7 Morning Rituals That Will Change Your Life

When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive – to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love.     – Marcus Aurelius

It's been almost 4 years now since I began working to rewrite my bad sleeping habits.

It was around that time that my first son Malik was born, and my personal time began to (really) take a nosedive. I had already been working for years on figuring out what I wanted to do with my life, and then when I found it, committing myself to it. I wanted to give my wife and I, and later our growing family, a "better" life.

But it wasn't until my first son was born though that I had to heavily reevaluate my life and how I spent my time. That was a real turning point.

For a while, I tried staying up extra late to work on my personal projects. But having a traditional work schedule on top of taking care of my son really made that difficult. A schedule like that was completely against not only my son's sleep schedule but, as I would later learn, our bodies natural rhythm.

One day, I ran into an old article about Zen Buddhist monks sleep schedules. Knowing little about their day-to-day schedules at the time, I was really interested to find out that they typically had sleep schedules somewhere around 10-11 P.M. to 3-4 A.M.

The article talked a bit about the reasoning, mentioning some things such as the body's natural rhythm, the fact that apparently experienced meditators seemed to need less sleep, among other things.

What really caught my ear was the bit about it being more conducive to our body's natural rhythm, and apparently adopting a schedule closer to this rhythm helped us feel happier and be healthier. That was easily one of the two biggest convincing factors to getting me to start waking up early. I didn't know if it was true, but it convinced me to try.

I also did some calculations, guesstimating what time I'd go to sleep (on average, kids really make this fluctuate) and wake up, and realized I'd actually get more time to myself as well as improve the quality of my sleep by going to bed, as well as waking up, early.

So I set out to do the unthinkable: I, the certified night owl since age 15, would begin waking up early. Fast-forward 4 years and I now wake up between 3-4 A.M. daily (you can read about how I did it here). It was a gradual process, chopping off thirty minutes to an hour every couple of months, but it was so worth it.

What began as a way to get some extra time and maybe feel a little more balanced quickly turned into one of the single best decisions of my life. It took a while to shift my schedule over, but my new schedule, even just starting out waking up at 6:30-7 A.M., made me feel great. I felt more alert during the day, my mind felt clearer and more at ease, and the quality of the time I got to myself was much greater.

I wasn't half asleep for the last hour or two of my personal time, like when I'd stay up late. After a few minutes of shaking off the sleepiness, I was awake and ready to go. And it was so peaceful and quiet in the morning that once I started waking up early I knew I'd never go back.

I learned that what you do when you first wake up in the morning is a firm indicator of not only the quality of the day you're going to have but by extension, the quality of your entire life. Committing to a few positive morning rituals each day can absolutely change your life in just about every way imaginable.

Becoming an early riser and making the most of each morning is about striving to get the most out of your life. You can use these 7 positive and healthy morning rituals to take command of your day and begin writing your own  life's story, instead of letting life write it for you.

7 Morning Rituals That Will Change Your Life

My morning schedule has changed many times over the past couple of years. Some things were experimental, some things I just got bored of (which is dangerous, because if you're not looking forward to waking up- you likely won't), but for the most part any change in my morning schedule has been because of my evolving spiritual practice.

Below are 7 healthy morning rituals, all of which I've done personally for an extended length of time and can heavily vouch for. I don't do all 7 of these rituals in one morning, nor have I ever. My morning schedule consists of usually 3-4 activities, some being daily activities and others being once or twice-weeklies. I'd suggest starting out by picking 1-2 of these to do each morning and expanding from there.

1. Tea meditation

This is what I do when I first wake up (on most days). For a long time, I wrestled with the difficulty of meditating immediately upon waking up. When you do that, you essentially sit down and go back to sleep. It's really difficult to have just woken up and sit down to meditate because you're just dozing off the entire time.

Bringing in a simple tea meditation ritual changed all of that. I drink mostly green tea, partly because that's just what I've drunk for years but partly because of the caffeine. I'm not a coffee drinker, so the caffeine in the green tea is the perfect wake up call. After I drink my tea I'm alert enough to sit in meditation without dozing off, so it's really worked out nicely.

Admittedly, this is one of my favorite parts of my day. I call this tea meditation, but when you fully engage yourself in what you're doing with mindfulness everything becomes meditation, so this is really just "drinking tea", nothing more than that.

To do tea meditation, you simply need to do every part of the tea making and tea drinking process with mindfulness. Take your time making your tea with mindfulness- heat up your water, get your cup out, pour the water, and sift the tea. Then, take your tea and sit down in a quiet place with it. Drink your tea like there's no tomorrow. Drinking this tea is the most important thing in the world.

When I sit down with my tea, after each cup I pour I sit the cup down in front of me, put my hands together, and give thanks for the tea. I bring my awareness to all those people who have to live with the threat of death from dehydration, and all those people who simply don't have enough. I make sure to first fully respect the tea and express my deep gratitude before drinking it.

After paying my respects to the tea, I simply drink it slowly with mindfulness. I usually drink a few small cups (about 1/4 of one cup at a time), but you can drink however much you'd like. You can shorten the practice down to just 10-15 minutes from start to finish by drinking only one small cup and drinking at a moderately slow pace.

After I'm done I put my empty cup down in front of me and give thanks once again for the tea. I do this for each cup of tea I drink.

(You could always choose to do this with coffee if you're a coffee drinker.)

2. Zazen (sitting meditation)

This is my cornerstone practice and what I do every morning immediately following my tea meditation. While tea meditation has become an important practice in its own right, I adopted it solely as a way to be able to meditate soon after waking.

Before I started doing tea meditation, I would sit down to write for a few hours before meditating, because otherwise I'd just doze off and have a very ineffective meditation session.

I sit down once, occasionally twice in the morning typically for 45 minutes to an hour. Over the years my meditation sessions have lengthened, starting with just 5 minutes a day in the beginning.

I mostly let myself develop naturally, never advancing to a lengthier session unless I felt totally comfortable with my current session length.

If there was one practice on this list that I'd say do every single day with absolute dedication, meditation would be it. Most everything else can fluctuate to some extent, but a daily practice of sitting meditation is one of the most powerful daily practices there is and really should be consistent if you want to get everything you can out of it.

3. Get creative

The morning is a great time to flex your creativity. When a novice monk or nun begins studying Zen, many times, if they have any natural inclination towards art within them, as time goes on they naturally begin to create art of some fashion more regularly.

It's difficult to describe in words why this is, but imagine you're a tuning fork. Through your spiritual practice, you're attempting to attune yourself to the ultimate, the one in the all and the all in the one. When it gets down to it, realizing this is really the central idea behind all spirituality.

