Mary Jaksch of Goodlife Zen has a guest post at Zen Habits about How to Live Life to the Max with Beginner’s Mind.

At Goodlife Zen is a post about Lifestyle Makeover: How to Simplify Your life in 5 Easy Steps.

Another post about simplify: Living Simply: The Ultimate Guide to Conquering Your Clutter.

What is the single most important advice for my readers to use simplicity for their personal development?

I like Leo’s answer and his definiton of simplicity:

Simplicity is, at its core, just choosing the essential over the non-essential. It’s a way to make the most use of your time, to be more effective, and to do the things you love.

Start by identifying 4-5 things you really love — those are the essentials in your life — then build your life around those things. Eliminate as much of the rest as possible. The same is true of work tasks and projects, of the things you spend on, on the clutter in your house — choose the essential and eliminate the rest.

The essence of his answer sounds easy – choose the essential and eliminate the rest – but is harder to implement.

Get this and other articles from the source at btwendel.com.

Besides the noble art of getting things done, there is the noble art of leaving things undone. The wisdom of life consists in the elimination of non-essentials.
Lin Yutang

This quote is also in the Zen To Done e-book. In Turning 2008 into 80-20 at my other blog I write about separating the chaff from the wheat using the 80/20 rule.

Question: Can YOU distinguish essential from non-essential?

Making the simple complicated is commonplace; making the complicated simple, awesomely simple, that’s creativity.
Charles Mingus

I intend to simplify my life in order to get more time for things I love to do. Reading books (and internet), writing and blogging, yoga, meditation, meeting people.