Contents

About the Book

About the Author

Introduction

The Fundamentals

My Brain is a Dick

The Holy Trinity and the Simple Solution

The Average Joe

Systems Thinking

The Minimum Effective Lifestyle

The Lazy Man’s Sprint

Finance

I’m a Fucking Cyborg!

Following My Passion Is Bullshit

Being the General of My Career

Knowing My Number

Investments and Pensions

The Biggest Financial Decision

Budgeting

Minimalism and Savings

Early Retirement

Health

Self-Awareness and The Healthy Mind

The Lazy Man’s Diet Guide

Option 1: Maintain

Option 2: Rapid Weight Loss with Heavy Restrictions

Option 3: Rapid Weight Loss, Little Restrictions

Exercise

Weight Loss

Get Ripped (at current or while losing weight)

Muscle Gain

Emotional Health

Mental Health

Productivity

First Principles of Productivity

Doing Less

Creativity & Shock Meditation

Productivity in Practise

Fin

About the Book

The essential concepts for a lazy person to improve their life are actually not that difficult to grasp. But they are spread far and wide across many books, websites or individual thinkers. So not exactly within the grasp of a lazy person.

The purpose of this book is to bring together the fundamentals of these concepts. Having all the techniques in one place.

This book will also share the results of applying these learnings to various areas of life. Areas that many lazy people struggle to improve. Using the techniques and fundamentals learned from many other sources we can leverage laziness and find the simplest solutions to our problems.

This book is written in sections. The fundamentals section gives an architecture of the minimum effective lifestyle. A scaffold to be applied to the areas of life that the reader wants to improve on.

The finance section details the author's experience and learnings, applying the minimum effective lifestyle to his wealth-earning activities.

The health section uses laziness as a tool to figure out the easiest ways to a happy and healthy body and mind.

And the productivity section is a lazy man’s guide to getting more done.

If you like the book, please share it with others or write a review so others may find it too. Or do both. Or do neither. I’m a book, don’t let me tell you what to do.

About the Author

“Cherish those that seek the truth but beware of those who find it” - Voltaire

I use quotes to make myself seem smarter. I’ve already tried to associate myself with Voltaire by using the above. All I know is that he was some French writer. And he was using a single name before Cher and Madonna made it cool. I’ve never read anything he has written. Yet I stole this quote anyway.

The about the author section is where a writer pitches to his audience about how great he is. But like the quote above, I want to be very honest that I have not found ‘the’ truth. Or any truth for that matter. I’m always seeking and will never pretend otherwise.

I own three businesses. Two make no money at all. One makes a small profit. I could say I’m CEO/Lead Dreamer of three exciting and profitable startups. I could say I'm a successful entrepreneur. But I am not those things.

I’ve invested in a few of my friend's ideas. One of which makes a little profit. The rest, not so much. I earn enough money to be an accredited investor. I can buy options in Twitter right now if I wanted to. I could say I’m an early stage startup investor - invested in companies such as Twitter. But I am not this either.

I have a degree in Theoretical Physics. A master's in Economics and a 10-year career in investment risk. I could say I'm an expert in one or more of those fields. But that would be an insult to actual experts in those areas.

I'm not an entrepreneur.

I'm not an expert.

I'm not an early stage investor.

I'm not a billionaire.

I could tell you otherwise, of course. And as you can see from the above, I could claim some basis for doing so. Which is more than most who've lied about similar.

People need to seem extraordinary to gain some attention. That fact won't change anytime soon. But, over time, what people deemed extraordinary becomes mundane, and vice-versa.

Being extraordinary in these times is to be honest and open about my flaws. It's to be accepting of my average role in life. It's to know that I'm not some unique flower that everyone will soon notice and applaud. It's to live a happy life, not carefree, but to enjoy the simple and mundane.

Now, I can't prove I'm any of these things either. But we’ve all read the authors with sometimes questionable résumés, I'm sure you can give me a shot too.

The Minimum Effective Lifestyle

A Lazy Man’s guide to a good life

Karl N. Mark

Introduction

“Ambition is a poor excuse for not having sense enough to be lazy” - Milan Kundera

I’m inherently lazy. I’ve always looked for the easy option in life, the shortcuts to success. As a kid, I would shout out to my mum when I finished in the toilet so she could come in and wipe my bum. Too lazy to wipe my own arse. The fact I can remember this means I was too old for it to be acceptable. And this was only the start.

I hated this about myself, my laziness, not my lack of arse cleaning abilities. I tried to 'fix' it many times. I read every article and book I could find on how to stop procrastinating. How to start being ‘successful’.

‘10 ways to stop being shit at life’. The summary: be better at everything.

‘15 things Steve Jobs did in the morning so you should too (number 2 will surprise you)’. Spoiler alert, number 2 is he takes a dump.

'Warren Buffett's 10 simple rules for investing'. Number 1 is to have loads of money to start with and number 4 is to be able to predict the market.

I got fed up. Everyone was an entrepreneur. An expert or an inventor. A startup guru or an early stage investor. But that wasn’t me. Their methods didn’t seem to work for me. I’m not even sure it ever worked for them. I was fighting an uphill battle the whole time.

I then had my own eureka moment, although altogether less dramatic. I thought I could flip the problem on its head. What if laziness was a good thing? It is not a desired trait, of course. But was it telling me something? Was it a symptom and not the actual problem?

The common cultural narrative is that I lack drive, I'm giving up on my amazing potential. The truth though, is that I didn’t enjoy what I was doing. I thought I wanted something, I wanted the end result, but the process to get there sucked. And so, I’d put it off, I’d sit and watch Netflix, I’d go on Reddit, Facebook, anything but the task at hand.

The real problem was that I was punishing the end result. I was not fixing the root cause of my issues. Like locking away junkies to solve a drug crisis. It turned out, either the methods to get what I wanted were terrible. Or the ‘what I wanted’ part of the equation was too complex and I didn't want it at all.

I was using flawed methods to get what I wanted in life. I was thrashing against the flow of the river. I needed willpower. I needed motivation. All the stars had to align for me to get to my goals. All things which seemed outside my control.

Or what I wanted was something that had been thrust upon me by a broken society. Six-pack Abs - that require me to go to the gym every day for 2 hours. A massive house - that I have to clean on a daily basis. A beautiful car - that I have to work 14-hour days to afford.

But what if I could leverage my laziness, Judo style. What if I could see laziness trotting towards me. And I grabbed its arm and used its own power against itself. Flipping it over my shoulder and slamming it on the ground behind me.

To use another less confusing analogy, what if I stopped swimming against the flow? What if I, instead, let it take me down the river a little while I steer. See where it would take me.

This is what I like to call the minimum effective lifestyle.

The Minimum Effective Lifestyle

We all have shit we need to do but have zero motivation for. We all have aspirations to be super amazing human beings. But we can’t handle all that work that's meant to go with it.

Is there is a way to do the bare minimum that gets us there?

Is what we want not actually what we need?

Do we have to be the next Richard Branson? Is being average and happy a pretty fucking good result?

The Minimum Effective Lifestyle is a lazy man's guide to a good life. Its aim is to simplify. Complexity is hard. Laziness is my reaction to complexity. But once we simplify, laziness will no longer be the issue.

I’m a lazy man, and proud of it. My motivation is in finding the easiest solutions to my problems. It took me a long time, and a lot of experiments to finally find what works for me. And I’m always learning and trying to improve.

Likely, it will be the same case for you. I do not have all the same goals, dreams, needs or wants as you. So, I wrote this book more as a set of guidelines, for myself and others. I’ll give you specific examples of what worked for me, but I know all too well that this may not work for you. So, we must experiment with the minimum effective lifestyle as our guide. Experimenting will be key to any improvements.

In this book, I want to talk about the fundamentals of this method. I've not had an original thought in my life. This is a collection of ideas I've got from others and patched together to work for my lazy mind. The fundamentals will allow others to experiment in their own lives.

I will then discuss some common areas in life that myself and others want to improve. Finance and wealth. Health and fitness. Productivity. Using the fundamentals, I applied the minimum effective lifestyle to these areas. I'll give my examples and ideas, but I encourage others to experiment.

Now, let’s get on with it.

The Fundamentals

What follows are the building blocks of a minimum effective lifestyle. The architecture required to live a simpler and more effective life.

My Brain is a Dick

“Don't bite into a home cooked pizza that's fresh out the oven. I tell myself this every time.........after it's happened, whilst the roof of my mouth is melting away. I'll never learn.” - Unknown

Yep, you read that right. The anatomists amongst you may have noticed a scientific flaw in the chapter title.

I read everywhere people comparing the human brain to a computer. We have a hard drive (memory). We run software in the background (subconscious). And some self-help ‘gurus’ even go so far to claim it can be programmed like a computer.

This type of comparison has been common throughout history. The brain is always compared to the most advanced technology of the time. In the mid-19th century, it was mechanical engines. In the 15th century, it was hydraulic systems, before that, we were clay and mud.

And why is this? Is it because the brain is like a computer or a mechanical engine? No. Hell no. It's because scientists don't have a fucking clue about how the brain functions. Beyond synapses firing and a few other insights, we are still completely in the dark about our brains. If a complete knowledge about the human brain was a mile, we’d only have walked about three inches so far.

Instead of using a fancy explanation of what the brain is, I'll use a crappy example. The brain is like a 100-year-old house. One that was first built by our great-grandfather, pre-electricity in the home. And sure, he knocked it up alright, but he wasn't a master carpenter or anything. It was a crude enough beginning that did the job.

Then over the years, parts were added.

Electricity got wired into the home by our grandfather. But he was no electrician. Turning the washing machine on today results in the TV going on the fritz. One light switch still gives a shock. Mild enough so nobody ever fixes it. But strong enough to annoy the crap out of the poor unlucky sod that had to switch the light on.

Our father decided to try his hand at an extension and a front deck. Despite his lack of DIY skills. He didn’t use an architect either. Instead, he got dodgy Uncle Eddie to ‘knock-up’ some drawings. It turns out that Uncle Eddie’s often lauded ‘engineering experience’ was a summer job fixing potholes.

Our brains are not a finely tuned logical machine. It’s an organ that’s evolved over many thousands of years. It does the job, sometimes, but it has its flaws. Sometimes things don’t work like they should. Wires get crossed and things like turning the washing machine on can make the TV go on the fritz.

I know little about the brain (and I've read more about it than an average person). But how else do you think the world has people that are overweight, depressed, addicts or even lazy?

What if the brain were a logical, computer-like device? Well, then all we’d need to do is find the perfect algorithm. Then follow that algorithm to washboard abs, billions of dollars, and extreme happiness. It doesn't fucking work like that.

So, let’s start from this idea. Our brain is not perfect. In fact, it is at times a complete dick. And nobody is safe. Including the most successful people we can think of. They have their flaws, and more often than not, success for them comes at a cost. When a brain over performs in one area, there will likely be a negative performance in another.

Let me give some examples of my brain being a dick.

I was eating an apple today, I stopped concentrating for one second and I bit the inside of my gum. Cheers for that, brain.

Last week I had four days off. I had so many exciting plans. I had some writing to get through, some business stuff to take care of and some city exploring to look forward to. When the first day came, it turned out my motivation was completely switched off. This continued for 3 of my 4 days off. I got nothing done. I watched Netflix, movies and wallowed in my own self-pity. Cheers for that, brain.

I had an argument with my friend the other day. Right in the middle of my eloquent comments, I forgot the word for government. I couldn’t think of the word for the big thing that controls a country. Cheers for that, brain.

The oldest part of our brain, in an evolutionary sense, is the brainstem and cerebellum. This part is like the whole brain of a lizard. It deals with important stuff, like breathing, blood pressure, heart rate, our senses. This is the great grandfather build discussed in our analogy. Nothing fancy, but it gets the job done.

The limbic system evolved next. The limbic system plus brainstem and cerebellum equates to the majority of mammals brains. The limbic system is the primitive survivalist. The one that wants to fight, hide, have sex, eat, drink and gratify ourselves to an almost harmful degree. It's the mid-twenties Australian male gone wild. It's the electricity wired by our grandfather. It's the one that most likely can fuck up the whole house.

Finally, the cortex arrived on the scene. To oversimplify, this is the logical part of the brain. It's the fancy extension and front deck built by our father. It holds memories. It controls the more nuanced motor movements (such as hand movements). It's the part that thinks of you as you.

These parts of the brain are in constant battle with each other. The logic part of the brain can sometimes only look on in horror as the limbic system scoffs its fifth doughnut. The limbic system doesn't 'know' it's bad. It sees food and wants it. To the primitive survivalist, calorie dense foods are a godsend. And who knows when we'll get such a meal again. It doesn't know that there is a Dunkin Donuts open 24 hours a day 2 blocks from our house.

And so, to my point. There is a power in knowing that our brains are like this. We mustn’t bury our heads in the sand and feign positivity all the time. From time to time, we’ll lack motivation. We’ll be unhappy. We’ll be emotional wrecks. We'll eat too much. We'll not want to exercise. And that’s OK. Because our brain is sometimes a complete dick.

A lot of the time, the brain works in our favour, of course. Don't let me belittle the thousands of years of evolution that brought us to now. But sometimes, when we know we have to do something or be a certain way, our brain will fail us in the most miserable of ways.

So, step one of the minimum effective lifestyle is realising that our brain is a dick sometimes. We may not have motivation when we need to. We may not be able to grasp that new topic in school. We may feel quite unhappy for no clear reason. This happens to everyone.

These afflictions are not fixable, we can only improve on them a little. But everybody has the same or similar issues. And it's OK.

The point of this book is to show the simple ways to improve. Fighting against a brain that doesn't want to do something is not the simple way.

We will not demand ourselves to wake up at 05:00 am. We will not demand our brain to have motivation all week long. We will not demand we be happy every day. We will not demand we eat kale instead of cupcakes forever. We know our brain won't collaborate all the time, and we accept that.

This doesn't mean we give up on trying to improve. Of course not. That's what the rest of this book is about. No. We can blame our poor engineered brain all we want but we must also take responsibility for it too. We can make improvements and in very simple ways.

But the point of this chapter is that our brain can be a dick, it doesn’t always do what benefits us in the long run. For now, it’s enough to acknowledge that, be OK with it, and move on.

The Holy Trinity and the Simple Solution

“Truth is ever to be found in simplicity, and not in the multiplicity and confusion of things.” - Isaac Newton

Most people’s brains function in such a way to not blame themselves. It’s an evolutionary trait meant to keep us a little bit sane. In some instances, that's correct. A child born with a heart defect can’t blame himself. And in other cases, it's a coping mechanism for our own lack of willpower.

But the responsibility to live with, deal with or improve our lot in life is only ours. Regardless of who or what we blame. I'm going to assume that people reading this book do take their own responsibility. So, let's not tackle that problem here.

Taking responsibility for our own outlook on life and problems is a good thing. But it does lead to another issue.

The complex solution.

Many years ago, at my first serious job out of college, I was joining in on some group complaining about my then boss. I agreed with my colleagues that he was only looking out for himself. And that he did, in fact, manipulate us and the rest of the office for his own ends.

As much as I did actually think those things, I also wanted to fit in with my colleagues. Plus, I loved a good old gossip. Nothing goes better with a cup of tea. Nothing except a packet of hobnobs.

Then one co-worker piped up. He'd had enough of our shit talking and decided to wade in.

“Why attribute to malice, what can better be explained by incompetence?”