So through your practice you gradually begin to tune yourself closer and closer to it, and when this happens you naturally wish to express the all becoming the one, or the great expression of life coming to be in this moment.

This is what art really is, and the morning silence is the ideal time to look within yourself and feel a deep connection to the world around you. This brings out your natural creativity, and self-expression that comes from it is natural and nourishing for the mind.

About once or twice a week I practice Zen calligraphy. I used to draw a lot back in high school but stopped over time and just never came back to it. Zen has uncontrollably possessed me to express myself with pen and paper once again, and it feels great.

If you've practiced drawing, painting, or anything else before or want to start doing so then the morning is a great time to do it. And flexing your creativity in the morning is a great way to get your creative juices flowing for the rest of the day.

4. Write

Being a writer, this is what I do with most of my time in the morning. But I don't want to talk too much about my writing practice, I want to talk about the benefits of writing in general.

Writing has become one of the most beneficial practices of my entire life. Writing opens you up and spurs you to bring form to thoughts and ideas in your mind like nothing else can. If you're going through a tough time, trying to figure something out, or gain clarity about something then writing is the most powerful exercise I know to do so.

I can't fully describe how powerful it is to take ideas in your head and have to figure out how to place them down on paper. This isn't always ideal, language has its limitations, but writing is a powerful exercise with great benefits nonetheless.

And whether you're a writer or not, you can get these same amazing benefits. You don't have to good at writing, you simply need to write. If you're trying to figure something out, anything really, just sit down and write about it. Even better, imagine you're writing TO other people. This is part of why writing has been so powerful for me, writing something I know other people are going to read can be a lot of pressure, but it can bring a lot of great things out from within you.

Writing itself is its own meditation for me. I just put my hands down on my keyboard and let whatever comes out of me fill the page. This can be really revealing, but also very therapeutic.

5. Keep a journal

I kept a journal for about a year and would highly suggest it. I used Day One on my iPhone, it was absolutely my favorite method of keeping a journal. I've since stopped regular entries, but not for any particular reason, though. I suppose it was mostly just to keep my efforts focused on a few things and not to over complicate my day/mornings.

Keeping a journal has all kinds of benefits. There are a couple different ways you can choose to keep a journal, the first notable way being to note all the good things that happened on a given day, however small. This form of keeping a journal can help to increase your confidence, make you happier, and give you better perspective during days that seemed tough and unproductive.

Another way of keeping a journal, and to me the most powerful, is what I'd call a mindful journal. It's essentially keeping a journal and noting down any thoughts or feelings you have throughout your day. You don't have to note down everything, mostly just those things which were unexpected or needed some introspection, but keeping a journal in this way can be a great partner to your meditation practice.

6. Start a project about something you love

This is why I originally decided to wake up early. The peace and quiet of the morning is unparalleled, so it's a great time to work on anything you want or need to do.

If you're still figuring out what you want to do with your life, or you just want to have some fun doing something you love, design a fun project around it and do a little each morning. The uninterrupted time of the morning is easily the most productive part of my day and the perfect time to stretch your creativity as I mentioned earlier.

7. Exercise

I trained in various martial arts for years, up until just a few years ago, a little while after I began waking up early. So training and working out were one of the things I did the most in the morning at first. I decided to stop training years ago, but I can vouch for exercise of just about any kind being a great morning ritual.

The morning is a great time to go for a run too. It's so quiet and peaceful in the morning, you could go for a mindful run and have little interruptions.

What you do in the morning has an uncanny ability to set you up for the rest of the day, so the energy and vitality you get from exercise is a great thing to do in the morning as it keeps you energized for the entire rest of your day.

How to Create a Zen Space: Finding Peace by Creating a Personal Space That Nourishes Your Mind and Body

This is your space, a place where all the noise of your life ceases to exist. For as long as you’re in this Zen space, you’re untouchable.

Eyes closed, you become suddenly alert. A relieving feeling washes over you. You open your eyes and see a soft light gliding down across the room. A loud buzzing rings throughout the room, but you’re left unfazed. It’s 6 A.M., and your alarm is reminding you to get up for work.

But this isn’t like every other day. No, you may have just woken up to a sound you wish you never had to hear again for the rest of your life, but it doesn’t bother you all that much. It’s Friday, and you’re free.

If you’ve ever worked a traditional schedule- or went to school for that matter- you know the feeling. It’s the “Friday effect”. You may have just woken up in the same manner as every other day in the week, and you might be about to get ready for, drive to, and spend the next 8 hours at work, all things you’re never all that excited to do, but because it’s Friday, and you’re about to have two full days off, you feel free as a bird.

The holidays have this same effect on many people. I know a lot of people who, when the ornaments go up and the smell of pine trees starts to permeate the air, become noticeably happier (I confess to being one of those people).

External circumstances like this can have a powerful effect on our minds and even our bodies. If we can learn how to use this power we can emphasize feelings of peace and tranquility in our lives, and, as a result, become more peaceful.

For this purpose, you can create your own personal Zen space. This is a space you can build yourself, no matter how much money or resources you have. This is your space, a place where all the noise of your life ceases to exist. For as long as you’re in this Zen space, you’re untouchable. Imagine a thin field of energy encompassing you as you enter your Zen space, and as long as you stay in this space, your mind repairs and replenishes itself.

What is your Zen space used for? In your Zen space, you simply sit. This is your time to meditate in silence and solitude. You can simply be mindful of:

• your breath,
• of the many sounds in and around you,
• or even of the sights and scenes within your field of vision.

Whatever you do, breathe, listen, or watch mindfully as the silent observer of your own infinite nature. Feel your breath, hear the many people, and see the many things as part of yourself, and you as part of them.

Creating Your Zen Space

So where do you create your Zen space? Ideally, your Zen space should be a room or a section of a room, but your Zen space can be anywhere:

• a small corner with a pillow to sit and meditate on,
• a tree in your backyard,
• or it could even be your car.
• Or, if you’re always on the move, it could be a time of day regardless of where you are.

Because you’ll meditate while in your Zen space, typically your Zen space will end up being the same place that you practice sitting meditation daily. But there’s only one rule in creating a Zen space: it needs to instill in you a sense of peace and tranquility. So as long as it does that, or at least just allows for quiet, it can be wherever you’d like.

This is your chance to replicate the “Friday effect”, so use whatever you know will instill a sense of peace in you. For the most part, by simply following your practice you’ll eventually develop a strong feeling of peace towards your Zen space, but there are a few things you can do to improve the quality of your Zen space.

