I’ve been seeing a lot of posts recently about people trying to pare their “stuff” down to just 100 things. I first saw it over on Stuck in Stuff, and then again on Zen Habits (which also talked about The Rucksack Life, a blog I hadn’t yet heard of).

I’ve been considering paring down my “stuff” (I have way too much of it) to 100 things. My husband and I are on vacation for the next 11 days, and I’m considering getting a small dumpster to start getting rid of things. I have boxes in my attic that have moved with us twice now and never been unpacked (and we’ve lived in our current house for almost four years). I’m going to make three piles - dumpster, charity/friends, and storage for anything we’re not keeping in the house.

We’re planning on putting our house on the market sometime in the next 6-10 months (probably in the spring), and I know that I need to clean out all of our clutter to improve our chances of selling. I’m hoping that we’ll be able to get rid of 75% of our stuff, put another 15% in storage (mostly personal, sentimental things), and keep only about 10% of our stuff in the house while selling. A huge benefit to this will be that moving is going to be that much easier and that much less stressful if we only have to move 1/4 of what we currently have into a new place. FYI: I plan on using Martha Stewart’s technique for moving, which should also make moving much less stressful (I absolutely love Martha!).

One thing that might surprise a lot of you is that we’re not really planning on downsizing when we move, and in fact will probably (hopefully) be getting into a significantly larger place. I have my eye on a beautiful historic home about 20 minutes from where I currently live that’s probably around 4,000 square feet (just a guess, it could be bigger). I’m thinking that while all that space is going to be great for entertaining, if I don’t make my life a bit more minimalistic, it’s just going to end up incredibly cluttered and hard to keep clean!

So, back on topic, I’m thinking about trying to get down to only 100 things during this vacation. But, it’s a bit complicated. Do I count my Moleskines as one thing or a bunch of things (I currently carry four with me and have three more at home that I use)? What about the legal pads I use for my creative writing (I just started a novel earlier this week and have written 14 pages so far!)? And my pens (I carry 7 in my bag and have a bunch of others around the house)? I’m definitely thinking that my books should only count as one thing, otherwise I’d easily exceed my 100 things by 200 or more things! Should I count furniture? Bedding? Is a set of sheets one thing or four (flat sheet, fitted sheet and two pillow cases)? I use two pillows and so does my husband, is that four things, two things, or one thing? Do each of my dogs count (I have two) and my cat? Or are they considered family members? And if they’re family, do each of them get 100 things? If they do, can I use that to cheat and say that all of the furniture counts as their things instead of mine (after all, they’re on the furniture at least as much as I am)? Do vehicles count? Tools?

It’s a lot to think about. I guess before I actually start getting rid of stuff I have to decide what’s going to be included. I’ll keep this updated, and would appreciate anyone’s opinions about what should or shouldn’t be included.

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Life is complex, stressful, and tough sometimes (okay, most of the time). Often we don’t even know what’s wrong, because there are so many possible culprits. The stress that builds up is often released in unproductive and often harmful ways.

Often, you need to quiet your mind so that you can get to the bottom of what may be causing you stress. Once you don’t have a million things running through your brain, you can figure out what is the largest source of your stress.

There are many different techniques that you can use to quiet your mind.

Mantric meditation. Meditating by repeating a mantra (such as “om”) is a good way to quiet your mind, especially if you have problems simply meditating. A simple mantra focuses your thoughts on something that isn’t really a thought, and takes your attention off of all the other things running through your mind.

Listen to white noise. White noise can be a great way to relax and clear your mind. You can get a white noise generator or you can purchase CD’s or MP3 files to listen to. Make sure that you’re not doing anything else while listening.

Go for a drive. Taking a drive can be relaxing for some people, and you tend to let your mind wander while doing so. Try to focus on what’s around you instead of your own thoughts.

Take a shower or bath. The sound of running water can have a similar effect to white noise. And sitting in a tub full of water helps to calm some of your senses and reduces physical input. These can both be key to clearing your mind.