He didn't always talk like this. He wasn't Obi-Wan Kenobi dishing out elegant truisms all day. No, this saying is sometimes called Hanlon’s Razor (a variation of Occam's Razor), but I hadn't a clue at the time. I thought it was brilliant though and that the guy was a genius.

What he was alluding to was that we all tend to over complicate situations.

That manager is out to get me.

I'm overweight because of my work situation and my genetics.

My career is not going well because of the current economic climate.

A complex situation demands an equally complex solution. Or at least that is what our mind believes.

But what if we assumed the situation was simple?

That the manager is incompetent and doesn't think about me at all. Or it could be that I’m not doing very well at my job.

I'm overweight because I eat too much and don't eat healthy foods.

My career is not going well because I'm only going through the motions in work.

I struggled with energy in the mornings for a long time. I’d go to bed, have a flurry of thoughts and ideas, all geared up to implement them the next day. I’d wake up, and not want to do a single thing. I know this happens to other people. What a cruel world that gives you massive motivation before sleep. Then when you have the time, it takes it all away.

I tried every complicated solution there was. Primer exercises in the morning. Jumping up out of bed first thing. Waking up earlier. Cold showers. They all had their benefits but none seemed to solve my issue.

It took me a long time to realise something so obvious and so fundamental. I cringe at my complete idiocy when I look back. I was looking for a complex solution, but the problem was simple.

It turns out, motivation doesn't get shit done. Discipline does. I was getting different amounts of sleep every day. I was eating at different times every day. I would try something different every morning to kick start some motivation. But my mental attitude was up and down because my daily routine was a fucking roller coaster.

For me, it turned out I was thirsty and tired most mornings. I can feel the eye rolls from here. I’m not exactly Johnny Motivated every morning or anything. But I did realise that the solution was a lot simpler than I imagined. My motivation skyrocketed when I took control of my routine. Got 8-9 hours sleep and drank a litre of water before and during breakfast. That was all I did.

Discipline is not the friend of a lazy person. Or at least that is what people think. But discipline does not have to be waking up at 05.00 am, doing 10 push-ups and running six miles. We're not ex-Navy Seals here.

Discipline can be as simple as eating breakfast at the same time most mornings. It can be sleeping longer and making it consistent. It can be reading Reddit once in the morning and again in the evening. It can be lazy but on a consistent schedule.

But what I’m really asking here is for us not to jump to the most complex solution straight away. The simple solution may not fix everyone’s lazy, unmotivated attitudes. But at the very least, be open to the fact that the solution can be very simple.

Let's deal with tiredness and lack of motivation. What is the simple solution to combat these things?

I remember the times that I was tired. It could have been after 2 straight days of travel. Or it was after a sports game or a run. It could have been after a night of insomnia. Could I do anything? Was I willing to knock out my latest novel idea after that? Or sort out my finances? Fuck no. I hit the sofa, flicked on Netflix and ordered a takeaway.

Or those times I was starving? There’s a saying I hate but it gives a spot-on description of what hunger does to me. 'H-angry'. I become irrational, emotional and angry when I'm too hungry.

Or whenever I was thirsty? The same issues, of course.

In these cases, it was obvious what the issue was, my brain made it abundantly clear I needed rest, food or water.

In modern society though, we’ve somehow dulled a lot of these feelings. I don’t know why. Think about babies for a moment. Even though we fret and panic when a baby cries, we know that there are only one of a few issues going on. 80% of the problems a child is having are due to thirst, hunger, tiredness or shitting themselves. Now, as grownups, I’m going to assume we have a little bit of control over the last one. Regardless, we all know what that can do to our motivation. So, it’s safe to assume that thirst, tiredness and hunger are the causes of a lot of our day to day malaises.

Not all problems have this sort of simple solution, of course. But what if we gave a moment to the more obvious solutions first, instead of leaping to complex solutions to our problems?

The next time we lash out at a loved one or wake up with zero motivation. Or are feeling lazy or angry, let's look at the simple solutions.

Thirsty

First, drink some water. Ask, am I thirsty? This is usually the culprit before hunger. We should not jump for food straight away when we're feeling low.

Hungry

Second, when was my last meal? Did I eat enough at that meal? Or do I need a snack before my next meal? A healthy snack, of course.

Tired

Third, ask, did I have a good night’s rest? This can be the subtlest one to catch of the three.

I’ve had 9 hours sleep some nights and still felt wrecked. Have you ever had a nap and felt more tired afterwards? Sleep is a massive science in itself and very important.

I won’t cover sleep at a comprehensive level in this book but know that sleep is a rhythm more than anything. It needs to be routine and not all over the place. We’re not playing jazz, it’s drum n’ bass. Not that I recommend listening to either to help with sleep.

We all must experiment with sleep to find that perfect rhythm, it might be 6 hours, it could be 8 hours. The temperature must be correct, the positioning must be correct. It’s a fine art. I currently have not found a simple solution. We all need to work on it.

So, what do I do?

I install discipline in a few areas of my life to keep my motivation levels high. I don't go crazy with it, and I'll take weekends off from the routine sometimes. But the idea is to have a somewhat consistent routine so that my body has what it needs.

I drink between 5 and 6 litres of water a day. This is difficult to start but I built it up from 3 litres. 3 litres + is ideal. I drink a litre first thing in the morning. This ensures I'm unlikely to be thirsty throughout the day. Of course, I need a piss every 2 hours, but it’s worth it for the changes it makes to my energy and mood.

I eat every 4 hours. I know that if I’ve eaten enough, I won’t be hungry before then. It’s a crude estimate but it works as a rough rule for me. I eat healthy as well. This is essential as certain foods will play with my mood. I want consistency. But I’ll talk about this in more detail in later chapters.

I use an app called Sleep Cycle. It tries to measure my rhythm as I sleep. It then wakes me up when I’m in a light sleep, rather than a deep one which would leave me feeling groggy when I wake.

My routine before bed is to read a little (non-work-related stuff) or watch a few videos. This slows down my mind a little, getting it ready to switch off.

This is all personal, of course, what I do may work for others, it may not. But the idea is to have some discipline and always look for the simple and not a complex solution.

The Average Joe

“Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it.” - Mahatma Gandhi

I studied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics in college. I was by far the dumbest person in my course. Like country mile far. Despite that, I still have a decent grasp of statistics and distributions.

I don’t do the lottery because I know the odds. 1 in 14 million to draw 6 correct numbers. I know that it is statistically improbable. And the amount of money spent chasing that improbability is not worth it. Statistically speaking.

Of course, those that do play the lottery will always reply “if you’re not in it, you can’t win it”. But I always pass this remark off as an idiotic response. Smug with myself that I know the odds and that these clowns haven’t a clue.

I’m wrong, of course, to think like this. And a bit of a prick. But most of all, I’m a hypocrite. While I laugh at the lottery, I still play it every day, likely you do too, but in an altogether more subtle way.

In natural and social sciences, there is a need for a mathematical tool known as a distribution. A normal probability distribution (called a Gaussian Distribution) is the most common. The example that is always talked about is people’s height. But we can infer a similar distribution for most social measurements.

Let's say we measured the height of some randomly selected people. With this data, we can then map a normal distribution onto it. From this, we can infer the heights of, not only the small group selected, but the rest of the population too. This is quite scientific and it turns out very accurate.

The distribution (and I’ve used that word too much now) looks like a bell. It shows us that the majority of the population will fall into the middle section of the bell. This is in and around the ‘average’ (mean to be pedantic). But there will always be some outliers. On either side of the middle section (the tails), there are less and fewer people, but more extremes in height. From the very small to the very tall.

Now, if I was to make a documentary or write a story, which set of people would you, as a consumer, be more interested in? I hate to say it but I want to see how an incredibly tall person or an incredibly small person lives their life. Or a show about the two of them living together and having some crazy shenanigans. Or some sort of buddy cop drama. Or a movie about two odd twin brothers separated at birth. We could get Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito to play the tall and small brothers. Comedy gold.

I don’t give a fuck how an average height person lives their life. Not interested.

And so, this is what we get bombarded with every day. Our news, our entertainment (same thing, you might say), our self-help guides. Everything we read about, see on TV or find on the internet is a showcase for the exceptional people. The super tall or super small people. The 0.001% of people on our planet.

We read about millionaires and billionaires, not about the guy who got a 15% raise on his 35k a year salary.

We read about Michael Jordan or Michael Phelps. Not about Jim, the lad from down the street that’s alright at basketball and once hit 4 three pointers in a row.

It seems there is only one way to get attention these days. To be exceptional. To be in that 0.001% or be someone that is willing to lie about it.

Now, we all strive to be in that 0.001% in something, anything. I’m not saying we should stop, but we need to be aware of the odds. Our sanity and happiness depend on it.

Thinking that someday you might win the lottery is as probable as saying, if I work hard I can become a billionaire. There are around 2,000 of those guys in a global population of 7 billion. Around 35% are not self-made either. Meaning that your odds are even further decreased. And God forbid if you’re from the wrong country.

Some people waive this mentality off. They think they've got some special sauce nobody else has. They'll make it. I kind of think that way sometimes too. But I also know it's a delusional and unhappy way to go about life. It’s an absurd notion that 6 billion people are all walking around thinking they are or can be special and better than others at life. In reality, nobody else gives a shit.

It’s becoming a universal issue now that social media is in everyone's face 24-7. Those that post only show their highlights in life, their above average moments. And those that consume, compare their current existence against this. One person's behind the scenes versus another person’s highlight reel. Not a good mix.

And this is the problem. We see this 0.001% of performers everywhere, it’s all we consume. Of course, we want to be at that level too. But it’s unrealistic in a lot of cases, and in other cases actually not even aligned to our personal aims. We sometimes take the mass media's view of the perfect person and assume it is ours.

The reality is that being average at anything is a great place to be. Of course, average should not be your goal. But we should be proud of ourselves when we achieve it.

People are sometimes obsessed with being exceptional. Why? What's wrong with a fulfilling and happy life? Is that not exceptional enough? Do we have to be the best? Why pretend that sometime in the future we'll be living an exceptional dream life. It only distracts us from being happy now.

Indeed, we are all pretty insignificant on this planet. Even the titans of history are only slightly less insignificant than us. And if we walk around with some idea that we ought to hold a privileged position in the universe, it will only make us unhappy.

So, let’s stop pretending we are going to win the life lottery. So, what if someone else is above average in a field we didn’t care about five minutes ago. Stop beating ourselves up about it. The pressure is off a little when armed with this knowledge. And it allows us more room to improve in the areas that are important to us, without sky-high expectations. It allows us to enjoy the absurdity of it all and have a great life.

Systems Thinking

“An important function of almost every system is to ensure its own perpetuation.” - Donella H. Meadows

When confronted with a desire to do something in my life, I’ve always turned to goals. I read enough online to know that goal setting is somewhat important. No point floating through life with no aims whatsoever. It made common sense.

But common sense is not always the simplest way. The minimum effective lifestyle is about simplifying so we can have a better life. And goals on their own simply do not cut the mustard.

It’s easy to create a goal. I want to run a marathon. I want to have six-pack abs. I want to earn a six-figure salary. But goals are not always easy for the brain to handle.

Our minds are in a constant battle. It’s the old limbic system versus the cortex again. The limbic system still thinks it’s 50,000 BC and doesn’t give a shit about our modern society. Its main goals are to feed us, get us to reproduce and keep us from danger. It’s the part of the brain that freaks out when we come close to the edge of a cliff. It’s the part of the brain that attempts to override all others when there is a sniff of a chance for a sexual encounter.

The cortex is the part which evolved last. It’s the part which thinks about our life's meaning. It’s the part that is altogether more logical (sometimes). It understands that we must prepare for the future, it understands the need for a goal.

But once we create a goal, that is when the battle commences. Let’s say we’ve vowed to eat healthy in an aim to get a washboard stomach. Day one may be fine as the cortex is onboard and controlling your decisions. But each day is a war. If there is a muffin on the table in front of you, the limbic system will want it. It knows it’s tasty. Code for high in calories. It doesn’t know when you’ll get a chance to see one again. So, it’s telling your body to smash that muffin.

The limbic system is not aware of the future. It does not aim to make you fat, it simply wants to keep the body nourished in the present. And this is the problem with only having a goal to motivate you. It may work. But there is as good a chance that it won’t. And to keep the limbic system at bay every day for a long period of time takes an enormous amount of willpower.

And if we don’t reach our goals, our motivation will be further subdued. To think of all those diets I’ve gone on in the past only to be completely depressed. Dejected once I give up. Or even more disastrous, when a diet has no effect at all despite my best efforts.

It was worse still if I ever did reach my goal. After all the struggle, once the goal is complete, I usually let my limbic system take over for a while, as a reward. But this sometimes resulted in a complete undoing of all the work up to that point.

Think of all the people you know that have finished a marathon. You shouldn’t have to search too far, they usually advertise the fact quite happily. But how many of them build up to the marathon, finish one, then give up on running after? Of course, some continue and make it into a nice habit. But a majority of them will be happy with their completed goal and stop doing it. And they may even have a few weeks of cheat days as a celebration. More likely than not, they are back to square one a month or two later. There is little long-term benefit there.

Systems Thinking

And that’s why I switched to systems thinking. Scott Adams of Dilbert fame was the first person to introduce me to systems thinking. There is a big difference between systems thinking and only setting goals. Below is Adam’s definition of this difference.

“A goal is a specific objective that you either achieve or don't sometime in the future. A system is something you do on a regular basis that increases your odds of happiness in the long run. If you do something every day, it's a system. If you're waiting to achieve it someday in the future, it's a goal.”

There are too many downsides to only setting goals. And very little upside. I had so many goals in my life but I could count on one hand the ones I actually achieved. I didn’t have the necessary willpower, I was, after all, a lazy man. And even those that I did achieve didn’t have a very long-term effect. Systems thinking reverses this outlook.

A system helps us to develop long-term skills and relationships. It cares not for the pass/fail aim of a goal. A goal has no consolation prize. A system delivers regardless.

A system helps us build a habit which will continue to benefit us long after a goal would have. We can view it as a daily strategy. This is a lot more manageable for the ongoing cortex vs limbic system battle.

When we set up a goal, we must wait to achieve it. Meanwhile, we will live in this type of limbo, Adams calls it a “pre-success failure”. This could last a long time, months, years, even your whole life. Who wants to live like that? But with systems thinking, it’s all about the smaller achievements. That little bit of happiness every time we complete a day successfully adhering to the system. That is the only thing that will propel us to long-term happiness. It gives us the best odds of achieving anything of worth.

When a person decides to go on a diet, you’ll always hear similar things. “I’m starting Monday”. “I’ll start after the weekend”. I’ll start once the holidays are over”. I did it myself, of course. One year I can remember New Year's Day started on a Monday. Perfect, all the stars aligned here, what a great time to start a new diet or any goal. But then people asked me what I was doing as a double-fisted another cupcake. I would reply with a muffled, “I can’t start on a holiday, I’ll start next week”.

Goals do this to us. It’s easy to create that future promise, but the good old limbic system will be right there waiting on that day too. A system takes one day at a time. I can take that one day off, no problem, I failed that day, fine. But there is always tomorrow. Each day I view as a new one. I don’t start in the future and continue for some arbitrary amount of time, I take one day at a time. I give myself the best chance of success for each day.

So, let me provide some examples to better illustrate the point.

Diet is one of the toughest areas that people deal with. A common goal is to stop eating crap food and start eating healthy. You bet your ass the cortex is on board here. It knows those love handles are not good for us. But the good old limbic system couldn’t care less. So, we’re fucked.