If you set up your Zen space in a room or section of a room, make sure the room or the area is as clear as possible so as to reduce distractions and calm the mind. No matter where your Zen space is, you’ll want to face in the direction that is least likely to distract you.

If you’re sitting next to a window and you’re following your breath, while at times it can be good to meditate in a more active setting to strengthen your concentration, in your Zen space you want pure peace, so turn towards a wall to reduce possible distractions.

Lastly, it can help to add symbols to your Zen space like a picture or a trinket that reminds you either to be peaceful or of some other important quality like wisdom, compassion, or love. You could even go so far as to build a small area in your Zen space filled with these symbols.

If a time of day is your Zen space, make sure to prioritize the time you spend in your Zen space. Make it the most important thing in the world for those minutes you spend in it, and make any arrangements necessary to make sure you don’t miss the time you’ve set aside for yourself to be in your Zen space.

Being In Your Zen Space

You can stay in your Zen space for however long you’d like. For a general starting point, I’d set at least 10 minutes a day to spend in your Zen space. More is better, but this will be enough a lot of the time to bring the chaos of the day to rest in your mind and allow you to find your center again. Take your time at first, don’t try to do too much at once. Later, you can spend more time in your space as you feel comfortable.

Do you have to meditate in your Zen space? That’s generally the purpose of the space, as the point is to bring peace to your mind, but you don’t have to restrict yourself to one form of meditation.

Meditating When You're Stuck

If, on a certain day, you feel more stuck than stressed, instead of practicing mindful breathing you can practice mindfulness of your problems. Sit with your problems in mindfulness, simply acknowledging every thought and feeling that arises while sitting.

After sitting like this for some time you’ll often realize something you hadn’t considered or uncover something that was hidden deep within you. This can be a great way to find a resolution to something when you’re unsure of what to do.

This is pretty similar to practicing mindful breathing, as you'll become aware of any thoughts and feelings that arise while being mindful of your breath, but sitting down with the intention of resolving a problem tends to help me find a resolution much quicker than simply sitting. The idea essentially is that you hold the problem in your mind for a moment before sitting, and this will make your subconscious rest more with the problem than with something else while you sit. Then, you simply sit.

Anytime you need to find peace, go to your Zen space. Your Zen space is your very own Zen temple. Do everything you can to uphold this sacred space, as it nourishes your entire mind and body and positively affects your whole life.

Don’t attach yourself to your Zen space, though. The purpose of your Zen space isn’t to come to depend on it as your sole method of calming your mind and healing your pain and suffering. Your Zen space is a supplement to your daily practice, it enhances your practice as a whole.

Remember always that your daily practice of mindfulness and meditation is your priority and you’ll be in the right mind to make use of a Zen space to enhance your practice.

The Ultimate Zen Space

Your Zen space is more than just a physical location where you meditate. The most important Zen space of all is the one within your mind.

Remember the “Friday effect”? You can create that same effect in your mind whether you’re in or out of your Zen space, whether it’s Friday or Monday, and whether or not it’s the holidays. Live deeply each moment with mindfulness and reverence to unlock the beauty of life and you'll find your Zen space everywhere you go. _________________________________________

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7 Important Life Lessons My Children Have Taught Me

A short while after my first son Malik turned one, I remember thinking "What the heck's going on? My son's teaching me as much as I'm teaching him." I've learned so many important life lessons from my two boys that still today they're both teaching me new things all the time. And I don't know if I'll ever stop learning from them.

Thich Nhat Hanh, a Vietnamese Zen master and peace activist, and the person who taught me Zen through his books and dharma talks, coined the term "interbeing". It's a term that, for the most part, is meant to describe the truth of our interconnectedness more clearly and correctly. All things inter-are, or in other words all things live intrinsically connected to one another to the point where what I do affects all things and all things affect me, and this includes education.

Have you ever heard the saying, "the teacher learns more than the student"? I feel like that with Buddhaimonia. Writing for others has helped me grow so much. It's the same thing in the case of parenting, although I don't think the saying is completely correct in either case. I think it's more accurate to say:

the student learns from the teacher, the teacher learns from the student, their education inter-is.

Now obviously, when I say I learn from my boys, I don't mean that I'm sitting down in a classroom while my son slaps a yardstick down on my desk every time I get a math problem wrong (although he did try to put me on time-out the other day). The ways that I learn from them are often in the form of a sort of self-reflection. I see things in them. They show me things by their natural behavior.

There are so many different ways to learn, you should live mindful of the fact that every single waking (and even non-waking) moment can be an opportunity to learn something new. The best education is the education we get from going out there and living life, specifically from directly experiencing the very thing we want to learn about.

Now I'm not saying go out and have kids (if you don't already). So, slow down! Being a parent definitely gives you the greatest opportunity to learn these lessons, but you don't need to have children to learn from them. You can learn these same lessons from a niece, nephew, grandson, granddaughter, a friend's child if you're around them often, students if you're a teacher, by volunteering in a children's program, or any other way that allows you to interact with children.

If you don't have much experience with children, I'd suggest you take some time to get to know a few, it can be enlightening. Here are some of the most important things my children have taught me:

7 Important Life Lessons My Children Have Taught Me

1. Act always with love and compassion

Imagine your emotions as a form of energy. And these various energies- anger, sadness, joy, and excitement for instance- can be transferred from person to person. If someone feels a strong sense of joy, they radiate that joy and affect those around them, making them a little (and sometimes a lot) more joyful simply by being around them.

When he became old enough to recognize and understand certain basic emotions, I began to notice my son reflecting me and my wife's dispositions. If I lost my temper and yelled, as any parent is bound to do from time to time, my son would react back with anger, even if it wasn't directed at him. If I reacted with love and compassion, even if it didn't involve a single word, he'd respond back with love and compassion. He was old enough to recognize my emotions, but not old enough that much mental conditioning had set in, so he'd respond the way his mind naturally absorbed the information.

I wish I could remember where, but I read a story recently about researchers who had tried for years to study a specific group of gorillas in a nearby jungle. For years, the gorillas wouldn't let anyone near their jungle home. One research team after another would make plans, test their equipment, gear up, grab guns in case of the need for protection of course, and set out to hopefully get close enough to study the family of gorillas, only to be pushed back by the gorillas themselves.

That is...until a certain researcher decided to travel to the camp without any guns. This researcher took a team to the very same gorilla camp that research teams had tried to visit for years and was welcomed by the gorillas with open arms. The gorillas didn't just let them stay close enough to camp out and research the gorillas, they let them stay within their very camp.

