourage you to tell your friends or leave me a comment on the site.

Thank you so much for 2 years of support.  Now go outside and do something fun.

Ben…

How often do you actually think about an analyze how happy you are or what makes you happy? I think like most people you really only think about it when you are at the extremes, either when supremely happy and you get that rare pause where you stop and think how perfect the world is at that very second, or at the other end when you are just having the worst day ever and you wish you could go back to bed because you are miserable.  Everywhere in between you may not think about it much or analyze it ever.

That is where trackyourhappiness.org comes in.  This is a great site that will send you text messages or emails over a period of time and have you take a short survey on how happy you are.  It asks you things like where you are, what you are doings, are there pets around, are you inside or outside etc.  It will track all your answers for you and deliver a happiness report back to you that is both fascinating and a great tool to see what makes you happy.

Here are a couple of charts from my most recent happiness report. The chart on the left shows my level of happiness (ranked by me) when doing the following activities.  I’m happiest when I’m working on my car project, something I don’t do enough of and (predictably) less happy when I’m doing housework or commuting.

The chart on the right shows that I am much happier at a comedy show than at jury duty.  Shocking I know.

This is a great tool.  I would never take the time to write down when I’m slightly more happy or what I’m doing at that time.  This tool aslo tracks your sleep, productivity, level of focus etc.

And yes I know it sounds a little silly to talk about a happiness report, but why not find out what makes you happy.  Why shouldn’t we study this more.  I think we should find out what makes us happy and conversely what makes us less happy and find out how to influence those aspects of our life.

Your Truly Simple Action this week is to checkout trackyourhappiness.org and try it out.  It’s free, simple, easy to use and delivers information that you can use to live a happier life.

Ben…

TSA = 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:

Right now, Google something fun that you want to do.  It may be a kayaking trip, a wine tasting tour of the local wineries, or a ridiculous obstacle course.  Yeah you know I’m picking that one.

The point is, there are a million fun things out there to do.  Some cost a little money, but many are free and are just waiting for you to enjoy them.  Take the next 10 minutes and get on Google and resolve to find at least one thing that you can sign up to do.  Meetup.com is another great resource to find likeminded individuals doing fun things together as well.

Don’t just say that you will do one of those things “someday”.  Find something that you have to sign up for. Put it on the calendar.  Invite your friends.  Make it a real thing that you won’t put off because of whatever excuse you come up with that day.  Get your friends together, put it on your calendar and plan a fun day around it.

Life can be busy, but if you don’t fill it up with fun, you won’t have any.  It’s just that simple.

Ben…

TSA = 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:

We had little kids with us, so we threw the bikes on the bike rack and drove down a bit closer to our destination and rode from there, but it was awesome.  We had a nice ride down some quiet streets near the beach and had a delicious breakfast at Beach Break Cafe.

didn't have a picture of us biking, but here's a picture of the Captain Crunch french toast the kids had

After breakfast we rode to the train station to drop my friends off so they could take the train back home.  It wasn’t much of a ride, but we all had a blast.  The sun was shining and we had a great time.

Your Truly Simple Action this week is to get the bike out, dust it off, throw some air in the tires and go ride it.  Ride it around the block.  Ride to your local park. Take the bike trail somewhere.  Go run some errands in it.  Just get on your bike and remember how much fun it is to ride it.

Ben…

TSA = 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:

But it’s in these nice downtimes that we have a few minutes to make some small improvements that can make a big difference in your life.

For this week your Truly Simple Action is to remove distractions from your life.  Specifically we are going to remove the unnecessary notifications you receive daily on your smart phone.

I am the first to admit that I am fully addicted to my iPhone. It is an amazing device that allows me to get a lot done throughout the done both professionally and just for fun listening to music or running with my Nike app etc.  That said I am cognizant (or trying to be) of the time I spend on the phone and trying not to spend too much time on it or have it out when I am spending time with family or friends.

One thing I have done is to remove all of the notification messages and sounds so its not beeping or buzzing at me all throughout the day.  I also turned off push notifications for email, so it only checks email when I want to check email.  My iPhone works for me, I don’t work for it.

I only receive notifications when there is a text message or a phone call.  It is a phone after all.  Everything else is turned off.  I don’t get pop ups or noises buzzing at me for emails, my turn on words with friends, a new message from ebay etc.  I still play words with friends and I still check my email, but I do it when I’m ready to check email or play words with friends and that is the difference.

My phone can stay silent in my pocket and be there when I need it, not when it thinks I need it.

To adjust your notifications on the iPhone, simply click on Settings and go to Notifications and turn all of that stuff off.  You can select per app what notifications you want to receive and how to receive them.  I recommend just turning them all off.  You can still access all the apps and the information within the same way, it just won’t be bugging you with pop up messages all the time.