But we can use a system instead. Sure, the goal might still be to lose weight. But the system only deals with one day at a time. A system for weight loss is not having shit foods in the house...at all. A system is making a healthy breakfast the night before. So, no more choosing what to eat the next morning when we are groggy and prone to making bad choices. Or no more going to the supermarket hungry. Order online. Or better yet, have a repeat order set up so that you don’t even peruse online. A system like this gives us the best odds of success. We cannot rely on willpower alone.

Another example is fitness. The majority of us want to be fit but goals will rarely help. A goal would be to train for a marathon. Or compete in a triathlon. But every day will be a struggle. We come home from work, tired and hungry. And then we dread the thought of going on a run. It’s all too easy to give up on such goals.

But a system might be selling the car. Buying a bike and having it be the only means of transport to work. Or skipping the lift and walking up the stairs whenever the option is there. Or buying a dog and having to take the little fucker for a walk. Or joining a sports team and have our teammates’ peer pressure make us train and play.

Goals are not completely useless, of course. They still have a place. Think of them as the horizon on the sea. A good place to aim our ship at, but one we should not always measure ourselves against. But systems are where the highest odds of achievement are. We need to know ourselves. If I’ve gone 33 years of my life and I’m still not able to achieve my goals, then perhaps I need to change tact.

So, a system is anything which avoids your limbic system’s daily attacks. It’s knowing your brain is a dick and defending accordingly. It’s setting the odds in our favour. It’s the lazy man's way to success.

The Minimum Effective Lifestyle

“Pay attention to the vital few and ignore the trivial many.” - John Paul DeJoria

To summarise the fundamentals up to this point:

Your brain can be a complete dick sometimes, and that’s ok. Be aware of this, accept it, and move on.

When something is wrong, don’t always look for a complex solution. It is likely that our problems have a very simple solution. Ask ourselves, am I thirsty? Am I hungry? Am I tired? Once we cut the simple solutions, only then should we move on.

Being Average shouldn’t be our aim in life but, as a result, it’s fantastic. Being average is OK. Know that getting to that 0.0001% of performance in any area is improbable, and that’s OK.

Be a systems thinker and not only a goal setter. A system gives us constant benefit and better odds of achieving lofty goals.

With these points, we can start thinking like a minimum effective lifestyler. But there is a little more to it.

This is where we'll need to do a bit of work. I apologise in advance. You may feel like I’ve mis-sold the book. “The lazy man’s guide has homework? Fuck that”. Below are 12 steps that will set us on the minimum effective lifestyle path. They take a little time to answer, but trust me when I say it is all in service of making the complex simple.

To do this, we have to go to the route of all the things we want in life. Remove the unnecessary and focus on what matters to improve our lives. I tried this in multiple ways myself. But none are as effective as the following 12 questions.

Now, I know what I would do in this situation. I would skip over the 12 steps and not do them. Reading a book is hard enough without getting some extra work from that book as well. It's always possible to come back to this section. But doing it first is more helpful. The rest of the book will follow these steps and will have more value if we complete this part before moving on.

When answering them, make sure to write the answers down. Put a note in your phone, use a notebook, whatever it takes. It’s very important to have them written down.

Step 1. What is my moral strategy?

These are our guiding principles. The moral compass with which we want to live our lives. Don’t lie and do be ambitious. We may not live by our desired morals now but we should aim high.

Step 2. What does success mean to me?

Be honest here, don’t claim charity work if what we want is to make a shitload of money. Don’t say helping kids, when we only want a fancy new car. We will circle back on our answers in future steps.

Step 3. Tear it all down

Now it gets difficult. Pick each point we deemed as successful above and rip it to shreds. Ask why at least three times, and give an answer regardless. For example, I could have said I wanted a six-figure salary in response to Step 2. So, I would ask, why do I want a six-figure salary? My answer might be to provide for myself and my family. So, then I’d ask, why do I need so much to provide for myself and my family? I might respond with, because that is how much it costs to live in today's world. Why does it cost so much? Because our mortgage is expensive. And on it goes, until we get to some sort of root for the original desire.

Step 4. What makes me happy?

This is a fun one. Think of all the things that currently make us happy or made us happy in the past. If we can’t think of anything at all, we should jump straight to the health (emotional and mental) chapter. It can be as small or as big as we want.

Step 5: Who do I want to be? What does success mean to me now?

Let’s take the answers from the last two steps and redefine success. Forget all the things we're told are successful, a nice car, a big house, lots of money. Think about the things that make us happy. Being happy is the only true mark of success, no matter what you do in life. A miserable rock star is not successful. A socially crippled, depressed billionaire is not successful. Success is a personal thing and should never be determined by others or any outside factors.

The benefit of writing it down is so that we don’t get distracted by other people’s views of success. “John next door got the new Tesla. Shit. I wanted that. I should look to get one.” Slow down. Look at our idea of success. If it doesn’t match up then forget about it. It’s not our idea of success, it's someone or something else's idea.

Step 6: What goals or habits will likely get me to be that person and to be happy?

Come up with some goals or habits that might help us on the path of happiness and success defined above.

Step 7: What will likely stop me from getting there?

All the time, we create goals and habits that are contradictory to the way we live our lives. For instance, I want to be a millionaire but I spend like a rich kid with Daddy's credit card. I want to lose weight but I love doughnuts. I’m not saying these things have to be mutually exclusive but we need to be aware of any conflicting habits we have.

Step 8: What system can I devise to get me closer to those goals. How?

This is where we use our systems thinking to determine what small consistent steps we can do to increase our odds of success. We want to avoid our pesky limbic system. We cannot rely on willpower. Here is where we should look to do the bare minimum. Assume the worst. We’re lazy, so start incredibly small, don’t be optimistic.

Step 9: What are the first order positives and negatives of my system?

This is a strange one to think about. But it’s incredibly helpful. There are always extra positive and negative effects of a system. Take, for example, a system of writing one blog post every week. The first order positive here is that I become more disciplined at writing. The first order negative is I’ll have less time with my partner, friends and family. This makes it a bit clearer which is the more powerful system. The best systems have stronger first order positives than negatives.

Step 10: Prioritise

I’m sure we've been too optimistic. I know because I do it myself. But then I’ll remind myself how lazy I am and how my brain thinks. I could rule the world in the evening time, but by the next morning not have enough motivation to even make my own breakfast. We need to prioritise. I like to have a mixture of things on the go at any one time. Having only one aim in life can be risky. It can get derailed by life's ups and downs. Having multiple interests also helps against mental fatigue. But too many tasks and plans have the opposite effect. Causing overload and loss of focus, and even failure on all fronts.

So, prioritise the systems, no equal priority. There has to be a clear number 1, number 2 and so on. Doing this means that if we ever get too anxious, we can concentrate on only the most important systems.

Step 11: How can I measure?

The most important step for a lazy person is to measure a system. Measuring makes you accountable, but it also helps motivation. If we don’t measure, we cannot improve, unless due to sheer luck. We are experimenting on ourselves here. Our system likely won’t be perfect. It might be terrible. But we'll only know that if we measure each. The next chapter explains the best way to do this.

Step 12: Action now.

As a lazy person, this part is the most difficult. But if we’ve done the above steps right, our system should be simple. So, the key is to start, as soon as possible. Don’t wait until tomorrow if we can do it now. Don’t wait to finish the book either. Start now.

To summarise, we need to start with our moral strategy in life, this guides the rest of our answers. Then we need to define what success means for us. Once we’ve done that, we can tear down our notion of success and ask ourselves what has made us happy in the past. These two steps lead us to redefine our notion of success. Once we have a better idea of this, we can come up with some goals or habits that set us up for success. We then ask what could get in our way of achieving this. We then create systems that we think will help us get there. We think of their first order positives and negatives. We then prioritise accordingly and make sure we can measure these systems. The final step is to begin.

The Lazy Man’s Sprint

“No Heroics. If you need a hero to get things done, you have a problem. Heroic effort should be viewed as a failure of planning.” - Jeff Sutherland

The key to a minimum effective lifestyle is to not have to rely on willpower. Willpower is the lazy man’s kryptonite. It’s overrated too. As I’ve said before, willpower does not get shit done. Some ungodly push or heroic effort does not get shit done in the long run. Discipline is what gets shit done.

To have discipline does not take willpower, despite what many people are led to believe. In fact, once discipline is present, willpower is no longer required. And getting the discipline to be present takes very little effort.

The point of the minimum effective lifestyle is to always be experimenting. To be agile enough to change what isn’t working and experiment with something new. To try to find the simplest solutions that cater to the individual.

I’ve detailed some of my own results in the next sections of this book. But this only covers some common areas of life people want to improve. Likely, you have other goals that I haven’t discussed, so you may need to experiment yourself, to find the lazy man’s route to the things you are looking to achieve.

To do this, we only need discipline in one area of our lives. That is the discipline to measure. And I’m not even talking about measuring every little thing in our lives either. This is the lazy man’s guide after all. Let me first explain why we need to measure and then I’ll detail how we create this discipline and apply it to our lives.

The Why?

Let’s imagine we’ve decided we want to lose weight. We’ve followed the book's guidelines up to this point. We’ve created a system and aim to achieve a good result. For example, the system could be to make our own lunch for work. Go for a jog every day after work and then add in some gym sessions on the weekend. Great.

But if we jump into this system without any way to measure, how can we possibly know if it’s working or not?

The first problem here is with your brain's perceptions. Remember, your brain can be a dick. And sometimes when we look in the mirror we see a fat piece of shit. Other times, we may see the slightest shadow of a set of abs. We cannot rely on our brain alone to determine success or not.

Or if we do determine that we have failed, how can we know why we failed? Did we only jog 2 nights that week? Did we eat celebratory pizzas after every bit of exercise we did? Or did we fail because we fucking hated going to the gym on weekends?

Not measuring leads to stagnation also. There is no use in picking a system and sticking to it for 8 months. Only to realise in the end that it was completely useless. I’ve seen people hit the treadmill day in and out for several months. Killing themselves, both mentally and physically. Only to put on some weight over that period.

We want to be able to maximise opportunities that are the most fruitful. We need to be able to change quickly when something isn’t working. We are looking for the path of least resistance. A lazy man should not take pride in hustling when the results are clearly negative.

But how do we know an experiment isn’t working? How can we change if we don’t know what or if anything is wrong? In this case, measurement is the most important thing. If we cannot measure it in some way, then it is not an experiment, it is a waste of our time. Improvement will not happen without measurement, unless by accident. There is no way around this.

The How?

So, by now, we’re convinced that measurement is very important. But how do we measure? What do we measure?

What I’m suggesting is to plan the next week. A week is enough for our needs. Anything longer and we risk being non-agile. We can get stale and continue to do things that are not working. Long-term planning is a guess. Who knows what we'll feel like in two month’s time. In software development, this concept is known as a sprint. And short-term sprints like this provide more accuracy as a result.

We also need to write it down. It could be a notepad, some note-taking app on our phones or a spreadsheet. I use Trello, a free project management app. It’s available offline and on my phone so I like it. But the tools used doesn’t matter.

So, what do I mean by plan? Sounds like too much work, right? But it’s nowhere near as daunting as it sounds.

From the last chapter, we should have a good idea of what systems we want to try in order to achieve the things we want to achieve. Now it’s time for action. Let’s take the weight loss example from earlier. The systems we’ll start with are making our own lunch, jogging each day and gym on weekends.

So we add these tasks to our week's sprint. But before we do that, we should measure the complexity of each task. Let’s estimate that making our own lunch is the simplest task there. So, we can measure that as 1. Anything that we think is double the complexity of that, we can measure as 2, and so on. So, going to the gym we might say is 5 times harder than making our own lunch (we mark it as a 5). And jogging we think will be twice as hard as going to the gym, so we give it a 10. There are no right or wrong answers here. Our accuracy will improve over time.

Why do we need to do this? With these numbers, we can see on average how much work we can complete in a given time. This makes it easier to plan future sprints and to assess our personal energy and when it is maximised. It will also help our self-awareness. If the sprint was a disaster, we don’t have to wait until the end of the project to think about the issues. We will have almost immediate feedback. Do we hate jogging and that’s why we only completed some of it? Do we not have time on the weekends and that is why we couldn’t make the gym?

Anything we don’t complete fully within a sprint gives us vital information. It could be that we didn’t finish a task because we didn’t want to. It could be that it was too difficult to do. Or we didn’t have enough time. Each reason gives me essential information into what I’m doing wrong.

Are we trying to fit too much into a sprint, are we too optimistic?

Is the system we’re using conducive to me as a person? Can we make it simpler?

Is the reason we have a lack of time because we have too many obligations not tuned to our long-term goals? Do they need to be minimised?

The point is, we want to question everything. Always be experimenting, trying to find the simplest solution, the easiest path to a good life. We should never try to justify the past. We should question all our practises. We need to discard our fixed ideas and be open to change.

Measuring like this takes up 30 minutes of my time a week. The benefits are extraordinary. My mind was too cluttered, I was too lazy and unmotivated to achieve much, even over the course of a few months. This sprint system helps keep me focused and motivated, and enables me to measure my output. I can still be lazy, I don’t need some ungodly strength of mind to get motivated to do my work.

Summary and Extra Detail

1. Start by writing down the plan for the next 7 days.

We can put as many tasks as we’d like in there, to begin with, we can be as optimistic as we want to be. But know that once these tasks are in a sprint, we will not add any more. This is planning. With planning, we take control. If others can take control of our days, they will. And then all we'll be doing is pursuing their dreams instead of our own.

I’ll always keep my answers from ‘The Minimum Effective Lifestyle’ chapter open.  I can remind myself what my idea of success is and stick to it. It’s too easy to lose sight of longer-term aims. It also allows me to check my longer-term aims and make sure I still agree with them. At any point, they can change.

I’ll make sure that 50% of my tasks will relate to my long-term aims. The other 50% can be related to some responsibilities I have.

2. Next, we need to measure the relative complexity of each of our tasks.

Each task I will size. It’s a general size and not meant to denote time.

3. During the week, we attempt to do as much of our plan as we can.

I will aim to not add any further work to this sprint. Unless there was an obligation I’ve completely forgotten about then there should be no excuse to add.

Otherwise, if something comes up during the sprint, I’ll add a future task and put it on my backlog. New ideas will always pop up. A lazy person will always prefer to jump on the new thing, it will seem more exciting. Putting any new item on the backlog has two benefits. First, it lets the idea cool off so I can assess it later. Second, it enables me to still remain focused on my planned tasks.

4. Once the time has elapsed, we close the sprint and start a new one

When finishing a sprint, we’ll likely not have finished everything we planned. This is where we start to ask questions and think about the effectiveness of our systems.

Am I trying to fit too much into a sprint, am I too optimistic?

Is the system I’m using conducive to me as a person? Can I make it simpler?

Is the reason I have a lack of time because I have too many obligations not tuned to my long-term goals? Do they need to be minimised?

Finance

The next section will be a lazy man’s guide to finance. Lots of money is not the path to happiness. But a lack of money, being broke, is a well-worn path to unhappiness.

This will focus on the simple ways to get our finances in order. This includes ways to get it, ways to save it, and ways to increase what we already have.

The following guides do not depend on market conditions (such as a real estate boom) or a stroke of luck. They're designed to be universally implementable. To work regardless of the current environment.

Current financial models are becoming obsolete. We cannot follow somebody else's guide and expect riches. Economics is not keeping up with technology. What worked yesterday will not work today. So, the following sections will try to be evergreen.