The purpose of this story is that if you want to get through to people then you have to come from a place of love, compassion, and understanding. Any level of hostility can be felt by people (and all animals), and it will make them push back. Even if what you're saying is the truth, if it's hurtful then the other person will shut down. This is the Buddha's "Right Speech". To say something you know could be hurtful to someone is never OK, and it's never the right way to go about things, even if it's the truth. We need to always speak from a place of love and compassion.

If I want to get through to my son, the only way is with love, compassion, and understanding. Any less and he reads it, he feels my energy. Adults have a few more walls built up than the average child, but we all work essentially the same way. Speak to people with love and compassion and you have the ability to create change in them. Be a hard ass all you want, but by coming at people with hostility and aggressiveness they'll never truly let you in.

2. Division is a product of our conditioned mind

Belief, race, sex, and any other way adults seek to divide one another and treat each other unequally don't matter to kids. Sure, they're curious, and they ask questions, but they don't judge. Until you inject the belief in them that they're supposed to judge something in some specific way.

This might seem like an obvious point, but we wouldn't have conflict in the Middle East, hate crimes at home, or racial inequality in our workplaces and communities if this point really was that obvious.

Division is a product of our "small" or conditioned mind, the mind which remains unaware of our interbeing. While this is something I've been aware of for some time, I found strong confirmation in my boys that our natural inclination is that of acceptance as opposed to non-acceptance. It's through our life conditioning that we develop these false ideas of division when actually we're naturally accepting of all people from birth.

3. We have the potential to do amazing things

If my son can go from crawling on the ground, speaking nothing but incoherent blabber at 6 months to less than two years later walking, talking, eating, sleeping, and doing just about everything else like you and me then who knows what we can do as adults with our greater intellect and access to resources.

We really do have the potential to do amazing things, we just need to be willing to put the work in and understand that change doesn't happen overnight. Nearly every day I see stories of people doing amazing and unbelievable things through sheer hard work and perseverance. They don't even necessarily have any sort of prior skills that helped them achieve their goal, they just worked hard and never gave up.

When we accept that change is a gradual process, it's liberating. We stop trying to make game plans and track improvements and we just work. We work on putting our best foot forward at all times, one foot at a time. This is how children learn and grow and this is the best way we have to make lasting and measurable life improvements.

4. Smile

I'll talk a bit more about this in the next point, but this is one of the main reasons I believe why kids are typically so much happier than adults.

A smile is a powerful tool. Sometimes called "mouth Yoga", smiling to improve your mood is something simple, easy, and available to everyone in every moment. When used, it's a powerful tool for better well-being.

My kids smile constantly throughout a typical day. A lot of times they don't even need any good reason, they just smile. I've tried to follow their example as best I can and smile often, and I do feel it makes a measurable difference.

5. Let go

I've spent some time considering just why kids are so happy. Across the board, kids are just generally a lot happier than adults. But, why?

For the most part, I've seen confirmed in them the same things I've discovered in my own practice. One of the most important being their lack of attachment to just about anything. They have no dreams, no goals, and no expectations. And if they develop something, which they can, they quickly get over it as if it never existed. They haven't yet learned how to attach themselves mentally to things and therefore have few of the typical attachments seen in adulthood. And as a result, they live free as a bird.

The Buddhist practice of non-attachment stems from understanding the ultimate truths of impermanence and non-self. Non-attachment is a part of Buddhist practice because adults naturally develop attachments to a lot of things, and you need to undo these attachments and free yourself before you can truly find peace.

Non-attachment can be easily misunderstood, though. Don't be mistaken, to not hold an attachment to something simply means, for the most part, that you're aware of your own impermanence and the impermanence of all other things. It doesn't mean that you can't work towards something or love those around you just because you or they are inevitably going to die someday.

On the contrary, to be aware of the impermanence of all things is to love and appreciate them even more than if you held an attachment to them. Being aware that the flower in your hand is impermanent and will eventually wilt and die makes you appreciate the beauty of the flower that much more. It doesn't at all mean that you stop appreciating the flower any more than you did before.

You can do things, have intentions, and work towards goals. They key is to not attach yourself to them. Practice imagining in your mind losing everything, and find strength, meaning, and fulfillment in simply sitting and breathing mindfully.

6. Live in the present moment

This is, in a way, an extension of #5. One of the most harmful attachments we make in life is our attachment to the past and future. We look back on the past with regret and look to the future with plans and calculations, but rarely do we stop doing both of those things and simply rest in the present moment, free from all the pushing and pulling always occurring in our minds.

My boys have no goals, they're 1 and 3 years-old. They have no regrets....not much to regret. Much of what I've learned from them is due to the fact that they're still too young to have been negatively conditioned in certain ways. They live mostly enjoying the present moment because they don't have much past experience nor a concept of the future. But the fact still stands that they live in the present moment, and this is the last of the major reasons why I believe children are so much happier than adults. They're just always living in the present.

Every moment is an opportunity for fun. It's an opportunity to experience beauty, try something new, or just to do the same-old thing while being fully awake to the present moment. Living in the present moment is one of the most amazing sources of happiness for me, and I can see that same idea in action within my children as well.

7. Life is better lived for others

Before I had children, my entire adult life was one big "me" fest. It was about what I wanted to do with my life, how I was going to get what I wanted, and how I was going to make my mark on the world. The very day that I discovered that I was going to be a dad, that all started to change.

I began to think more about the safety and well-being of someone else, that someone being my future son, more than my own safety and well-being. This changed everything. And little did I know at the time, but it would open the floodgates to a much greater realization: that life isn't just better lived for others, life is best lived for all beings.

I realized later that it wasn't just about my kids, this same idea extended outwards to all people. And even beyond that- to all animals and planet Earth itself. To live in a way that you assume the responsibility of respecting and protecting life is to find a deep sense of meaning in your life. We can't save everything, all human beings destroy to some extent, but if you live life with a deep sense of respect for all living and non-living things then that's enough.

So, what important life lessons have children taught you? Something I didn't mention here? Let me know, I'd love to hear them.

6 Awesome Zen Stories That Will Teach You Important Life Lessons

Zen has a rich tradition of storytelling. Actually, just about the entire human race has a rich history of storytelling. Why do we like stories so much? Because we can identify with them. Stories, whether real or not, pull and tug at our emotions. We connect personally with stories.

Whereas someone can tell us that it’s important for us to appreciate and care for our parents, another person can tell us a story about the life of a daughter and her mother, and about how neither could ever see eye-to-eye all the way up until the day that the mother passed away.

Even if you aren’t a daughter, but a son, or if it was your father whom you had that type of relationship with, or even if you just feel like you don’t appreciate your mother or father (or both) enough, regardless, a story like that can touch you in a way that someone simply telling you, “hey, it’s important that you appreciate your parents”, could never do.