TopTen.org has a list of nine other ways (mantric meditation was on their list) to quiet your mind.

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The Noble Eight Fold Path is a Buddhist philosophy that aims to direct the lives of it’s followers. As implied, there are eight parts to the path, and each concept can be applied to how you do business.

1. Right speech.

Right speech means to only speak truth, and to speak in a nonharmful, unexagerated manner. This is a very important concept for business. Speaking truthfully to clients, colleagues, and prospects is important. When you exagerate things to a client or prospect, you lose credibility if they find out that you’re exagerating. This can be more harmful to your business than virtually anything else you might do. If a client doesn’t trust you, they won’t do business with you - simple as that. Lying or exagerating to colleages is just as bad. When you exagerate or lie about successes, at best you annoy people, and worst case scenario is that no one believes anything you say anymore. Either way, it’s bad news for you.

The second part of this is nonharmful speech. Make sure that any criticism that you give is constructive, and make sure that you’re not saying things to intentially be hurtful (no matter how tempting it might be).

2. Right actions.

Right action is not acting in a way that might harm someone else. This is directly related to right speech. If you tell someone that you’ll do something, then do it. If you told someone that you wouldn’t do something, then don’t do it. It’s really not much more complicated. Don’t cheat people or mislead them. Make sure that the actions to take don’t hurt anyone else. Make sure that if you’re doing something to benefit yourself that it’s not at the expense of someone else. Even though it can be tempting at times to do things that might not have the best effect on your competition, resist the temptation. Doing things that have a harmful effect on others will eventually come back to haunt you.

3. Right livelihood.

Make sure that the business that you are partaking in is not harmful to people. You have to use your own judgement in a lot of cases as to whether or not something is harmful (hint: when in doubt, you’re generally hurting at least one group of people, even if you’re helping others). Taking part in a business that is helpful to others is the ideal in this path, but at the very least you shouldn’t be overtly harming anyone.

4. Right effort/exercise.

Right effort basically means that you strive to improve yourself. You should constantly be working toward doing a better job than you’ve done previously. Continually improving your performance is a great way to increase business. If you’re constantly besting yourself, your clients will notice, and will bring you more business (both themselves and through referrals).

5. Right mindfulness/awareness.

Right mindfulness is all about having the mental clarity to see things as they are. Don’t get caught up in someone else’s fast-talking sales pitch. Make sure that you don’t get sidetracked by things that aren’t important. Have the ability to see a project or opportunity for what it is, not what you want it to be.

6. Right concentration.

Right concentration is a bit more difficult, especially for those of us striving for success. Right concentration means being aware of your present reality while not having any cravings or aversion to anything outside of the present moment. As I said, this can be very difficult for those who are striving to reach goals. The main thing to remember is that the task at hand is the most important one. If you don’t complete the task at hand, you won’t move on to the next task. And by concentrating just on the task at hand, you can complete it more quickly and to a higher level of quality than if you’re distracted by what you might be doing next week (or next year). This is especially true if you’re not looking forward to something. The distraction caused by something unpleasant that you’re really not looking forward to can have a much more negative impact on your work. If you’re dreading something, that will show in the quality of your current work. If you simply invest yourself fully in the task at hand, your work will reflect your concentration and dedication.

7. Right thoughts.

Right thoughts is really about the intention to change your pattern of thinking. Right thought is about making a commitment to being free of ill will. Being free of ill will is important in carrying out the rest of the concepts here. Without a freedom from ill will, you won’t be able to achieve peak results and productivity.

8. Right understanding.

Right understanding is, in part, realizing that things are not permanent. Once you realize that the things that you do aren’t permanent, that you yourself are not permanent, things become much clearer. The little things don’t matter as much. Things are in a constant state of change, and once you accept that, life goes a lot easier.

The Noble Eight-Fold Path is just one aspect of Buddhist philosophy (or eight aspects depending on how you look at it). There are many other parts of Buddhist philosophy that can be applied to business and life in general whether you’re a practicing Buddhist or not. More on the Noble Eight-Fold Path can be found on Wikipedia.

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