These guides will not protect you in the event of catastrophic financial meltdowns. Nobody and nothing can promise to protect you from that. But these simple methods will keep you above the average. Everyone else may be broke in financial crises, but with these guides, you will be less broke than others. Everybody might be doing well in a financial boom, but with these guides, you will be doing better.

I’m a Fucking Cyborg!

“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” - Arthur C. Clarke

I know what you’re thinking. What does a cyborg have to do with my personal finance? How is the concept of half human half machine going to help? We’ll get to that in a moment. And quite frankly, it’s awesome.

Present-day financial goals are somewhat out of whack with the current reality we live in. Our parents were, for the most part, able to live in some comfort with only one wage in the household. Likely, they could even struggle by with a large family. They may have even had one or two cars, a holiday a year, and oh, they could afford the mortgage on a nice, spacious home.

They also got paid less than you do now, after adjusting for inflation.

Myself and most of my millenial peers lament the fact that we can’t ‘afford’ what our parents have. We put ourselves under immense financial stress attempting to attain it. Credit card debt, mortgages we can’t afford, fancy car leases. It’s impossible to keep up.

It’s enough to make the new generations furious. And it’s easy to blame the previous generations for what we don’t have. I’m a middle-class millennial myself and sometimes I get annoyed by this. But is this really the case?

My friend was house hunting recently. He was getting married. He was looking to set down some roots. And no doubt a kid was on the way soon after. But during this process, he came to a realisation.

“I get paid nearly double what my Dad did, and I’ll never be able to afford what he had”.

This is the realisation we will all come to at some point. Our parents most likely had it better than we ever will. But there is something most people miss. This is only true when we use history as a guide for comparison.

My response to my friend’s worrisome revelation was somewhat odd.

“But you’re a fucking Cyborg!”

I do this often. I come to a fantastic revelation in my head, that only makes sense to me. My points are clear and concise, there are no holes in my arguments. But it is all in my head. And then I blurt out a mental sentence like the one above and expect everyone to nod in agreement with my brilliant point and epic use of the English language.

What did I mean by this odd statement?

We are measuring our financial wealth by comparing historically. But we do not live in the 70’s, the 80s, or the 90s. Nor is that time in any way comparable to the time we live in today.

You want a cool car, right? Why? In a few seconds, I can rent a car for a few days, hire a Zipcar for an hour or two, or order an Uber door to door. All at a fraction of the cost of what a year-round car ownership would cost.

But I need a car we might say. Well, that car that we can barely afford is a Jetsons jet in comparison to the shitboxes your parents had to contend with. Mileage, fuel economy, safety, comfort is at a completely different class than it has ever been. We cannot compare a top of the range BMW from the early 90s with a top of the range BMW today. A Fiat today has better mod-cons than the 90’s BMW. Better fuel economy, safety and comfort. And entertainment and car phones? Well, that’s sitting in our pockets, ready to connect via bluetooth to our cars entertainment console.

You want a big house, right? Why? I don’t need a garage if I have no need for a car. Or do I need two living rooms if there are only three people in my family? Do I need a separate space for my loved ones if we each have a laptop and noise-cancelling headphones? Do I need a big garden if I live beside a beautiful park?

Do you want a holiday home? Why? Within minutes, I can book a flight to many far-flung destinations. I can go on Airbnb or many other apps and book someone’s house. With all the amenities of home, for a fraction of the cost of a year-round home ownership. Hell, if I get the right job (and soon all jobs will be like this), I could work from anywhere. My first and only home could be my ‘holiday’ home. I could live in paradise while getting paid a city wage.

And I can do all of this from a small device that fits in my pocket. That can also take pictures, video, and get any information in the world that I want. That can translate languages. Listen to music. Calculate sums in an instant, which would take a skyscraper full of people many years to do using paper and a pen. Contact individuals across vast distances in an instant. Send live feeds of my own face across those same divides. Communicate with millions of people all at the touch of a button. And it costs fuck all.

If 12 year old me knew I had nearly all movies ever made ready to stream at a moments notice, my own powerful computer in my hand. And all the worlds music ready to be listened to on that same computer. Boy, he'd think I had Bill Gates money.

Did your Dad have that? No, he had a couple of Encyclopedias and a top of the range Hi-Fi system with a pretty meagre collection of music.

“But it sounds so much better on Vinyl…”

We all know that’s a load of shit.

“But my Dad has that now, same as me, and he has all that other stuff as well”.

Correct, but first, he can’t use it like you can and he never will. And second, even the most tech-savvy of parents will not be able to keep up. It’s only going to get better and accelerate faster. We are on the cusp of a massive explosion in our planet’s collective progress. 20 years from now, people will be unrecognisable in their advancement.

So, my response to not having or being able to afford what our parents or grandparents had? We are fucking Cyborgs. Technology is a part of us now. We need to live in our time, and once we do that, it’s quite clear that we have it much better than they ever did. We do not need more stuff, or the things they did because technology is making those things obsolete.

Even still, we actually can afford the same luxuries as our parents. They had a big house in a city with a poor infrastructure. They didn’t have many restaurants or cafes to go to so they stayed in most of the time. They had a car but it was likely a piece of junk, nowhere near as advanced as today. The problem is we want all of today’s life luxuries plus what our parents had.

Luxuries such as high-tech cars and air-conditioned houses. Flat screen TVs with rapid internet connections. An area to live with a great cafe and restaurant culture. But we can’t have all that plus what our parents had. They only have both now, at a later stage in their lives.

The biggest bone of contention here is housing. The majority of us cannot afford the beautiful homes we think we deserve. And there are all kinds of economic reasons to blame the older generations for this. But that is only when we assume that owning a home is a right and not a privilege. Sure, the older generations got to own but that doesn’t mean it should always be the case. And blaming them for our problems is like drinking poison and expecting them to get sick. It only hurts us.

We need to reframe our needs and desires to utilise today’s technologies. The sharing economy, the tiny house movement, remote working, cheap travel, ever-connectedness.

Sometimes it’s called thinking lateral. At the moment we are thinking backwards. Using history as a guide for our current needs and wants. We should be living in the present and use today’s technologies to get exactly these things.

I’m not trying to belittle those that are struggling in debt (most likely we are in debt when trying to attain what previous generations had). Or those that still have to live at home. Or have lost their home. But I don’t think we can blame or be jealous of the previous generations.

So, the next time we lament that we are poor in comparison to our parents generation, just think. I’m a fucking Cyborg. I should stop whining.

Following My Passion Is Bullshit

“There is a huge confusion these days between vocation and avocation. Everybody thinks their hobby should be a full-time, high paying job. (It) creates a lot of misery.” - Reddit User

There are many phrases bandied about the internet that I have a deep disdain for. But there is one that I hold a special hatred towards. It is the phrase “follow your passion”.

I bought into it myself, I fell into the bullshit trap like everyone else. This statement is usually uttered by a few types of people. Super successful entrepreneurs, coffee shop owning hipsters or internet marketing gurus.

‘Guru’ — what dickhead would use such a word to describe themselves.

We’ve all read something similar at one point in our lives. “Follow your passion if you want to be successful”.

I read these words and it made me anxious about my own career choices. I was working in investment risk at the time, and it was soon after the financial crisis. I certainly didn’t think there was a passion there, right? All I could think was that I won’t be successful until I get a job I love.

In fact, it became a self-fulfilling prophecy. On careful examination of my job, I believed I had no passion in what I was doing. So, I began to care less and inevitably underperformed in my role. And of course, this began to make me less successful.

It’s one of those sayings that appeals to our common sense. If there is no passion in what we do, how can we perform well at it? Everyone can agree with this, right? Like a lot of similar phrases though, it will not hold up to scrutiny. If you go deep, down to the basic level of your work, this saying starts to make little sense.

People think that passion causes success. But it's more likely the other way around.

Let’s say we have a friend, and he opened a craft brewery because he was so into his hops and grains and whatnot. I’ve no idea what hops are by the way. He was that dude that swirled his beer and sniffed the glass. He recounted the hints of barley and Autumn that filled his nostrils. You know, that annoying prick that has an actual passion.

Well, let’s say his craft brewery became successful. Five years later, he sold it for a monumental sum to one of the big beer brands. We'd be inclined to say he found success in his passion. He might too. But that’s clouding the actual facts. For a business to be successful, it needs to be managed correctly. That means having accounts in order. Understanding and paying taxes. Hiring good employees. Getting pensions for those employees. Getting loans from the bank. Raising money from investors. Being able to sell. Writing business plans. Being able to buy/rent and negotiate rates and terms. As a small passionate business owner, most of this work will fall on our friend's shoulders.

You think anyone is passionate about balancing a chequebook? You think he had a love for knocking on bars, door to door, to ask if they would stock his beer? Does he have a passion for getting rejected many times? I’ve seen businesses where the owner had a passion but has no clue how to do their company's accounts. Or hasn’t figured out how to sell to others. These people will not be successful. Our successful friend had a passion in the underlying business. But he needed to find a passion in all those other things as well.

There are as many if not more successful people that had no passion when they started. And that’s the key. Passion is not something you need to have. But it is something we can learn and gain over time, whatever we do. In the beginning, it's only nice to have but not necessary.

And success at anything will end up breeding passion anyway.

I won’t be passionate about everything that I do. That goes without saying. But I can find passion in what I do. I don’t need to change my career, I don’t need to quit my job and start a small business. I only need to find out what I can be passionate about in my current role and the success will follow.

I work in finance. Not much passion there, even at the best of times. But I work in a mathematical field. Something which interests me. I work with software and code. I work with a team. I work within managerial constraints. Now, let's think of where I can find passion. How about my code is going to be marvellous? Yes, I’m not writing fancy AI software, but goddamn I can write something that’s sleek and clean.

How about my team? Some of them are decent, some poor. But how can I be passionate about working with this group? Well, how about I make this team fire on all cylinders. Be the best team in the office. Deliver their projects on time and on budget. If I’m not the team leader, I can be a great cog in such a machine. If the people I work with are dicks, I can be the one shiny nugget amongst them.

We do not need to know our passion and then get into that area. Passion is something we can work on. In any job, we can find passion. Whatever it means to us.

A friend of mine once said that when you get to a certain age, people will fall into whatever they are good at. Regardless of their career. This is how we find our passion. We figure out what we’re good at in our current job. It could be dealing with people. Or making decisions. Being the team player or being the tech whizz. Being the sales guy or the people person…there is something which we are naturally good at. I’m willing to bet that is the passion we have already found in our job. And if we pursue that and don’t neglect it, we will be successful.

Then there are the people reading this and shouting at the screen. How can I be passionate about a minimum wage job? How can I be passionate about flipping burgers? I’m not saying you can. If you hate a place, you need to move on. If you are good at nothing in your current job (which I doubt), then you need to move on. But don’t complain that you're not successful because accountancy isn't your bag. Or argue that you’d be mega rich by now if you just could find your passion. "I'm looking for my passion" is an excuse made by those not improving in life. Those not taking responsibility for their own progress.

In short, the simplest way to a successful career is to pick a lane and then FIND PASSION IN WHAT YOU DO.

Being the General of My Career

“A jack of all trades is a master of none, but oftentimes better than a master of one.” - Full Saying

The advice I most often read online about careers is to specialise. Find out what you’re good at and pursue that one thing relentlessly. Depth is where the gold is. Specialising is considered the path to riches and true success. But this is such an outdated concept.

While we do generalise in school to a certain degree, we are motivated to specialise as soon as possible. We go to college and pick a definitive course. Or we pick up a specific trade and become an apprentice. And we slowly get funnelled into a path of specialisation. Getting more and more defined until we are incredible at one particular thing. Or fail.

And this has worked well since society began trading and creating civilisations in earnest. It made sense that the good hunters would hunt all day. In exchange, those that were good at farming, making weapons, cooking or building would do that. At the end of the day, each could trade their skills to the other in exchange for their produce. A hunter could live in a house built by the builder, eat a well-cooked meal by the chef, use the best weapons made by the blacksmith and supplement his/her diet with the farmer’s produce. In return, he would give them the meat that he had hunted.

It all makes sense. Until it doesn’t. We kept applying this thinking during the industrial revolution and onwards. We generally believe that technological unemployment only affects unskilled workers. And benefits those that specialised and were highly skilled. But before the industrial revolution, we had weavers. Highly skilled workers that were out of the job with the invention of the mechanised loom.

And the trend did not stop there. Highly specialised jobs have been dead ends in many different industries. A raft of human calculator mathematicians lost their jobs with the advent of computers. Tram and train drivers are being replaced by machines. Switchboard operators were almost done away with. Electrical equipment assemblers are nearly obsolete. There are many examples of technological unemployment throughout history.

At a macro scale, of course, this is all good. As we advance technologically, different jobs are created that need new specialisations. New industries emerge employing more people. But that doesn’t help the individual. Sure, a person may be able to re-train. Or try and apply their highly specialised skills elsewhere. But in a lot of cases, this will be too difficult or too late for the individual. Life will go on, the economy will continue to grow, but individuals will be left behind.

The benefits of specialising are still lauded though.

Some think it’s easier to specialise. But the opposite is true. Specialisation takes dedicated work. Generalising is only a matter of following your interests as far as you’d like to.

Some believe it will create job security. But specialising does not keep us safe. And we are more prone to long-term unemployment if we do lose our job.

The problem is becoming more pronounced today. Technology is in the height of exponential growth. Society in 10 years will be unrecognisable advanced from that 50 years ago.

If, for instance, we somehow went back in the past and picked up Leonardo Da Vinci. We brought him 50 years into the future. Well, he wouldn’t be too surprised at all. Horses would still be used. Science and technology would largely be at a similar state. Advancement was slow.

Now, if we took someone from say 50 years ago and brought them to now. Those giant computers that took up whole rooms now fit into a small device in people's pockets. And nearly everyone has one, including kids. Oh, and they can communicate with people all over the world, look up any information on the planet, play graphically powerful games (none of that Pong shit) and are thousands of times more powerful than that junker that used to take up a whole room.

Apart from landing a man on the moon, we’ve also sent robots to Mars and our outer solar system. We’ve used satellites to give free GPS to the world. And we haven’t even touched on medical advances.

Someone from 50 years ago might just have a heart attack due to shock if we brought them to today.

So, we specialise in the hopes of securing a good career. But it’s likely that the choices we make will be obsolete in as little as 10 years from now. The advent of artificial intelligence is already consuming the world and it will begin to take jobs deemed as safe choices in a matter of years. There is no technological barrier to making whole factories automated. Look at Amazon's warehouses for proof. Nothing is stopping fast food restaurants becoming employee free. Transportation is becoming more and more automated. Even highly skilled jobs like nurses and doctors are in danger from IBM's Watson and Google's DeepMind initiatives.

This won’t be stopped. Nor should it be. It didn’t work out well for the Luddites when they revolted against the technologies that were making them obsolete. And it won’t work out well for those opposing the current changes either. No, what is required is agility. What is required is generalisation.

Innovation and creativity are the only areas that artificial intelligence and technology will struggle to take over in the near future. And innovation and creativity are born from generalising. The generalist is one that knows a little about software development and a little about healthcare and connects the dots between the two. They are the people that are good marketers, know about manufacturing and have a clothing product idea. The idle dreamers that can put a myriad of ideas together and create something new. Businesses and whole industries are created by generalists. New inventions and scientific breakthroughs come from generalists.

So, we should not be afraid to dabble in things that interest us. Being a general is now where the gold is.

Knowing My Number

“The question isn’t at what age I want to retire, it’s at what income.” - George Foreman

Do you know what your number is? The amount of money it takes for you to live out your days blissfully happy?