We need to experience something directly in order to really learn what it’s about. This is wisdom, as opposed to knowledge much like you’d acquire in a class at school, a parrot-like type of learning that serves as a nice basis for establishing the necessary foundation for certain larger tasks, but which can serve little real use elsewhere particularly in advancing your well-being.

I love Zen stories. Not just because I find them fun, because I do (most Zen Buddhist short stories require some level of meditative contemplation to figure out), I love them because their purpose is to teach a lesson. Also, Zen short stories go beyond just Zen. They're really just stories about life. So keep in mind I only say Zen stories because they originated from the Zen Buddhist tradition. They speak of truths which everyone can learn from, though (as does all of Zen).

The lesson can be anything- any undeniable life truth which can be discovered through a life devoted to looking within yourself. This is the life of any Buddhist, many non-Buddhists, and should be the life of anyone who cares to find the path to true peace and happiness.

These stories only seek to point the way. Don’t take any of them for the truth without investigating them for yourself. The point isn't to believe blindly, it's to develop confidence in your life and in the way. By the way, I mean the way to live our best life and ultimately find peace within ourselves and with others. Here's some of my favorite Zen stories: ______________________________________

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6 Awesome Zen Stories That Will Teach You Important Life Lessons

1. Everything changes

"Suzuki Roshi, I've been listening to your lectures for years," a student said during the question and answer time following a lecture, "but I just don't understand. Could you just please put it in a nutshell? Can you reduce Buddhism to one phrase?"

Everyone laughed. Suzuki laughed.

"Everything changes," he said. Then he asked for another question.

Explanation: One of the foremost teachings in Buddhism is that everything in life is impermanent. Suzuki Roshi (Shunryu Suzuki of Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind) is referring to this impermanence by saying "everything changes". This is a very deep teaching, but I'll attempt to sum it up in a way that can be understood and immediately helpful in a few words.

Because it encompasses everything, you can contemplate for hours on end and not realize the full magnitude of the principle of impermanence. You are impermanent, your loved ones are impermanent, your home is impermanent, even our planet is impermanent.

Why is this important? Because it teaches us that grasping onto things is one of the major reasons as to why we suffer. We need to live being aware of the ever-changing nature of reality and appreciate the present moment. It's not about letting go, it's really about not grasping in the first place. If we can learn to live in this way, we can find peace in everyday life.

2. Empty your cup

Nan-in, a Japanese master during the Meiji era (1868-1912), received a university professor who came to inquire about Zen.

Nan-in served tea. He poured his visitor’s cup full, and then kept on pouring. The professor watched the overflow until he no longer could restrain himself. “It is overfull. No more will go in!”

“Like this cup,” Nan-in said, “you are full of your own opinions and speculations. How can I show you Zen unless you first empty your cup?”

Explanation: The story tells it how it is, so I'll leave it at that.

3. Non-judgment

Once upon the time there was an old farmer who had worked his crops for many years. One day his horse ran away. Upon hearing the news, his neighbors came to visit. “Such bad luck,” they said sympathetically.

“Maybe,” the farmer replied.

The next morning the horse returned, bringing with it three other wild horses. “How wonderful,” the neighbors exclaimed.

“Maybe,” replied the old man.

The following day, his son tried to ride one of the untamed horses, was thrown, and broke his leg. The neighbors again came to offer their sympathy on his misfortune.

“Maybe,” answered the farmer.

The day after, military officials came to the village to draft young men into the army. Seeing that the son’s leg was broken, they passed him by. The neighbors congratulated the farmer on how well things had turned out.

“Maybe,” said the farmer.

Explanation: The farmer is practicing non-judgment. He understands the true nature of life, that you can't judge any event as an "end" in a way. Our life doesn't play out like a work of fiction. There aren't definite breaks that separate one moment versus another, and there isn't a perfectly formulated end which everything builds to.

There's always tomorrow. And whether the day was good or bad, there are a million effects which can arise from one event. Good and bad are interconnected. They are, in fact, two sides of the same coin. If things seem perfect, they aren't. If it seems like it's Armageddon in your corner of the world, it's not. Things can change in an instant, at all times. And they will at some point or another.

This doesn't mean that we can't be happy. On the contrary, it means that we need to realize this truth and live in a way that we're constantly aware of it in order to find peace and happiness. Don't let this change the way you live too much just yet, though. For now, just think on it, observe your life through the lens of this infinitely co-arising universe. This act in itself can bring you a great sense of peace.

4. Right and Wrong

When Bankei held his seclusion-weeks of meditation, pupils from many parts of Japan came to attend. During one of these gatherings a pupil was caught stealing. The matter was reported to Bankei with the request that the culprit be expelled. Bankei ignored the case.

Later the pupil was caught in a similar act, and again Bankei disregarded the matter. This angered the other pupils, who drew up a petition asking for the dismissal of the thief, stating that otherwise they would leave in a body.

When Bankei had read the petition he called everyone before him. “You are wise brothers,” he told them. “You know what is right and what is not right. You may go somewhere else to study if you wish, but this poor brother does not even know right from wrong. Who will teach him if I do not? I am going to keep him here even if all the rest of you leave.”

A torrent of tears cleansed the face of the brother who had stolen. All desire to steal had vanished.

Explanation: This story is pretty straightforward, but it certainly doesn't make you think any less than the rest. How quickly would most people turn their back on those who commit a crime like stealing, just as the pupils did. But look deeper and you might just see another human being. Someone that simply needs to be shown the path.

Don't write people off so easily. Expressing compassion isn't always easy, but we're all together in this life, so we can't just help those that keep good behavior. Those people who commit such crimes are often some of the people that need help with the most basic spiritual and human principles, such as right and wrong.

If you have a loved one who's committed a crime before you'll know exactly what I mean. You know they can be better and they shouldn't be thrown out just because they did something wrong at some point. Sure, we need to keep order, so they should be disciplined for their behavior, but we also need to take the time to teach them right and wrong. We should strive to lift them up just as we strive to lift ourselves and those we love up despite their own flaws.

5. Be the boss

A horse suddenly came galloping quickly down the road. It seemed as though the man had somewhere important to go.

Another man, who was standing alongside the road, shouted, "Where are you going?" and the man on the horse replied,

"I don't know! Ask the horse!"

Explanation: This is a short but well-known Zen story with a powerful meaning behind it. The horse symbolizes our habit energy. The story explains the way we usually live, at the mercy of our old habit energies which have been established not by our intentional actions, but by our surroundings and mindless activity.