Also disable push notifications for your email. To do this go to Settings, then Mail, Contacts and Calendars, then under Fetch New Data, turn Push to off.  Again your email will still be there, but it will only check for new messages when you are ready to check your email.  This will also save your battery life on your phone, so double bonus.

Ben…

TSA = 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 love barbacoa beef and can’t say no to it at Chipotle and such.  So I found an awesome recipe and modified it slightly and set out to make it.  It was so easy to make and very tasty to eat so I recommend that you find some time to make this recipe this week.

This is a very simple recipe and only takes a few minutes to prep and the rest of the time is in the crock pot cooking and making your house smell amazing.

Here’s what you’ll need:

Ingredients:  

• 3 lbs beef eye of round or bottom round roast – trim all the fat off
• 5 cloves garlic
• 1/2 medium onion
• Juice from 1 small lime
• 2-4 chiptoles in adobo sauce (or more if you like it spicy)
• 1 tbsp ground cumin
• 1 tbsp ground oregano
• 1/2 tsp ground cloves
• salt and pepper
• 3 bay leaves
• 1 tsp oil
• 1 cup water

Cut the meat up into big chunks and add some salt and pepper

throw that in a pan with a little oil on medium-high heat and get it brown on all the sides.

Now get out your food processor and throw all the following in.  Start off with the garlic

Add Lime Juice

Chop up the onion into a few pieces and throw it in

Then add your spices - 1 tbsp ground cumin

1 tbsp ground oregano

1/2 tsp ground cloves

Finally add 2-4 chipotle peppers.  Add more if you like it spicy.  I added several and it was super spicy, but also super awesome so be careful.

and let the processor do its thing.  Mix it up good.

Throw a few bay leaves into the crock pot and then add the browned meat.

cover with the mixture from the food processor.

add a cup of water, cover and let it cook on low for 8 hours in the crock pot.

When it’s done take the beef out and shred with a couple forks and then add it back into the sauce and let it simmer for 20 minutes.

I also whipped up some cilantro lime rice to go with it and it was awesome.

The corn adds some awesome flavor and helps with the heat if you make it spicy.  I threw it on the burners to give it a little blackened color and flavor.

and voila.  I grabbed some leaves of lettuce from the garden and topped with the rice, barbacoa and corn to top it all off.  So yummy and so easy to make.

If you have a crock pot and like barbacoa or your house smelling awesome, then you must make this.  It is too easy and to tasty not to.

Ben…

You should take them for a walk.  You should play with them.  You should take 10 minutes out of your day and just get on the floor and pet their belly.

We recently house/dog sat for a friend of ours who lives downtown.  They live in a very nice apartment right downtown so its fun to walk everywhere. What is not fun is having to take the dog out late at night or early in the morning to do their business.  I have never been so thankful for our doggie door back home.  We brought our small little dog down with us and he had a great time playing with the new dog and we took them for walks all over downtown.   They had a great time and we enjoyed taking them out, even though we were sort of forced to being in an upstairs apartment.

I try to take my dog out for a walk at least once a day.  I don’t always meet that goal and I can see the dog looking at me with those sad eyes wondering when we are going to play.

Everyone is busy.  Everyone has a million things to do.  Take 10 minutes out of your day and take the dog for a walk, or take them out and throw the ball for them.  It means the world to them and will give you a chance to pause your day and relax as well.  You will both enjoy this time together.

Ben…

TSA = 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:

Get on Amazon or head to the local bookstore, or better yet, head down to your local library and pick out 2 books.  Get one fiction book that is fun to read.   Then also get a non-fiction book about something you want to learn about.

They key here is to turn off the TV and enjoy reading a book.  The extra credit is to not only enjoy reading a good story from a good book, but also pick out a book about something you’ve always wanted to learn about.  Pick out something crazy.  Want to learn how to build a house or race top speed across the salt flats of Utah?  Pick out an interesting book on whatever random topic that you want to learn about.

It’s time to read a book and expand your horizons.

I just finished the Steve Jobs biography and am starting on Tina Fey’s latest book Bossypants.

Got any good book recommendations, please leave a comment below.  I’m always looking for a good book.

Ben…

TSA = 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:
TSA#1 - Buy a meal for someone who needs it
TSA#2 - Go do something fun
TSA#3 - Enough with the plastic bottles
TSA#4 - Learn something new
TSA#5 - Celebrate Christmas
TSA#6 - Start off the new year with a clean room
TSA#7 - Improve
TSA#8 – Tell someone you love them
TSA#9 – Adopt some grandparents
TSA#10 - Organize your life: Inbox edition
TSA#11 - Try a new local restaurant
TSA#12 – Stop watching one TV show
TSA#13 - Do one thing that needs to be done
TSA#14 – Make a Mess
TSA#15 – Give Up
TSA#14 – Make a Mess
TSA#15 – Give Up
TSA#16 – Drink Water
TSA#17 - Slow the F&*! DownTSA #18 – Play Some Cards