People usually have one of two answers when I ask them this. Either they say an arbitrary, usually quite large sum of money. “Eh, 10 million”. (This was my response when someone asked me).

Or they give a blank stare and say something like “I dunno”.

Nobody I’ve asked, myself included, had a well thought out response.

But we should expect that. I mean, it’s an odd concept to most people. I had no idea what my number was. I had a dream once about the number 25 million. So, I’ve also assumed that was the amount I’d have one day. And when someone asked what my number was, I had that in my head.

I soon realised that if I needed 25 million to be happy, then I was definitely living wrong. I also realised that the number had no basis in reality and on my current trajectory I had no hope of reaching it.

Why do I need to know my number?

While sometimes it’s nice to be blissfully unaware of things, our financial future should not be one of them. I could have worked through my whole career. Enjoyed my day to day lifestyle, building up to my retirement. Only to find that once I retired, I actually couldn’t live that enjoyable life I was living up until then. I’d either have to cut my living standard or go back to work. Now that’s a depressing thought, and it took a long time for me to arrive at it.

I also had a mild notion of retiring early. Well, how was I going to do that if I assumed I needed 25 million? Winning the lotto is an option but I’m a pretty unlucky bastard at the best of times. Plus, we know the odds of that.

The question, ‘how much do we need to retire?’ is often the one asked. But what I needed to know for early retirement was how little I needed to retire.

I realised I needed to know this number as a matter of highest importance. I had no clue what I was aiming for. As such, I had zero strategies/plan or at least not one that was realistic in this universe.

So, I worked to define my number. Only then could I work on a plan to try and get it.

How do I figure out my number?

This won’t be a typical retirement plan.

In a normal retirement, we have a nest egg. That nest egg will make money every year through investments. This is the interest. But in normal retirement, we withdraw the money that the nest egg made plus some of the nest egg, every year. Normal retirement plans assume you will die in time or before that money runs out. Depressing, right? The trick is to accumulate enough that this doesn’t happen (and in fact your nest egg could even grow while you are retired).

I did not want to draw down from my nest egg at all. Let’s imagine we find the cure to ageing. I’m betting on Artificial Intelligence for this one. Let's imagine we may live forever after all. So, I’ll need to live off the extra money that my nest egg makes every year, the interest. I’ll aim to never take money from the nest egg.

This is the main tenet of the financial independence movement, FI or FIRE for short. Not that they believe that we will live forever, that’s only my lunatic ideas. But that there is a sum of money which an individual can save that will enable a person to not have to work again. They will live off the proceeds or interest that the money makes. There is more to FI than that but this is the main aim of that community.

This is not to put people off a normal retirement plan. They are a brilliant idea and everyone should have one.But for the purposes of this exercise I assumed I had to have a passive income and not dip into savings.

So, my number was the amount I needed to save. I estimated I could withdraw after-tax about 3% per year of that amount. And so that 3% was what I needed to live on. A yearly salary I would get from my savings.

The Method

The following we can do for an individual or for a household. I included my girlfriend's estimated expenses as well (household).

Don’t forget, it all assumes you no longer have a job (you’re ‘retired’) and are living off that 3%.

To simplify, I calculated my monthly expenses for three different levels.

The first level is the survivable level. How much do you need each month just to get by? No extra expenses, no travel, only a roof over your head, food and some of the common bills.

I broke this down into a few items. Food, accommodation, and anything you would deem a mandatory expense. Mandatory expenses are things like electricity, water, insurance and the internet. But it can be different depending on the person and their needs.

This can all be rough estimates for now. Also, we shouldn't box ourselves in by where we live now. I assumed I’d live where I am now, an expensive city. But I could assume I’d have moved out of there by then and got something or somewhere cheaper.

The next level is the comfortable level. So, on top of the above survivable level, I throw in a little extra for a nicer accommodation. A bit more for once a month fine dining or better quality of groceries. An amount I'd want per month to buy some clothes. Or electronics. Or whatever is the poison of choice. Finally, a small amount for a twice-yearly holiday and one minor luxury that is desired (gym membership, car costs, etc.).

The final level is luxury. Imagine we have an even nicer house. Even two houses? What is the monthly cost now? Imagine we travelled more? How much is that worth per month? Or we ate out once a week? This is our ideal lifestyle, go mad, but not ‘I want an island’ mad.

Levels

Monthly

Yearly

My Number

Survivable

£1,200

£14,400

£480,000

Comfortable

£2,500

£30,000

£1,000,000

Luxury

£6,000

£72,000

£2,400,000

Once we have the monthly cost of each level, multiply it by 12 to get the yearly costs. Now, that’s how much we want to make per year, after tax, to have those levels of lifestyle.

Next, divide each number by 3 (3%) and multiply it by 100. This gives us the amount we need to save and invest to roughly be able to afford these lifestyles.

Some people struggle with their numbers. They add too much or can’t even think of what to add. This is why it’s such a good exercise. I added too much. My number was quite large. And this opened my eyes to two things.

The first is that my survivable and comfortable monthly amounts are still too high. Is that really the case? Am I that much of a snob, or is it essential I spend that much to have those lifestyles? It seems ridiculous. And indeed, it most likely is, I’d most likely be as happy with less, or with a life that costs less at least. Is living in an expensive city what I want? Does it make me happier? This exercise pushes me to think in a different way.

The second is that I currently am not on the correct trajectory to get that amount in a timeframe I’m happy with. I get paid quite well but there is no way I can save that much in 15-20 years so that I could retire early. No, I’d need to work until I’m 65 probably, and even then, it’s excluding any risks (such as job loss, market dips, etc.). So, either I have to start upping my savings targets (and have a less comfortable life now). Or buckle in for a long haul and grow old and decrepit before I can start to ‘enjoy’ my life.

These sound like bad things, but trust me, they are not. These numbers are flexible. I have many dials to play around with to get to where I want to be.

Current Income Dial

Do I need to sort out my current income, ask for a raise, or look at getting a new job (the best way to get a jump in your wage)?

Future Income Dial

I could see that in my industry I’ll never be able to make enough. So, could I retrain, get a new role, or come up with a strategy to move up the ranks in my current company?

Savings Dial

Do I need to be more aggressive with my savings? I was aiming for 20-30% but do I now need to be full on frugal Johnny? How about aiming to save 70% of my wage? Is it even possible?

Investments Dial

Can I increase my investment returns (but it will likely increase my risk too)? Can I invest in my future income in other ways (such as investing in education that could lead to a higher paid role)?

Businesses Dial

Despite all the above, my number may still be too outlandish. So, the best way to make many multiples of my current wage would be to create a business. Or invest in several businesses. Risky for sure, but the payoff might outweigh that.

Cost of living Dial

This is my favourite dial, it allows for a lot of creativity. Working on increasing my wage is one thing. But my perspective could be all wrong. The monthly amounts I deemed essential may be laughable.

Let’s take a luxury example. Imagine you’ve always wanted a private jet. Well, it costs say 25 million to buy. And maintenance costs are also astronomical I suppose. Let’s estimate it's 200k per year. Assume the lifespan of the plane is 20 years. So, over the lifetime of the jet, that comes to a monthly cost of 120k. OK, but how often will you use the private jet? 10 times a year? Maybe 20? Why not rent each time you want to use it? Each rental might only cost 40k. Plus, you’ve no longer got maintenance costs and you can go for the flashiest plane every year. The total monthly cost in this case? 33k per month. That’s a 90k saving per month, and all I did was make a slight change in my attitude and perspective.

The same goes for island ownership (we can rent instead of buy).

Or home ownership. We can own a reasonable house and vacation often in the fanciest hotels around the world.

Or car ownership. We can rent a supercar a few occasions per year rather than buy.

Or food. We can learn to cook amazing meals at home and buy the best ingredients.

Or let’s question the comfortable level. Why is my monthly rent 1,200? Why do I live in a high-cost area? Why not move to a lower cost city or a different country? Why do I need such a big home? Everything is questionable.

It works both ways, of course. Utility and price do not always go hand in hand. Sometimes it’s worth a higher price if utility is many times higher than the comparative.

Let’s go back for a moment to my cyborg analogy. We can leverage technology to get the lifestyle of our dreams for a fraction of the cost. We only need to think a little bit lateral.

My own personal off the wall ideas is around accommodation. I want to live in nice, comfortable, even luxurious digs. But I don’t want to buy the mansion at all. I’ve thought of a moveable wall. One that can transform one single space into many spaces. The idea is that we don’t use the dining room when we are watching a movie. We don’t use the kitchen when we are asleep. Or the shower when we are cooking. You get the point. These rolling walls exist now, modern technology allows it. And modern technology allowed me to see it for myself on YouTube. So now I could have my luxurious home for the price of a smaller space.

So, knowing your numbers is the first step. Only then can we start to think creatively and find the simple ways to a great life.

A Quick Summary

There is a lot of information in this chapter. So, I’ll summarise what we’ve discussed.

1. First, we need to estimate the bare minimum we would need per month just to get by. This is the survivable level.

2. Next, we can estimate how much per month we need for a more comfortable level of living.

3. And then we can go wild and estimate how much per month we need for the luxury level of living.

4. Once we have these numbers, we multiply it by 12 to arrive at the amount we need per year. Our desired passive salary for each level.

5. Next, we assume that we could withdraw a certain amount per year from our investments in order to arrive at these numbers. The certain amount I used was 3%.

6. And finally, we arrive at our numbers for each level by dividing the yearly salaries by 3 (as I have chosen 3%) and multiplying by 100. Remember my number is the amount we need to save in order to make our desired yearly salary without having to work.

Once we know these numbers, we can then assess if they are achievable or not and in what time-frame. We can use a number of dials to reduce these numbers too.

The next step is of course investing our money to enable us to get to these goals and withdraw that 3% annually. That is what I will discuss in the next chapter.

Investments and Pensions

“Someone’s sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago.” - Warren Buffett

If you had savings or even have some right now, how would you invest them? How do you invest them? Did you buy a house? Do you have a pension? Or do you leave it sitting in the bank?

Investing is complex, and the finance industry is happy to keep it like that. So, with this chapter, I’ll try and simplify and clear away much of the haze that surrounds this topic. I’ll stick to financial market investments as it's the main one people invest in.

‘They’ are usually as clueless as you.

Unless you work in finance or have a keen interest in it, I would bet you know very little about investing. I work in finance and one thing is pretty clear. The majority of people employed in that sector also know very little about investing. I include myself in that group.

None of my friends or family actually know what I do. I’ve attempted to explain in the past but, to be honest, it’s nicer when they don’t know. They ask me for advice from time to time, it makes me feel important. I played around in the markets. I worked with traders, asset managers and pension providers. I had a better idea than most of what might be a good investment, right?

My Dad bought Fyffes (Fruit Company) shares many years ago, he lost a lot of money on them over a 15-year period. The share price had a drastic drop over this time. He came to me a year ago and asked me what he should do. I told him to sell. It seemed like dead money to me. Nothing was going on with the stock. Better to get out and play again, or better yet diversify.

You know what happened? Six months later, Sumitomo bought Fyffes. Lucky for him, my Dad never sold his shares, he had procrastinated on the decision. When Sumitomo purchased the stock, my Dad made double what my advice would have gotten him.

I, like many others in my field, kind of pretend to know what’s going on. A lot of people who work in finance have a similar trajectory as mine. Get a degree. Think you know something about finance. Get into a low-level job. Learn what the hell this finance stuff actually is. Try and dabble a bit yourself. Realise you have no clue what you’re doing. Realise not very many people do. Sit on your high horse and pretend you know more than those outside the industry. All while being as clueless as everyone else.

I wanted to get this point out of the way so you know two things. First, that the majority of people are as clueless as you and me. And second, that the finance industry is not in a rush to try and simplify it for you.

Having said that, here are my guidelines. They came about after I followed the above trajectory for a bit. I've dabbled in stocks, options, futures, FOREX, bonds and even some high-risk spread betting. And in the end, I came to a realisation. Smart investing is simplifying and not complicating.

Nobody* can beat the market

It’s like the guy that gives you a tip on the horses. Sure, he might have a winner now and then, but what’s that clown hanging around the track for if all his tips are gold? I’d imagine he’d be skiing in St. Barts on a yacht...or whatever rich people do.

*There are, of course, those special few. The 0.001% that actually do know how to play the markets. They can give advice to others on good investments. But, most likely, we don’t know them. They have tools and amounts of money we can’t afford or fathom, and they won’t be looking to help us.

So, don’t trust those that do give ‘great’ advice.

‘Invest in Carbon Futures, you say? Put all my money on black? Fantastic idea.’

This includes most finance professionals, financial advisors, and pension advisors. The majority have incentives directly opposed to making us the most return. They can put us into investments that have high fees because they get a kickback. Never believe someone when they say they’ll beat the market and give a return way over the average odds.

I’m a cynic on most topics. And I know this is not the right way to behave in general. But when it comes to our financial health, we must all be a cynic.

Get Rid of Debt First

Having debt while trying to invest on the side is a recipe for disaster. First, it’s complicating the situation. More important than that, we need time to accumulate wealth from our investments. The quicker we can pay off our debts, the more time we'll have.

Compound interest is the most powerful tool for any investor. But it is working in reverse or slowed down when we have debt (especially debt with high interest, e.g. Credit Cards). Money put towards our debt now will pay far more in future returns than if we let debt drag on our savings while trying to invest.

And sure, servicing a debt first can sometimes cost us lost earnings on other investments. And there are options to service a little debt and invest at the same time. But I would only play around with this if I was confident in my financial knowledge. But I’m a lazy man myself. So, servicing debt first is the simplest solution.

Being complicated is easy, simplification is hard

It’s so easy in the investment world to become complicated. Fancy asset classes, multiple funds, fund of funds, the list does go on. But one of the general rules of thumb I use is this: If you don’t understand it, don’t invest.

By all means, read up on topics to try and get an understanding. But if it’s too complicated, the likelihood is that the investment is not in our best interest. For instance, having many different pension providers or brokers. It gets too messy for the average person (myself). Or trying to figure out if the interest rates go up, does my bond value go up or down? It’s something the average investor should not have to think or worry about. Simplify.

Index Tracker Funds are the shit

On the topic of simplification, an index tracker is an investment which, in my view, fits the bill. They take care of all the complicated stuff. Diversification, correlations, re-balancing is all bundled in the fund. The fees are usually low (see the next guideline). But most important is it does not try and beat the market. By definition, an index tracker will go up and down in value with the market(s). This is the greatest aspect of this type of investment.

On a side note, Warren Buffett has an ongoing bet with those that think they can beat the market. Many consider him the world's greatest investor. He is one of the richest people in the world.  And he bets that a simple index tracker will beat any complicated investing strategy in the long run. So far, nobody has been able to call in that bet.

Compound Interest is King but watch out for fees and taxes

Compound interest is an exponential growth of your investment. This means it has slow growth to begin with and then skyrockets as time goes on. All your financial market investments will have this built in. But the important concept is time.

For instance, let's assume you can get a 7% compounded return. Over 10 years, a £10,000 initial investment with £10,000 saved every year  (£100,000 in total) will grow to £138,000. Continue this same investment and it would become £945,000 over 30 years (for only £300,000 in cash saved). Play around with the initial investment amount. Add even a small yearly investment on top and you’re in business.

However, this powerful feature will slow down if we have large fees, much like debt. Both your broker and the investments he makes on your behalf will have fees. Fees will seem low, 1%-2%, but the true cost is in the effect on compound interest. A 1% or 2% fee could mean an extra 10 years or more before we hit our financial goals.