The horse is pulling us along, making us run here and there and hurry everywhere and we don't even know why. If you stopped to ask yourself from time to time why exactly you're running around so much, sometimes you might have an answer, but it's never a very good one. You're just used to it, it's how we're taught to live.

But as much as we run, it gets us nowhere. We need to learn how to take back the reigns and let the horse know who's boss.

You're the boss, you've always been the boss, so start acting like it.

6. Watch yourself

There was once a pair of acrobats. The teacher was a poor widower and the student was a young girl by the name of Meda. These acrobats performed each day on the streets in order to earn enough to eat.

Their act consisted of the teacher balancing a tall bamboo pole on his head while the little girl climbed slowly to the top. Once to the top, she remained there while the teacher walked along the ground.

Both performers had to maintain complete focus and balance in order to prevent any injury from occurring and to complete the performance. One day, the teacher said to the pupil:

'Listen Meda, I will watch you and you watch me, so that we can help each other maintain concentration and balance and prevent an accident. Then we'll surely earn enough to eat.'

But the little girl was wise, she answered, 'Dear master, I think it would be better for each of us to watch ourself. To look after oneself means to look after both of us. That way I am sure we will avoid any accidents and earn enough to eat.'

Explanation: This one isn't a specifically Zen story, but it's said to have been told by the Buddha himself. This story is meant to illustrate that taking care of yourself is the most important thing you can do to take care of others.

By learning how to nourish your mind and body you'll naturally begin to treat those around you with more compassion, love, and kindness and create a more positive impact on the world around you as a whole. There is no division, taking care of yourself (in a spiritual sense, not in a material "buy myself things" kind of sense) equals taking care of others.

Specifically, by taking care of yourself, the Buddha was referring to mindfulness. The Buddha also said that by taking care of others, by showing them compassion and loving-kindness, we take care of ourselves.

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30 Simple Steps to Simple Living in 30 Days: How to Simplify Your Life from Start to Finish in 30 Days

Over the years, I've found that change is best made gradually and in small chunks. You don't have to necessarily take change one step at a time, but you do need to focus on only a few things at once, preferably things which have some relationship to one another.

That's the game plan behind the 30 Simple Steps in 30 Days idea: take a topic, like simplifying your life, and think of 30 relatively simple changes or adjustments you can make that, at the end of that month (or any other block of time), will have radically changed your situation in the chosen area.

The areas I've made the most radical changes in are the areas which I've taken aside and focused my energy on for a time, building small change on top of small change. Like nurturing a small child, you point your complete focus on to one thing, putting all of your energy, creativity, and resources into it to help it grow and develop.

This is why, I believe, you can make the most profound life changes by simplifying your efforts down to a few important things in life. Later, once those things have developed, you can shift your focus. But only focus on a few things at once.

And that brings us to our list. Ultimately, what I mentioned in the last paragraph is the point of this entire article. Simple living isn't just about making things easier or less of a mental burden, more importantly, it's about knowing what's most important to you and structuring your life in a way that gives you the most time possible to be with, to nurture, and to nourish those things.

So see this list as a way to shed the unnecessary. Imagine precious gems sitting at the bottom of a pile of crystals. Common and identical in appearance, when you first start out these crystals may look exactly the same as the precious gems.

Your job is to closely analyze your life as a whole and sift through it all to find what's most important to you. If it is (or supports in some way) what's most important to you then it has use. If it doesn't, the likelihood is it can be gotten rid of. This isn't always going to be easy, but using this benchmark makes the process as simple as can be.

If this is difficult to do for now, you can always do things in reverse: jump into this list and see it as a way to gradually remove distraction after distraction to get to the heart of your life and what matters most to you.

How to Simplify Your Life from Start to Finish in 30 Days

When deciding how to simplify your life, several categories can come to mind. So to make this article as easy to use as possible I've decided to organize the points based on these categories: food, money, entertainment and technology, mental, goals/work, possessions, other for single points with no others like it, and a beginning and an end point made to start you off in the right direction and end the process in the best way possible. You can choose to tackle these by category or mix it up, whatever works best for you. 

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Start:

1. Put things in perspective: It can be really hard to see the value in doing just about anything when your problems are overwhelming you. During such times, your problems are bigger than the world itself.

Put things in perspective in order to reduce the chaos in your mind and clarify your vision. If you don't take a moment to put your life, most notably your problems, in perspective then you'll have a difficult time navigating many of the other 29 days.

2. Start asking questions: Do I need this? Do I have to do this? Is this necessary? Is this worth my time? What's more important? Where is my time best spent? What do I really want to spend the majority of my time doing? Questions are powerful forces for positive change.

By learning how to utilize questions in difficult moments you can bring clarity to a confusing and complicated situation. It's useful to use questions such as these throughout the rest of the points on this list to find clarity.

Food:

3. Make a recipe list: List out every single thing you know how to make (as well as every place you typically buy food from). Once you're done, list out the ingredients needed to make the dishes and the amount of each ingredient per serving (based on what you, and possibly your family, usually eat). 

You can use this time to also make adjustments to your diet if you want by looking up some new recipes, but if you do that, I'd suggest only adding 1-2 new recipes to your list at a time (and/or removing 1-2 unhealthy recipes).

4. Set up a meal plan: Take your recipe list and make a meal plan sheet in Microsoft Excel, Word, or whatever you prefer to use. The point of this is to take a sheet out at the beginning of each week and plan out each of your meals with your recipe list.

As an added bonus, you can make larger quantities of something and eat it two to three times. That way you cut down on one to two cooking sessions that week. Doing this will save you a lot of time and headache.

Once you have your list, go to the store at the beginning of that week and buy everything at once. This can often cut down on store trips during the week.

5. Cut down on eating out and focus on eating at home: This is where the recipe list and meal plan you made comes in handy. The purpose of this is to fully automate, as much as you desire, the process of preparing meals.

I do love eating out from time to time, going to new and interesting places, and just being spontaneous. But, for the most part, figuring out breakfast, lunch, and then dinner can be a real hassle, especially if you have a family. And I prefer to keep my eating habits rather simple to not encourage overindulgence. It's easy to become obsessed with food in our modern fast food culture and not even know it, and this can affect our mental well-being.

This also makes it easier to eat healthy because it's essentially the polar opposite of binge eating.

Money: 

6. Set up automated direct accounts: This means both direct deposit at work (if possible) and savings accounts that automatically take portions of your paycheck.

Direct deposit is straightforward, it's one less thing to worry about. Direct withdrawal set up on savings accounts helps develop the habit of saving money even if you don't have much you can save right now.

