My grandfather used to tell me, simplify, simplify again and when you think you have finished, simplify one more time.
As time passes, everything is becoming more and more complicated. It happens in every aspect of our lives: personal, family, social, at work,..., and a “cleaning process” must be installed to get our life easier, productive and more complete.
The simplification process can vary a lot from one person to another, covering: lifestyle, time management, financial organisation, object usage and their dependencies,…, etc.
There is a well-known anecdote from Steve Jobs. He wears a sort of uniform, a black turtleneck T-shirt, a Levi's 501 jeans, along with a pair of sandals or sneakers New Balance. Interestingly, Jobs wore these clothes not only at a casual workday at his company but also during the major events of the company.
There was a reason for that. Jobs visited Japan in the 1980s, he met Sony's chairman Akio Morita, during the visit paid attention to Sony's factory and he was fascinated by the uniform that workers in the factory were wearing. When Jobs asked about it, Morita told Jobs that, after the war, workers at the factory had no clothes to wear, due to which Sony had to give them clothes every day. Over the years, these clothes developed a distinct style of the company.
Steve decided that he wanted that type of bonding for the Apple team, "as recorded by Walter Isaacson while he was preparing his biography Steve Jobs”, with this idea in mind, he asked the Japanese designer Issey Miyake, who designed the uniform for Sony, to make a customised vest for Apple. However, when Jobs tried to introduce the vest at Apple, the idea was rejected.
During the process, Jobs used to visit Miyake frequently and fostered friendship between the two. And when Apple employees rejected the idea of the uniform, Jobs decided to adopt one in his personal life to simplify his routines. The design was completed and soon he received "hundreds" of turtlenecks from him. "I have enough to last for the rest of my life," Jobs told Isaacson, and says that: “every day I know in advance the clothes I will wear, so I do not waste a single second in deciding non important things. I prefer to invest the time in topics I consider more important for me.
He took that decision, as an example, but we can work on us and into our environment to discover ours, which will help us to simplify our life, instead of getting it into a more complicated one, every day.
So do not forget: ”Simplify, simplify again and when you think you're finished simplify one more time”.
The storyteller.
P. S. To complement the message, you can read a not bad reading: “Steve Jobs A Biography, Walter Isaacson”, or take a look at the attached Buddhist story.