Or if the investment is not tax efficient, it will have the same effect. Tax efficiency is paying tax at the end of the investment rather than over the course of the investment. One is less expensive than the other. Paying tax over the course of an investment dulls the compound interest effect. Most pensions (in the UK and IRA and 401k in the US at least) are tax efficient. Some saving schemes will be too (ISA in the UK, and although technically a retirement scheme, the Roth IRA in the US).

Simplify our risk profile

What the fuck is a risk profile, you ask? In a nutshell, are you retiring in the next few years? If yes, then you can’t afford to ride the market waves, you are risk averse. So, you want to invest in safer options (less return but less risk) over that short-term. Luckily, there are tracker funds designed for this.

If you are younger, you can ride out these waves as you’ll be thinking longer-term. This means you could have riskier investments (higher returns with more risk). The general rule of thumb is that the older you are, the more risk averse you will be.

Start now, set it up and forget it

We can see with compound interest that the sooner we start, the higher our returns will be in the future. A simple direct debit to save and invest the money (which most brokers can do) is essential.

An online account so we can track when needed and not have to call someone up, is also essential.

It’s important to almost forget it as well. Our investment will go up and down over the years. But it’s important to note that these are long-term investments. Our emotional state should not get affected by short-term ups and downs.

Avoid Lump Sum Investments

Lump sum investments are dangerous. With them, we can get into an investment at the wrong time, when the price is higher than normal. The majority of brokers will allow you to invest a lump sum over time. This helps to minimise any fluctuations in values.

Take your company's pension incentive

A lot of companies these days are providing pension incentives. For example, I pay 10% of my wage into a pension and they’ll match it. This is free money and will help the pension pot grow.

Now, I would always suggest questioning what the company pension is. Companies fall into the same traps as we do. If the pension is not a good one, raise the issue with the company, but either way, take that incentive if it’s provided.

A Few Takeaways and Caveats

I used to have 3 pensions (from different companies). A stocks and shares account with my bank for personal investing. A spread betting account (for more obscure shares and options I didn’t have access to via normal channels). I even had a FOREX account (to bet on foreign exchange rates).

I made some money on these different investments. But over the course of 5 years, the return versus time invested was not good enough. And I know a little about the industry. I’ve worked on trading floors and built risk systems for asset managers. And I struggled with these complicated investments.

I now have a single pension and an ISA (tax efficient investment scheme in the UK). In both cases, I’m invested in a Vanguard Tracker fund via Fidelity (which acts as the broker). For the pension, I have invested in what’s called the 60/40, 60% equity and 40% bonds, which is lower risk. In my ISA, I’ve invested in the 80/20 version, which is a bit higher risk.

I’m not saying to invest in similar. But I found this to be a great simplification of my own personal situation. I’m sure others could seek out a bit more of a return by being more complicated. But the cost for me, in time wasted and worry, was too great.

Remember that the minimum effective lifestyle allows us to spend more of our time where we want to. In this case, the simplification of my finances actually affords me more time. With this time, I can think up better investment methods (if they exist). With this time, I'm able to jump on new opportunities when they arise.

I’ve made some assumptions in the above, of course, but what I’ve written is factual from my point of view. I’ve also not discussed one of the more important aspects. The removal of your money (upon retirement or another life event). This has massive tax and timing implications. But I haven’t gone through this myself so I can’t give advice yet.

A Quick Summary

If you have no idea how to start any of these, let me give a quick, simple guide.

1. It is likely that you have a pension from your current employer. They use a broker that invests in a particular fund on your behalf.

2. A pension is usually tax efficient because it takes money out of your paycheck before the taxman takes his share. It also doesn’t tax any earnings made during the course of the investment. But tax is applied when we withdraw the money.

3. A lot of employers are offering a pension incentive. If you put in 5% of your wage into a pension, they may match it, giving that same amount on top of what you gave. This can increase your contributions and we should always avail of the offer.

4. Always find out what pension your company has invested in. The key things to look out for are low fees, decent returns and a long track record of returns for the fund. If the pension fund doesn't meet these criteria then bring it up with your company. They can change. Remember it's likely every employee has a pension in that fund. So the company should always be open to listening.

5. Now, you may have moved from one job to another during your career. And each may have had a pension that you contributed to. These pensions may be with different brokers and invested in different funds. But when you move job, your previous contributions can also be moved. Contact the brokers of the pensions you have and they will provide a way to do this.

6. You shouldn’t put all the money you save into a pension. The money in a pension is only made available after a certain age. It’s currently 65 in the UK but it’s changing all the time. What if you need to use some savings before this age? Or you want to retire earlier? In this case, you'll need to make non-pension investments as well.

7. The aim is to be as tax efficient with our investments as possible. Some investment schemes are available for this. ISA in the UK and ROTH IRA in the USA allow the investor to earn tax-free during the course of the investment. And the money in these accounts is easier to get at in case of an emergency or early retirement. Note that the Roth IRA is a retirement scheme but the initial amount invested, not the earnings, can be withdrawn before retirement age (currently 59.5 in the USA).

8. To make these types of investments, we need a broker. I use Fidelity as my broker because my pension is with them, their fees are low and I have easy access via a decent online portal. In an ideal world, we would use the same broker as our pension. This is for simplicity sake. But always check the fees they charge and make sure you’re getting your money's worth. In the USA, Wealthfront have had decent reviews too but I can only advise on Fidelity. A simple search for the cheapest broker for the type of investment in your country will yield good results. Just make sure the one you pick allows you to invest in what you want (i.e. Vanguard Index fund).

9. If there are tax efficient savings schemes available to you, then your broker will offer them. When we decide to invest in one of these or decide to invest in general, we then have to choose what to invest in.

10. We can invest in individual assets or funds. Individual asset investing is not advised for the lazy man. Funds also charge a fee for investing in them. So, again, we want to shop around for those with the lowest. And for the simplest method, we should be investing in index funds.

11. I invest in Vanguard's index funds. They have low fees and have a decent track record. The one you want to invest in depends on your risk profile. The more bonds you have in an index fund, the lower risk and also return you are likely to have. The more equity, the higher the risk and potential return.

12. Finally, it is a good idea to keep some cash as savings. To have some of your nest egg that is not invested but is easy to get at if the need arises. A typical amount would be 4-8 month’s salary. This is in the case of a sudden loss of job or emergency.

The world of pensions and investments is a minefield, and there is a lot of overwhelming information out there. I hope the above steps help you to get started on the path of simplifying your pension and investments.

The Biggest Financial Decision

"Rent is the most you will ever spend on living arrangements per month. A Mortgage is the minimum." - Unknown

Buying or renting a home is likely to be the biggest financial decision we have to make.

I’m at that stage in my life where I could ‘afford’ a house. So, naturally, I’m completely freaking out about what to do. Should I keep renting or should I buy?

Renting versus buying is a touchy subject. People are usually in one camp or the other, with a no man’s land between. For those that are buyers, renting makes no sense to them in the long-term. This is definitely the larger of the two camps.

For the renters, it seems buying is an idiotic mistake. These people tend to live in cities where it makes sense to rent. Or sometimes they would like to be buyers but they can’t afford it. The closet buyers if you will. Or are German. Goddamn Germans, always doing weird things. Sauerkraut, I’m looking at you.

In the spirit of the minimum effective lifestyle, I wanted to know what is the simplest solution. The minimum I could do to get what I wanted. Below is what I discovered.

What do I want?

The first question is, of course, what do I want? ‘Eh, didn’t think about it. A house. Somewhere to live I suppose.’ But that answer is not well thought out. I’ve asked all my friends who have or are looking to buy a house. They also seem to have not delved too deep into this question. When I ask them to have a good think about it, people will say things like ‘a home to put my own stamp on’. ‘Somewhere close to good amenities (schools, shops, transport)’. ‘Enough space for a potential family’, etc.

OK, that’s a good start. And we could delve even deeper into each of these points too (why do you need to put your own stamp on a place? It’s possible with renting, right?) but it will be a digression.

There are pros and cons for each side of the rent/buy coin but the misinformation out there on the subject is baffling. Positive research on owning a home is usually sponsored by a big mortgage lender. Hmm, seems a bit dodgy to me.

Those that praise renting are no different, usually backed by the big rental websites.

So, the next option is word of mouth. But that is inherently biased too. Someone who rents may be anti-buying because they don’t want to see others buy and ‘get ahead’. And only in rare cases will you hear negative feedback from someone who bought a home. This isn’t evidence for the argument of owning a house. This is positive reinforcement. The person you spoke to made the biggest financial decision of their lives. So, their brain will produce every evidence and reasons for it being a good idea. It keeps the person sane.

With all this confusion, I decided to come at it from a different angle. I asked myself, what do I actually want (and I try and remove as much of the normal societal pressures as possible)? So, I created a few simple rules that my situation must meet before I make a decision on owning or renting a home:

1. Rule 1: A house I buy will be somewhere I can live happily for the rest of my life if I must. This includes thinking about any future family needs.

2. Rule 2: A home will not be an investment.

3. Rule 3: Renting or buying must be ‘affordable’. I will not over-stretch my finances.

Rule 1

I’ve known people that bought crappy flats. A shoebox with a postcode. And then sell them on 2 years later for ~100k in profit. Others own 3 homes, rent them all out and make a good salary from that alone.

But I’ve also seen many buy a home that was too expensive for them. They fell into negative equity a year later and are now stuck there.

Others still made an 80k loss over 5 years on a home. The market is fickle. No matter where you live. If you think you can predict it, you’re wrong.

Some of the examples above made amazing amounts of money. But those that do are either lucky, have money to play with, or are in the top 0.01% of talent in the industry…so, not us.

We all hear stories from friends, family and others about how much better off they are now that they bought a house. There is a reason for this. Same reason a gambler will only tell us when they’ve won big. Nobody likes to brag about losing their bollocks. It’s not transparent that there are as many losers (if not more) as there are winners. Nobody wants to tell this story.

All I can do, I realised, is play my own game. Don’t worry about others or get struck by ‘the fear of missing out’. I need to know my priorities and execute on them.

So, rule number one is that if I am buying, it needs to be something and somewhere I’d be happy for the rest of my life. It may not be my last home but it needs to have the potential to be. This way I can beat the market regardless. I don’t care about the market in this case (providing I follow the next two rules as well).

The bonus with renting, in this case, is that I can move as my family grows, or circumstances change.

Rule 2

Using a home as an investment is not a good idea. A good investment is liquid. It fits with my risk appetite. Its value is correct (or lower than its potential worth).

A house is not a liquid asset. I cannot sell it tomorrow, it’s a long process.

A house is a risky affair, likely the biggest investment (cash value) I’ll ever make. And the majority of people would be risk-averse like myself. But owning a house is not without massive risks. Real estate is great as part of a diverse portfolio. But in most people’s cases, and my own, it will not be a diverse portfolio. I’ll have something like 10k of stocks and then 500k of a house.

Finally, a lot of homes have an incorrect value. We pay for a lot of unknowns. Location, type of neighbours, transport, competition and the economic outlook as a whole. And so, it’s difficult if not impossible to get a correct value for a house, more likely than not I’ll pay over the odds.

So, I will not use a house as an investment. If I want to invest in real estate, there are portfolios I can buy into. These portfolios do this in a much better way and can fit the bill of a good investment.

Rule 3

If I buy or rent, my rule is to not over-stretch myself. This is difficult to gauge but I like to plan for a worst-case scenario. So, it’s good to rent (or buy) something which I can pay off in comfort (which is different for different people). Even if I only had a single average wage coming into the household.

Let’s imagine a couple. Both getting paid 40k per year. If one lost their job and couldn’t get another, and the other had to take a lower (closer to average) salary for some reason, then I should still be able to afford to live in the house. So, imagine having a single 30k wage and then work out what I could afford. This depends on a person’s risk appetite. I'm overly cautious but getting a mortgage that pushes me to my financial limit is a terrible idea. If I have to do that for the area I live in…well, then I can’t afford to live in that area.

Where Do I Stand?

Let me be clear, I’m in the no man’s land between renting and buying. I can see good arguments for both. But I’ll only decide on buying when my personal rules are met, and not get pressured into anything.

None of this is to put you off buying a house, it’s to make sure you’re not buying a house for the wrong reasons.

The One Main Argument for Buying is Bullshit

Anyone that has made it this far is probably tearing their hair out. Shouting the overused phrase ‘but you’re throwing away money with rent!!’. The biggest lie in this industry is that renting is throwing away money while paying a mortgage is not. Let’s jump into some numbers to prove this isn’t the case, so that we can make a good decision without this foggy topic clouding our judgement.

A caveat before we dig in. I’ve assumed with the below that someone isn’t going to give me a loan for a deposit (usually a parent). I’ve also assumed that monthly rent is cheaper than a mortgage (which is the case in most big cities). My example below is for the London market but could apply to any other major city.

The Numbers

Renting over 15 years versus Buying with a mortgage over 15 years.

Let’s assume I want to buy a home worth £400,000.

You need at least a 10% down payment or deposit which is £40,000.

So, let’s say I get a mortgage of £360,000 for 20 years at a very reasonable 3% rate.

This means that I'll have to pay a monthly mortgage of £2,000.

That’s £480,000 over 20 years.

Let’s also assume that, by miracle, the house makes 3% per year in value.

This means after 20 years I'll have a house worth £722,000.

So, after 20 years I'll have a net worth of £722,000 — £480,000 =£242,000

Now, let’s assume a similar house to rent is £1,200 per month.

That means that I pay £800 per month less than a mortgage.

Over 20 years, I'll have paid £288,000.

Assuming I'm a good investor, I invest this difference in a pension. A simple index tracker fund (including the original deposit).

An average return rate of 6% means that, after 20 years, I'll have an investment nest egg of £501,000.

So, after 20 years, I'll have a net worth of £501,000 — £288,000 =£213,000

So not much in the difference, plus I've made a lot of assumptions. In fact, if I even sold and bought another home once in my lifetime, the difference would vanish. Fees and costs with moving are large.

Inflation affects my investment less than my house, so again, that’s not factored in.

Not to mention all the maintenance costs, taxes, fees, etc. of owning my own home.

Of course, if this is my only home, there will be none to very little tax when I sell it, but my investment would certainly incur a hefty tax if I take it all out at once, but there are ways to lessen this (annuities etc.).

So, in short, the minimum I can do is know what I want and why I want it. Create a list of deal breaker rules. Once I meet them, I can crunch the numbers and figure out if I want to buy or rent. Both decisions are valid options.

Budgeting

“A budget is telling your money where to go instead of wondering where it went” - Dave Ramsey

For many years, I was atrocious at keeping track of my expenses. I had enough to get by, which was fantastic, but this was not adequate when I look back on it now. I never saved a penny. I never sat down to figure out my saving goals. I was wandering with no financial aims.

It turns out that to be successful at saving money, I need a budget. This isn't ideal for a lazy man, it seems like too much work. But what if there was a simple way?

So, after many failed attempts and a lot of reading, I figured out my simplest budgeting rules. They may not work for everyone but it should give others some useful ideas.

What’s my number, what are my priorities?

The first step was knowing what was important to me. I prioritised aspects of my life as best I could. I covered this in the minimum effective life chapter. I determined what small list of things I was doing that gave me the most satisfaction or enjoyment. And I tried to reduce or cut the rest.

This small list of things is where I would deem it OK to spend money. I want the biggest return (satisfaction and enjoyment) for my investment. In my case, it’s travel, movies, cycling, golf and occasional nice dinners with my girlfriend. Now, I’m not saying I allowed myself to blow the budget on these items. But I should build these things into my budget. I should allow myself a certain value per month for these exact things.