You can easily set up just about any bank account to take $5 from every paycheck and transfer it to a simple savings account. Whatever the amount, it not only automates the savings process but it encourages and develops a savings habit.

7. Align bills on one day a month: I got this one from Leo Babauta at Zen Habits. Take every bill you have and, if possible, schedule it for the same day in the month. This allows you to make keeping up with bills a cinch. They're all on the same day, and you can add up the total amount due and simply place that into an account each month (a little each check or all at once).

This makes it so much easier to handle your monthly bills.

8. Cut off useless spending: The first time you analyze your monthly spending you're likely to find at least a few things which you can save money on. The first time I did this I found a few minor expenses that saved me somewhere around $75 right off the bat.

These needless expenses can take up your time, your money, and just overall make handling your expenses more complicated than it needs to be. Closely examine what you spend money on and ask yourself if you really need to have each thing.

9. Make weekly accounts: The purpose of this point is to automate your weekly spending. Take your regular paycheck combined with a breakdown of your monthly expenses and figure out how much you need from each check for each category. Categories can be: gas, groceries, bills, and a reserve account for all those irregular expenses like oil changes and birthdays.

For the reserve account, sit down and estimate the amount you'll spend for the year then break it down per week. You might have to adjust this as the best you can do is estimate, but this account will really help keep up with your expenses and make the process of paying for irregular expenses as easy as your regular ones. You can choose to track spending online, in an app, or pull out cash if you want to work more hands-on.

Entertainment & Technology:

10. Cut down and simplify apps:  At one point I had about 5 pages of apps on my iPhone. I had so many apps that were useless and provided little to no value to my life.

If you're phone or tablet is like mine was then these are all possible distractions that can take you away from what really matters most. Look through your phone and really question if you need each and every app you have. Then, once you're down to one or two pages, if possible (I do this with my iPhone) organize the apps into folders to make yourself have to click a second time to get to them. This utilizes something we'll talk about later, the path of least resistance, to further reduce distractions.

You can also choose to place some apps on a separate page so that, while you need them occasionally, they never distract you because you forget they're there most of the time.

11. Cut down and simplify email: This includes cleaning your inbox, archiving old emails, deleting useless folders, making new folders to organize your email into, and most importantly consolidating your email accounts.

I used to have a bunch of email accounts and most of them only got a few emails. By switching your email over on those services to one or two master emails you'll greatly simplify the entire email process. This is really important because email can easily take up a huge amount of your time if you don't keep it in check.

12. Unsubscribe from useless newsletters you get no value from: I used to be on a whole lot of emails lists that I got no value from whatsoever. And worst of all, I had this thing about having unopened emails in my inbox, so I had to click each email so that it wouldn't show the little red iPhone notification icon anymore. That meant clicking through all of these useless emails.

Do yourself a favor and only subscribe to email lists whose purpose is to provide you value. There are all kinds of different types of value that newsletters can give you, so you'll ultimately be the judge of this.

13. Get all your news and updates from one place: Read the news often? Maybe just about a specific topic? Like to read tabloids? Between the internet, TV, apps, and radio we can take in a lot of information in a day. This won't apply to everyone, but a lot of people don't notice that they're just checking on and reading about the rest of the world for a good portion of every day.

You should probably stop watching the news on TV (unless it's a half-way reputable news channel/program) and reading tabloids almost entirely.

But most importantly, I'd suggest finding a more positive news source and one that can bring everything together at once in order to save you time and sanity. For this, I use Flipboard.

On Flipboard, you can get the latest updates for literally anything organized in one area and in an easy to digest format. To take it a step further, you can even add social accounts to Flipboard, so if you only use Facebook because of two or three people, for instance, you can omit your use of Facebook almost altogether by adding their Facebook pages on Flipboard. There's also a lot of magazines on spirituality and personal development of all kinds. I highly suggest it.

I also run two magazines: the official Buddhaimonia magazine, where I repost my articles, and Zen Buddhaimonia, a magazine all about Buddhism which I add some of my favorite reads from the week to (usually a few articles a week).

14. Unfollow, unfriend, and subtract: Cut down on useless and time-wasting social media follows, friends, posts, etc.

Nothing against these people, but you know who they are for you. They might post useless things constantly on Facebook that don't serve you, spam you on Twitter 30 times a day, or a forum you often visit might have a number of bad seeds that cause arguments or generally make a positive or pleasant experience negative. These can waste A LOT of your time, your mental energy, and your sanity.

You don't need to follow the world or even every acquaintance. Reduce your overall social network connections down to those that really serve you or that you really care about.

Depending on what you do for a living this might be easier said than done, but there's generally always something you can do to simplify this area at least the first time you look at it.

15. Cut down on (or completely get rid of) TV: There are a few things you can do here, but they're all rather simple.

At the very least you should reduce your TV time down to your absolute favorite shows by making a list and picking the top few then shifting (if you haven't already) to watching online, not only to remove commercials (and therefore reduce distractions and save time), but also to put yourself in control of when you watch.

Watching something the day it airs can be fun, especially when you get people together (I did this with LOST...), but when you do it with multiple shows you're just at the whim of the TV schedule. You should be getting out and making your life.

This is the time, there will be no other better time than now. TV can wait until you're ready to watch. Or better yet, not at all...

16. Time your recreational internet time: Put yourself back in control of your life by recording whatever time you spent online just for fun. Whether it's Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, or Yahoo! News, set a time aside if possible and at least record any time you spend online just for fun. You'll likely be surprised with how much time you waste wandering the internet in distraction.

Part of simple living is in learning that we have only 24 hours each day, and by making the best of that time we can stop feeling rushed in other areas we want more time for.

Mental:

17. Practice mindfulness: The reason simplifying our lives is attractive to us, for the most part, is because every bit of our life we simplify we find a little more peace and joy in each moment of the day.

Also, a big part of simplifying your life comes in reducing the often overwhelming chatter occurring in our minds. Mindfulness is the cure to calming this internal chatter so that our minds can rest in simple peace.

18. Take care of the things you've been putting off: We usually have a few things we've been putting off. And typically, they're the things we could take care of in just a few minutes, if we worked up the courage to do them at least.

These things can really be a mental burden and, whether you notice it or not, eat at you a little each day. Not to mention the longer you put them off the worse they get usually, so taking care of them now will help you avoid a bigger issue later. You can read how to do that here.

Goals/Work:

19. Keep a weekly focus list: I'm not talking about a daily or weekly to-do list to get locked into, but rather a simple a list of things which are urgent and of relative importance which you either don't want to forget or want to keep from having to remember.

An example of things I place on this list are minor changes to my websites design, something I have to buy, and someone important I have to email. While important, these are things that aren't nearly as important as other things I do.

