2026 Guiding Words
My guiding words for 2026. A single guiding word is never enough for me!
What would this look like it it were easy? - Tim Ferriss
Simplicity: What Would This Look like If It Was Easy?
Simplicity means stripping everything down to what actually needs to be there. Keep it so simple it's stupid. The most obvious solution is usually the right one. This isn't about being manual or low-tech: it's about removing friction, decisions, and cognitive load from my daily experience.
What It IS:
- Doing less, better - eliminating what doesn't serve my actual life
- Choosing the straightforward solution over the clever one
- Automation that removes decisions and steps from my plate
- Well bought, done, moving on - not endless optimization
- Function over perfection, always
- One solution that works beats three "optimal" options
What It's NOT:
- Performing productivity for an audience
- Manual processes that require remembering steps
- Anti-technology or refusing sophisticated tools
- Settling for inadequate solutions in the name of minimalism
- Endless tweaking and optimization
- Making things harder to prove I can handle complexity
Structure: The Scaffolding That Protects Life from Work
Structure creates defined boundaries on when work happens and when it stops. It's the framework that holds what matters without requiring constant decisions. Systems that make simplicity sustainable instead of chaotic.
What It IS:
- Temporal boundaries that keep work from colonizing my whole life
- Frameworks with built-in endpoints and reset points
- The container that lets everything else breathe
- Systems that reduce decisions rather than create them
- Protecting life/work balance (in that order)
- Making the important things happen in their proper place and time
What It's NOT:
- Rigid control or inflexibility
- Forcing myself into someone else's productivity system
- Structure for structure's sake
- Performative planning that creates more work
- Linear systems designed for stable humans
- Corporate efficiency metrics or optimization theater
Together:
- Simplicity decides what matters and strips it down to the obvious solution.
- Structure makes sure it happens in its proper place and time, leaving the rest of life intact.
- Simplicity without structure becomes chaos.
- Structure without simplicity becomes the over-engineered nightmare I'm trying to avoid.
- Together, they create the container for sustainable work that doesn't eat my life.