On the other side of the coin, we often spend money on things with very little utility. An example is cable TV. Most people don't have the time or inclination to get the full use of a cable package. So, is it needed? Another example might be the gym. I'm all for exercise but not if I hate going to the gym. There are simpler and less expensive alternatives. I should pursue these if I'm not getting the full utility out of my gym membership.

This prioritisation helped me to determine my number. Everyone should know their number, what amount per month do you want/need to have a comfortable life. Few people know it, but to achieve something, you must be able to define it. How can you expect to live the life you want in future without ever knowing how much that might cost? I covered this in the Knowing My Number chapter. Having this information is essential to have the motivation to budget.

90/10, 80/20, 70/30 or 60/40?

Once I had my number, I knew what I was working towards. That way I could realise which approach would enable me to save enough. I like to use a 60/40 approach. This differs per person depending on their circumstances. We could use a 90/10, 80/20 or any other combination of approach.

In the case of 60/40, 60% of my after-tax wage goes to expenditure. 40% will go to savings, automatically. This is the key. I decide how much I need to save, then I make it automatic.

Making savings automatic is the single most powerful way to keeping to a budget and savings plan. Setting up a direct debit or standing order to pay every month into a savings account is a game changer. Once my wage arrives, my savings are immediately whisked away from my own greedy hands. I don't have time to see it or spend it.

With the 60% left, I can do as I wish. If this isn't enough, then it means one of a few things for me.

Either my rent/mortgage is too high and I need to move or aim for a raise/alternative income in some way or another.

And/or I’m spending too much on entertainment.

And/or my bills are much too high and need addressing.

40% goes to savings, but this I break down into a few different parts.

Currently, I place 12% in my pension. Usually, employers match up to a maximum amount. For the love of God, max out every penny you can from them.

10% goes to my tax efficient savings account or to service debt. This is an automatic payment that goes every month.

9% goes into my emergency fund. Again, this is an automatic payment into that account.

9% goes into my holiday/event fund. You guessed it, automatic.

So, if I make 30k per year after tax, it’ll mean I should be spending 18k per year. This is 1.5k per month. And I should be saving 12k per year (1k per month). In my case, 3.6k of the savings will be pension (I’ve simplified as this is usually pre-tax). 3k will be personal savings/debt servicing. 2.7k will be the emergency fund. And 2.7k will be for holidays/events.

The accounts and budgets

Now, I can go a step further. It is not necessary, the above is enough to keep a budget. But if we are interested in seeking out a little more savings here and there, then we need a bit more detail.

Let's say I can afford to live on 60% of my after-tax income, but I want to save even more if possible. Here is where a typical budget comes in handy.

I always have two budgets, one for my daily expenses and another for my holiday/big event plans. This enables me to project and stick to a budget daily. Then, while on holiday (where sometimes anything goes and the excuse is “I’m on holiday”), I can also keep track. The two are of course linked, but having it this way simplifies it for me.

To simplify my budget and finances even further, I’ve only three accounts. 2 savings and 1 current, all with the same bank.

I have 1 Current account card and 1 VISA card. More is not required. The VISA should rarely get used unless you pay it off on time every month (and/or you’re using it to collect points). Having too many cards and accounts makes things complex and hard to manage.

I also have one brokerage account. This contains my pension and tax efficient savings. See the Investments chapter for more details.

The Tools

I tried many apps to track my spending. All had problems hooking up to my bank. All had a learning curve. I found the simplest way, in the end, was a spreadsheet (I use Google Sheets). I use spreadsheets in work so I had a familiarity. But I still wanted to simplify the setup and stay away from the fancy lookups and arrays.

In the US, there are better tools available (such as Mint). Go with what you feel is the simplest here. Remember the tools are unimportant.

There is an even simpler way known as the envelope method. Having the money in cash is ideal for this. The idea is to break your money down into different physical envelopes. One for bills, one for entertainment, and so on. Then, during the month, the money from the corresponding envelope is used. This makes it easy to see how much you have left in your budget for certain activities. It also forces you to think about what you are spending.

I don’t love this method as it involves a bit of work. But some prefer it and I can see some advantages of seeing the physical money.

The Categories

Next up is categories. As fantastic as it sounds, knowing how much you’ve spent every month on tea bags is not helpful. The trick is to have as few categories as possible. I recommend the following:

Rent/Mortgage.

Food. Weekly shops, lunch at work and coffee, etc.

Insurance. Car, house, health and life assurance, etc.

Utilities. Electric/gas, water, the internet, etc.

Other Bills. Housing tax, dentist appointment, or other non-regular bills, etc.

Entertainment. I felt I was overspending in this area so I broke it down. For instance, I had Amazon and Cinema broken into two subcategories. These areas are where I thought I was spending too much.

Budget Updates

Since setting the above up, I’ve spent no more than 30 minutes per week doing a spending recap. I like to do this on a Sunday or Monday evening when I can. This entails inserting my expenses for the week into a budget spreadsheet. 30 minutes a week to stay on top of the household finances is a small ask. Or, if an app works with your bank, it will be even easier. I copy/paste from my online bank account at the moment. This could also be manual, assuming you don’t have thousands of transactions per week.

Dealing with Wage Increases

Finally, if I do get an increase in wage, the above 60/40 formula should remain as best as possible. I would try to increase the amount I’m saving proportionally to the wage increase. This will help fight expense inflation, a major problem for me. We need to reward ourselves to a certain degree but we can't take the piss. So, if we get a 5k bump before tax, we can't look to buy that brand-new car. We should save 40% of it at least and enjoy the rest.

I understand I’ve oversimplified a lot, this to me is how to start out when it comes to budgeting. But I also know people are currently in situations that they can’t see how they’ll ever be able to save 40% of their wage. But the next chapter will aim to help. This chapter was to show the simple and laziest steps possible I take to budget my finances. Remember, know how much you can and want to save, make it automatic, then use a more typical budget if you want to save more.

Minimalism and Savings

"Success is having everything you need and doing everything you want. It is not doing everything you need to have everything you want." - Jacob Lund Fisker

OK, so I'm at the stage where I know how much I need. I now know how to budget. But how do I reduce my spending as much as possible?

The term minimalism is being bandied about a lot these days. It may seem like another millennial fad. Along with full arm tattoos, perfect manicured lumberjack beards and the word artisanal. But I urge people to look closer.

I came across it by chance. You see, I’m not a very accommodating person when it comes to chaos. I like everything in its right place and organised. I’m not a total mentalist yet but I sure as shit am not a laid back guy.

I plan, I project manage and worry about little things in life. I enjoy it. But it also makes me anxious. So, it made sense to me to have less stuff to take care of, for efficiency sake. I was going to try and organise it anyway so I thought the less of it there was, the quicker and simpler it would be for me. Turned out there was a whole ‘movement’ of people who were doing something similar.

Now, before I explain further, I’m aware of the wanky connotations with minimalism. It’s a middle-class, yuppie affliction. It’s a classic first world problem.

I’ve so much to choose from that I actually need to have less.

There is a consumer-driven view of minimalism. Where people strive for less of, but much more expensive things. But we need to look past that. There is something powerful underneath.

When I say less stuff, I mean both physical things as well as more abstract concepts as well. Not only items of clothing or electronics but decisions and tasks as well. Before I explain what I did, I want to explain why minimalism came to be a need in my life. And why it’s necessary for others that have a similar mindset.

For some, minimalism has always been a necessity. For instance, an Alaskan Fisherman had no need for a grand piano. So, he wouldn’t own one. This makes sense and is still the case depending on the person, location and economic status. But the minimalism that has recently become popular is seen more as a choice. A social bandwagon that people, bloggers and businesses are jumping on.

But there are two main reasons it has become a necessity for the masses in today's society. The first is technology advancements and the second is the cost of living in today's world.

Recent technology advancements have brought many benefits. But they have also caused a lot of problems. The biggest problem is the Internet. The internet is amazing. It's something I'd struggle to live without.

I think about this a lot actually. I explained once to my co-workers that in some sort of doomsday apocalypse with internet blackout, I’d likely eat something poisonous pretty quickly. Thinking it was an acorn or something. To which my co-workers laughed and then told me that acorns are actually poisonous. So, the conclusion was I’d probably be dead even sooner than I thought.

But while it is fantastic, the internet has also increased the possible choices we have. We are always connected via our phones, laptops and tablets. It’s getting more and more difficult to switch off. There is so much to see, so much knowledge to learn, it’s overwhelming. Is there any wonder we revert to the simple entertainment hits of cat videos and other crap?

Information will only become more abundant, not less. So, our only defence is looking like minimising our consumption. God knows Facebook and Google aren’t in the business of keeping our consumption low. We can’t trust them to curate our newsfeeds and information in any helpful way.

When I mention the cost of living, I don’t only mean the monetary value of living in society today. I also include the environmental costs and the psychological costs.

In the majority of Western cities, the cost of owning your own home is prohibitive, more so than it has ever been. And so, society is embracing things like cohousing, micro-living and tiny houses. These are all acts of minimalism.

The cost to the environment is driving people to want less too. In fact, it is a necessity to have less in order for us to help the planet recover. We must halt and attempt to reverse the current environmental trends.

Finally, the psychological cost of modern day living is massive. Mental health issues and suicide rates are higher than they’ve ever been, despite all the technological, economic and health advancements. Now, I can’t say the cure for this is minimalism. But I can say that choosing to be a minimalist in certain areas has helped my own psychological well-being. This to me is one of the main benefits, choosing to have less so my mind is free to work on other issues.

Minimalism does not mean ditching your favourite things to live a stark lifestyle. In fact, quite the opposite. Blogs and forums are having a dick measuring contest to try and show who has the least. But that’s not the real message of minimalism. Minimalism is reducing items and abstract areas of our life that aren't the priority. This is so that we can enjoy more of the high priority items and areas of our life.

For instance, clothes to me are not a big deal, I like having nice clothes, but I don’t need 15 different outfits. From my limited experience, this is not the same for girls! But that’s ok. I can minimise clothes because they are not my top priority. But for someone else, clothes could be their favourite thing in the world. They can minimise elsewhere.

Start with something simple that has a large impact. I started with my clothes. Then moved onto electronics and finally books.

In the non-physical realm, I organised my devices once and for all. Now, if I ever lose my laptop or my phone, it is easy to replace. All my documents and photos are cloud-based. For me, this was a massive weight off.

I did the same with my emails. It took forever but I had 5,000 unread emails, all marketing crap. I created some folders and saved what I wanted and deleted the rest. I’ve been unsubscribing from the crap I get and have been able to maintain a very small inbox as a result. This is a little mental thing for myself. I don’t imagine it would have the same impact on others, but again, different strokes for different folks.

And finally, I even started to minimise the amount of time I would spend working. But I'll leave this concept for another chapter.

So, what the fuck does this have to do with saving money? What have deleting emails got to do with my bank balance?

First, minimising unwanted possessions. This has a direct and indirect savings effect. We could sell the unwanted possessions and make some extra money. That would be direct savings. More than likely, nobody wants our old crap though. So, what are the indirect savings of reducing our things? When I minimise possessions, it helps me circumvent desire when I'm in shops. Usually, I'd walk around a shop and pick up a few things. But knowing my wardrobe, for instance, is uncluttered, it makes me want to not fuck that up. I will only add an item that is good quality or fits well with my other things. All because I've cleared out all my shit.

It's like an untidy room. When shit is everywhere, it's easy to throw something else on top and not worry about it.  But when the room is clean, it makes it much harder to add more crap.

On top of that, we usually find that we spend money on things we do not need or use. It’s a habit more than anything. Bertrand Russell in the Conquest of Happiness put it better than I can. “Very many people spend money in ways quite different from those that their natural tastes would enjoin, merely because the respect of their neighbors depends upon their possession of a good car and their ability to give good dinners. As a matter of fact, any man who can obviously afford a car but genuinely prefers travels or a good library will in the end be much more respected than if he behaved exactly like everyone else” Minimalism helps us defend against such mindless spending.

Second, minimising abstract areas of life. So, things like deleting my emails. How does that help save money? Think about something you do well. Say you're a good golfer or great at swimming. The greatest have so much experience that their subconscious is in control. They don't think about it. They only do. This is how I see cluttered abstract areas of life. Getting rid of as much as possible is the equivalent of moving it to our subconscious. For instance, if we have a cluttered inbox, then every time we check our emails we need to think. This means our brain is working on useless tasks, which reduces clarity in other areas. Such as saving money.

For example, let's say I have to book a holiday. But at the same time, the electricity and water bill comes in and needs to be sorted. And I have 300 emails in my inbox. I check my emails first thing. I go through all the crap and have little willpower left. Then I find the two bills I have to pay. OK. Let's do that next. Jesus, I've very little will left. So, now to book the holiday. Fuck it, that first one looks good. Reasonable price. Book it.

But if I had minimised my abstract areas of life, I may have saved money. My bills would be automatic so I wouldn't worry about them at all. I'd have very few emails coming in so I could quickly delete the crap and organise the important ones. Then I'd spend most of my time and energy booking the holiday. And I’d probably find the same deal for cheaper than before. I'd save money. It's not a typical example but it does work this way for me.

Minimalism is a form of wealth. The rich are seen as people that want for nothing except what can’t be bought with money. And the goal of minimalism is to reach this same state, without the need for a rich person's bank account.

Minimalism does not have a good reputation. Most see it as something for the hipsters and the yuppies. A fad that will pass soon. But it is so much more than that. It's the key to saving. It's the key to an uncluttered mind. Give it a chance and you will not go back.

Early Retirement

“That the purpose of your adult life is to save money so you don't run out of money when you can't work anymore” - Unknown

Early retirement is a pipe dream for most people. We believe it’s only attainable if we win some money, or set up a wildly successful business. And so we just settle in to the fact that we’ll work until a ‘normal’ retirement age. Or we don’t think about it at all because the reality can be just too depressing.

The majority of us will work in a 9-5 job, 5 days a week. We do this for around 40 years of our lives. The prize at the end of all this is retirement.

But there is hope. It comes in the form of the topic known as financial independence or FIRE. It revolves around the concept of ‘retiring’ earlier than considered normal. The idea is simple. Save enough money to invest and live off the return on that investment.

Early retirement for most requires a financial windfall or a booming economy. But the financial independence movement, for the most part, does not assume this.

I used to pride myself on my financial savvy. Then I read about a bunch of renegades aiming for financial independence within 5-6 years. Without changing much about their circumstances other than spending less. I want to retire early, yet this simple approach never dawned on me.

I'm usually met with some eye-rolling when I talk about spending less to get to FI. But I only focused on earning more money to aim to retire early. Chasing this caused me stress. I needed more job commitment. It made me unhealthy. I completely disregarded what was in my control all the time, spending less.

Now, I know this is the lazy man's guide, but retiring early or FI does not mean what we think. To me, at least, FI is to not have to rely on a salaried job, but have passive money rolling in. It doesn’t mean I’ll stop working and live on a beach somewhere, sipping Mojitos until I die. First, I hate beaches, and second, Mojitos are the Fiat of cocktails. I will continue to work. Most likely on things I’m interested in though. And most likely not in a salaried position (unless it’s very interesting to me).

FI is a natural progression from what we have already discussed. Knowing our numbers. Having simple ways to invest. How to budget, save and become a minimalist. If we can knock down these dominoes, then financial independence may no longer be a dream.