For this reason, I like writing them down and often placing alarm reminders on them so that I don't have to clutter my mind with them. The reminders will remind me when I need to remember them, or I look at my list once a day and will remember them then, and I don't have to bother thinking about them.

20. Simplify your goals: If you have goals, reevaluate them and consider if each goal is necessary, compelling, and beneficial towards your well-being and the well-being of others.

You can't possibly move towards a dozen goals at once, that just won't work out. You can have all kinds of great goals but you'll have to focus on only a few at a time if you want to get anywhere. In some cases, it might be better to rid yourself of goals altogether. I focus more on intention.

I intend to write every day. I have the goal of finishing my second book by next month. I stay conscious of my goal, but I rarely think about it. I focus on my intention, and I intend to write and to get better at writing every day. That's my focus, my goal is secondary. I have no set goal for this, and it's liberating. I just write, with no deadlines, and my best work comes out.

21. Stop multi-tasking / Start single-tasking: Multi-tasking is all-around bad for our well-being on a number of levels. Simplifying our lives isn't just reducing what we buy, use, and take on, but also reducing intangible factors like calming our minds, focusing our efforts, and reducing distractions.

Replace multi-tasking with single-tasking, do as many things in your day as possible with a single-pointed mind. That is, to do something in a way that nothing else matters in the moment that you're doing it. Put 100% of your focus on that thing and give your entire being to making the best of your presence and attention towards whatever you're doing.

Make it a point to focus on one thing at a time instead of bouncing around, especially at work, the easiest place to fall victim to the myth of multi-tasking.

22. Delegate / Ask for Help: This might sound like "simplify things for me and add more for others", but it's not. This is being smart about how much you can handle. As I mentioned earlier, we need to be aware of the fact that we're not invincible. This doesn't make us weak, it makes us stronger.

When we live and work blindly we, thinking we can handle it all and then some, just end up hurting ourselves and everything we're connected to. By learning to ask for help, especially soliciting the help of those who are better than you at the thing you need help with, you not only do good for yourself but for others as well.

Connecting positively with and helping others makes us happier and healthier, so don't feel bad admitting you could use a helping hand.

23. Utilize the path of least resistance: Most of us are constantly wrestling with old habit energies. We're trying to establish new positive habits but the old cumbersome ones keep getting in the way.

To combat this and make the process of establishing a better life simpler and easier, start utilizing the path of least resistance. Make whatever you want to do the easiest thing for you to do in the moment you want to do it. And next, make the thing you DON'T want to do as inconvenient as possible.

For example, if you have donuts and fruit at home and rather eat the fruit, put the donuts in the cupboard behind a couple other boxes. Then, place the fruit out on a table or kitchen counter to make it as easy as possible to access it.

This really simplifies the process of developing new positive habits and helps literally everything. Try it, it works.

24. Start pre-planning your days:  Plan what you expect, or hope, to get done the night before a given day. Do this roughly, not exactly.

You don't have to be exact, just give yourself guidance so that 1) you don't waste time doing useless or less important things, and 2) so that you have some internal marker as to when you do actually lose your focus.

Possessions:

25. Give away needless physical possessions: This is a pretty common one. It's as straightforward as it sounds, but be careful, it's easily worth more than one day on this list.

Going through one or two rooms can take an entire day depending on how many things you own. When considering what to get rid of (preferably giving away or donating as opposed to throwing away) ask yourself how often you've used it in the last year/month depending on what it is, how much you plan on using it in the future, and whether it contributes positively, negatively, or neutrally to your life in general.

26. Become a more conscious consumer:  Start looking deeply into the things you buy and consume. Consider if what you're buying is something you need or want, what purpose the thing fulfills, and if something or a combination of things you already own can fulfill the same purpose.

Other:

27. Cut down on time commitments: Many of us over commit. We either don't like telling friends or family members "no" or we think we can handle the weight of the world on our backs and rather break our back before admitting defeat.

But no matter who you are, you're human. And that means you're not invincible. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying you can't grow stronger and take an immeasurable amount of responsibility if need-be, but in the long run this will not only be harmful towards your overall well-being but it can inhibit your own success and affect the well-being of those around you if you're not careful.

You need to cut down on time commitments not worth spending your time, and ultimately your life, on and start being a little more conscious of when you're at your limit.

28. Systematize and automate the collection of important information: This means primarily important paperwork, passwords, and account information.

We get bills, offers, notes, notices of changes, statements, copies of all kinds of stuff: birth certificates, medical information, account information, and we have a zillion passwords and logins for all kinds of different things. This can be difficult to keep track of, especially when it comes to things we get on a regular basis like bills and statements.

Most of us barely if at all keep this information organized, and if we end up needing it, go through a lot of hassle to find it again. It's important to set up a reliable system to deal with all the important information you receive. You never know when you'll have to come back to it, and when you do, it's often pretty important that you find it.

You can use a simple scanner to save the files and then organize them on your computer into folders to make it as easy as possible to find. I'd suggest getting something like Evernote to store and organize the information, it's my favorite program/application of any kind and it's super easy to store important information in an organized way.

Also, for physical paperwork you need to keep a hold of like birth certificates and such I'd get one of those multi-file folders (with labels) you can find at any office supply store. This system won't take any time at all and will ultimately simplify a part of modern life that can be a real pain to keep up with.

29. Stop the bleeding: If you have any negative influences or associations in your life, you need to begin moving away from them. This isn't always easy to do, but a truly negative influence, that is someone who absolutely refuses to change some negative behavior, is poisonous to your efforts for positive self-improvement and spiritual development.

You want to cultivate compassion for all people, but a bad influence who doesn't want to change can really hold you back, so you need to separate yourself from them, express compassion and understanding towards them for their situation, and hope that they one day realize their wrong actions and grow the desire to change.

End:

30. Reevaluate everything: At the end of these 30 days, how did everything go? Is there something you want or need to change? Are there further changes to be made? Is there something that didn't turn out well and needs to be adjusted?

Only you know the answer to these questions based on your situation, so I suggest you stay aware of the specific effects each simplifying strategy is having on your life. In many cases, the adjustments can be just as productive and important as the initial action.

*Bonus:

31. Move closer to work or work closer to home: This might seem like an odd one, but it's important. Long work commutes have shown in recent studies to have a relatively significant effect on our well-being. They make life more complicated and a lot of situations inconvenient in general.

This, of course, is the one thing on this list that can't easily be done or started in a day. But, you can at least figure out if this is an issue for you, and if so, start thinking about how you can remedy it one way or the other.

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