What Can You Have in Common with Steve Jobs?
Written by Michele Vieux
The concept isn’t new. Conserve energy on decisions that don’t matter and save your precious time for what’s really important. Steve Jobs is famous for doing this with his wardrobe – wearing the same style turtleneck every single day. It became his trademark. It also helped afford him the ability to make decisions at the highest level without tiring.
Most of us aren’t on the level of Steve Jobs as far as our careers go, but that doesn’t mean that it’s not important for us to conserve energy and time for the things we love by eliminating the waste of both. Anyone can apply this method to their life in order to enrich it.
If you are reading this, your health is likely one of the highest priorities you hold. It’s probably also one of the things you let slip when life gets hectic. Finding that key to balance can be a challenge but one worth accepting. So how can you ‘pull a Jobs’ so living a healthy lifestyle isn’t a drain?
The first thing that might come to mind is to throw out your variety of clothes in exchange for one, signature outfit. This method has been done throughout history, which is evidenced by the closets of Fred Flintstone and also Superman.
But is it necessary? Perhaps.
How realistic is it? Unless you focus solely on doing this with your gym clothes, then probably not very.
However…this might not be such a bad idea for those who find themselves trying to match their gym shirt with their tall socks every day and then giving up on that AND attending class at the gym that night.
Instead, make a list of the things that you have to do each day that don’t bring you joy – the things that take time, energy and are draining for you to complete. The things that keep you from doing what you WANT to do and what’s important to you.
Now, for each item on the list, suggest one or two ways you can ‘pull a Jobs’ and either simplify the process or eliminate it altogether.
It really could be having the Fred Flintstone closet of gym clothes in a secret file cabinet drawer in your office so all you have to do to get to the gym after work is grab a pile from that drawer.
Laughing because you can NEVER seem to leave work on time to make it to the 5:30pm class? That can be added to the list too. What’s keeping you from doing that? How can you eliminate it or simplify the process so you can get out the door and on your way to improved health?
Or maybe you decide to have the same thing for breakfast every day before work because that’s one less thing to slow you down thinking about and since you’ve already timed that it only takes you 1.5 minutes to prepare and because you’re extremely efficient at slicing a banana over Greek yogurt.
The point is…Conserve energy. Save time. Eliminate the things that keep you from where you want to be. Everyone will have a slightly different list and ideas of how to address it but we can all learn from each other’s successes. What keeps you from your joy and how do you plan to ‘pull a Jobs’ to rectify this?
Photo Courtesy of: ProProfs Quiz