There is one simple assumption that financial independence or early retirement individuals have. It's that they’ll be able to make 3% off of their investment nest egg each year. That's a conservative assumption. This money will be passive - via an index tracker fund or some other investment. This is the assumed low end and can go up in good years and be lower in bad years. But it will average out to 3%.

So, it stands to reason if we could live off of £25,000 per year, then we'll only need to save £833,333.

And if we could live off £15,000 per year, then we'll only need to save £500,000.

Let's say we can save £10,000 per year. I'll assume compound interest of 6%. In the first case, it will take 34 years to save enough. In the second case, it will take 25 years.

Spending less is more powerful than making more money. When we earn more money, the taxman comes knocking. As earnings rise, so too does our percentage tax. At the higher end, in most countries, people are paying around 50% tax on extra earnings. So, fighting for the extra £10,000 bump might only mean £5,000 in real cash.

If we are spending less, and we still earn more money, then it makes our goals quicker to get. If we only focus on earning more money, we would be missing out on a massive factor for FI. In the above example, it's a factor of 10 years!

Let’s say that to retire, we ‘need’ 60k per year. We currently only earn 40k per year. To ‘earn’ 60k per year from our investments (assuming the 3% return discussed above) requires a nest egg of around 2m. Now, we could up our earnings, but we'll still need to save 2m.

If we learn to live in comfort on 30k per year, what does this mean? First, it will be easier to be able to save 10k per year from our salary. Second, we'll only need to save up a nest egg of 1m.

Let’s take some extreme examples below and estimate the time to retirement for each. I’m not even including compound interest in these calculations. Also, this all assumes no change in personal circumstances. No windfall or brilliant business idea. It only includes a change to something I have or should have complete control over. Spending less.

Live in comfort on 10% of your wage - able to retire in 4 years

Live in comfort on 15% of your wage - able to retire in 6 years

Live in comfort on 20% of your wage - able to retire in 8 years

Live in comfort on 30% of your wage - able to retire in 14 years

Live in comfort on 40% of your wage - able to retire in 22 years

Live in comfort on 50% of your wage - able to retire in 33 years

Live in comfort on 60% of your wage - able to retire in 50 years

Some of the differences above were sobering to me. I currently save 40% of my wage, a massive amount for the normal individual. But assuming all other things unchanged. Assuming I don’t move to South East Asia where my rent/mortgage will be 10% its current amount. It’ll take me 50 years before I can retire and continue to earn 40% of my current wage with a good degree of certainty.

Fuck. I understand people are in much worse cases than me, but 50 years was not on my game plan. But realising that if I could learn to live off 10% less, I would save 17 years was a complete eye-opener. And then it became a game of how low could I go.

If I could somehow be happy living off only 15% of my wage, then I could retire in 6 years. So, before people hurl abuse, this exercise is all personal. I can’t expect others to try and live off the same but I hope it gives you some food for thought at least. But while spending money is sometimes seen as a sign of success, we know it isn’t success in any meaningful way.

Renting - The single biggest expense I currently have. Luckily, this only accounts for 10% of my monthly wage (in other people’s cases, it’s very different). But if I could shave off even £200 per month, that would result in having to not save an extra £80k for my nest egg. I’ve been thinking of co-housing (I live in London). Then, once I ‘retire’, I can move to a less expensive part of the country/world. I’ve been attempting to become a digital nomad as well. This would enable me to be location independent. I could then live in the most cost-effective, fun and interesting place (or many places).

Transport - This can sometimes clash with the above. But I currently live only a 15-minute bike ride from my workplace. And only a 30-minute walk. This pretty much removes my monthly transport costs. I can spread the cost of my bike and other accessories across the number of years they last but it’s negligible. If I owned a car and drove or had to get public transport 5 days a week, this could add £200 per month to my expenses. This would result in me having to save about £80k to ‘retire’ from that same cost.

Groceries/Food - This is one of my big targets to tackle in the coming months. I spend roughly between 8% and 10% of my monthly wage on food and groceries. By that, I mean my day to day during the week, breakfast, lunch, and dinner. A meal out once on the weekend and a daily weekend shop (because it’s the weekend and I should treat myself). I live with my girlfriend as well so the cost should not be anywhere near this high (economies of scale and all that).

Bills - The way I’ve started to think of it has been quite helpful for me. If I have a monthly bill of £7 (Spotify for example) that's the equivalent of £84 per year (12 x £7). To ‘retire’ from that cost (meaning I can make that money in a passive way per year), I would need to save £2,800 (£2,800 * 3% = £84). It puts small costs into perspective. That’s more than a month's wages for some people. Is a whole month’s wage worth it for Spotify? The same goes for all regular bills. The majority is negotiable. When looking at co-housing to reduce my rent bill, I can also eliminate other bills. The internet, water, electricity, TV licence and housing tax bills are all included. I’ll have to pay some of these when I ‘retire’ and move out of a co-housing location of course. But the time in which I don’t pay for them, I could save up the nest egg required to actually ‘retire’ from these costs.

Travel - I do a lot of this at the moment. I can aim for a drastic reduction of this to less than 1% of expenses.

Other Expenses - I don’t need much. As my salary increased, so did my spending on other crap. I’m not saying I need to be a minimalist but every cost should have its real economic cost measured. I buy a pair of jeans for £50. Do I get two years out of them, which equates to having to save £833 to retire from this twice-yearly cost? Could I buy a nicer pair for £100 that lasts me 6 years, reducing the cost? Do I need jeans? Could I go walking around in my nip? You get the point. Buying things will not make you happy. Some are necessary but we need to determine the economic cost of these.

So, I hope this gives food for thought. Financial independence is achievable and may be easier than we think.

Health

We spend endless amounts of time chasing the money necessary for a beautiful home. All the comforts. But we need to realise that we live in our body first before our home. Our own health should take precedence over all other things. We cannot achieve much when our health is not 100%, mental or physical.

This next section deals with diets, fitness regimes, and mental and emotional strength.

Self-Awareness and The Healthy Mind

“If a person has ugly thoughts, it begins to show on the face. And when that person has ugly thoughts every day, every week, every year, the face gets uglier and uglier until you can hardly bear to look at it.

A person who has good thoughts cannot ever be ugly. You can have a wonky nose and a crooked mouth and a double chin and stick-out teeth, but if you have good thoughts it will shine out of your face like sunbeams and you will always look lovely.” - Roald Dahl, The Twits

Some people hate their bodies. We just stand there looking in the mirror, waiting for some good feedback. But it never comes. I’ve definitely had issues with my body image. And I think anyone who says they haven’t is lying. How can we not have problems? We are bombarded on a daily basis by six-pack abs. Skinny models. Muscles on muscles. Beautiful skin. Great hair. And we are told that we can have it too, at a cost, of course.

But the truth is, we all can’t look like that. We know this is the truth, and it hurts us. The small ripped guy in the gym is never going to be 6’ 2’’. The girl with wide hips is never going to have the supermodel physique. Yet we continually beat ourselves up about it.

In fact, the more we chase these falsehoods, the more we come to hate ourselves. And it’s not just body image that’s the problem.

It’s the perverse idea of success. The adoration of entrepreneurs and startups. The fawning over popstars and sports stars. The looks, the body, the brains, the charisma, and the million dollar smile. The idea of the perfect person has been manipulated and twisted by media and corporations. All for the quick sale. Some advertising money. An increase in stock price. And it’s seriously affecting our self esteem.

So, the most important part of living a healthy life needs the least amount of effort. It’s being self-aware. We can all do it while sitting on our couch.

I’m a narky, cynical 32-year-old male.I get anxious in most situations that involve interacting off the cuff. Such as the below.

Cashier: “Enjoy your meal, Sir”.

Me: “Will do, you too”.

Or the accidental conversation loops I create.

Me: “Hi, how are you?”.

Person: “Hey, good and you?”.

Me: “Yeah good, and you?”.

I’m not an investing whizz. I’m a lazy man in a lot of areas. I only know a little about a lot of subjects but beyond that I’m clueless. I‘m highly risk averse. I have the joint movement of a 65 year old.

Not so long ago I was out with friends and after a few drinks the conversation turned to the rollercoaster that is (was) bitcoin. Some of them had invested. Since they had invested the value had gone up over 100%. Now, I know little about bitcoin, despite working in finance. But from what I had learned early on I knew I wouldn’t invest in it. Even though that fucker just kept on creeping up. I had made the decision and that was that. And in the cold light of day I still agree with it. But as my friends zealously reminded me how much money they were making my resolve began to crack. All I could think about was how much would I invest. I was now playing someone else’s game. Hoping to excel in something I was completely clueless about.

But armed with a little self-awareness I eventually pushed this idea from my mind. It was stupid, but for a moment there I nearly bought into the whole thing. And this happens all the time. And if I didn’t have my own priorities, and little self-awareness I might just end up chasing someone else’s dream. Or someones else’s idea of a dream.

With this knowledge, or the admission of the lack of knowledge, I can stop chasing unrealistic goals. Or ones that don’t align with mine.

This is not self-consciousness. I’m not suggesting to limit ourselves and being overly judgemental. Instead, I’m advocating to be aware of our own patterns.

I get most of my energy from being alone or just with my girlfriend. Not being with big groups. So I limit the times I have to do that.

I’m not an investing whizz. So I simplify my investments, make it automatic and avoid agonising over other people's success stories.

Being self-aware does not mean we should avoid challenging situations. It does not mean we shouldn’t strive to be better. To be self-aware is to have a healthy mind. It’s to not chase others that are not in your lane. It’s to not be driven to jealousy and self-loathing by things we cannot possibly and sometimes don’t even want to achieve.

It’s having realistic expectations of ourselves. Not being pessimistic or having outlandish notions. This happens me all the time when someone shows off their new car or new high paying salaried job around me. My first reaction is to beat myself up about it. A ‘why don’t I have’ that reaction. But with self-awareness I can remind myself that I don’t want those things, it’s not what I am aiming for. That person is playing their game and I’m playing mine.

Self-awareness is the first step to a healthy mind. The fundamentals chapter is all about self-awareness. Getting to our priorities in life and not what other people thrust upon us. This is a vital first step. But we need to keep reminding ourselves about it too. It’s just too easy in today's society to be derailed from our path of success and happiness.

Being aware of who we are and our own priorities helps keep our minds sane and healthy. And this is the most important part of a healthy life.

Just a quick caveat on this chapter. I do discuss weight and muscle gain in the next few chapters. But it’s not to chase the impossible body. It’s to obtain the healthiest body we can in the simplest way possible. Each person is different. But having a healthy weight and being strong is necessary to excel in all our other pursuits.

The Lazy Man’s Diet Guide

“I don't stop eating when I'm full. The meal isn't over when I'm full. It's over when I hate myself.” - Louis C.K.

I was a fiend for biscuits. I still am. For any North Americans reading this, I do not mean a Louisiana biscuit, that’s more of a scone in my language. I mean cookies. Any kind of biscuit at all, except shortbread, they’re shit.

And crisps (chips). Proper corn snack crisps though. Not the fancy Hand Cooked Arabian Sea Salt and Cracked Black Pepper stuff. What does hand cooked even mean? Oh, you’re not using machines? Well, that must ruin your margins. Oh, wait, that’s why you charge an arm and a leg for them. But they're artisan so it's worth it. I’m rambling.

I was 19 when I came to realise a universal truth, one they never taught me in school, and one we all realise on our own at some point in our lives. The truth that we can’t eat whatever we want, not exercise and not start looking like we hoard chins for a living. Oh, we all know that one fucker who claims they have a high metabolism. They say they can eat as much chocolate as they want. But I’m talking about normal people here, not freaks or liars.

I learnt this lesson the way many do. After a few months of zero sports plus my normal teenage eating habits, washed down with some good old college boozing. I didn’t go all Nutty Professor transformation scene or anything but I gained a few pounds too many. I had given up sports and any pursuits that involved excessive exercise for a reason, I hated them, or I was lazy. And I kept eating and drinking for another reason, I loved it. But I didn’t want to be chubby. Dilemma. What’s a lazy person to do?

It’s important to note one thing before we continue. Those that know this fact might dislocate their eyes with the amount of rolling they’ll be doing. But it has become very clear to me in recent times that many don’t know it. Or the truth may not agree with them so they choose to remain ignorant. I was like this myself at one point. Nutrition or diet is not taught in many schools. So, our knowledge of it can be severely lacking.

In the technical sense, a calorie is a calorie. No matter what type of food it comes from.

And experiments back this up. One individual even went 10 weeks eating only Twinkies. He lost weight in that period. His body fat dropped from 33.4% to 24.9%. The hypothesis was that eating fewer calories was all that's required for weight loss. And he had proven it.

It is true that eating fewer calories than you burn will result in weight loss. But it is quite hard to calculate if you are eating fewer calories than you burn. We could eat 3 celery sticks a day and know for sure, but we’re not Gwyneth Paltrow...or mental.

We are also not in a controlled experiment like the Twinkie eater I mentioned earlier. He measured his daily intake and the amount of energy he needed in meticulous fashion. And that is not simple to do.

We could eat Twinkies or fast food and somehow make sure we consume less than we burn. But this is not considered healthy either. No matter how much we love jam doughnuts, it won’t be sustainable to live like that.

But we know that eating less than we burn will result in weight loss.

Weight loss is not the goal for everyone, of course. But when it comes to my weight, I’ve experimented with many different methods in my life. Three have been incredibly successful. All are simple and suited to a lazy person.

The first helped me lose some weight over a longer period. And maintain that weight for many years. All while making very minimal changes to my diet. I suggest the first option if you’re worried about gaining weight and want to simply maintain your current weight.

With the second, I was able to lose weight rapidly. But it placed more restrictions on my diet. The diet was designed (not by me) to be the simplest, physiologically, for rapid weight loss. I recommend it for those that need results quickly.

The third also resulted in rapid weight loss but had very little restrictions in diet. The problem with this option was that it required more discipline than others. But it was a natural progression from options 1 and 2. I suggest this for anyone that has already successfully disciplined their eating habits but wants to continue to control weight loss or gain while eating a normal diet.

Option 1: Maintain

This option is to build healthy eating habits. These habits help us to maintain our current weight. It can also be used to lose weight over a longer period of time, while restricting diet very little.

1. Concentrate on Eating for the Next 5 days

To concentrate, what I needed to do was figure out when my body was full. I cut out TV and reading while eating over this 5-day period. This may sound wishy-washy but I focused on my body and what it was telling me. Eating slow enabled me to find the point at which I became full.

This is the key. Usually, I’d miss the point of fullness because I wasn't looking out for it. I’d eat one more potato, or biscuit, or packet of crisps. But my body had all it needed, so the extra calories my body didn’t need would be stored as fat.

2. Smaller Plate

Psychologically filling a large plate full of food pushes me to eat it all. What I did to combat this was to get a smaller plate. I would fill that and only go back for more if I didn’t feel full. Sometimes there's a delay until that full feeling. I noticed I sometimes had to give myself 10 minutes before knowing it was OK to go back for seconds.

3. Four Hour Rule

After the 5 days from Step 1, I began to know when I’d feel hungry again after a meal. So, I noted down the time between meals. In my case (and most people’s), it’s four hours. Once I realised this, I began to space all my meals apart by this much, eating nothing in between. If I somehow couldn’t get my next meal for another 6 hours say, then some small snack, like cashews, would tide me over. A warning though. Don't snack too much on calorie dense foods. Cashews are one of them, and 4 cashews are enough to keep you going an hour or more. But they’re fucking delicious so watch out.

The trick here is that I didn’t want to overeat but also that I didn’t want to let my body go hungry. When I would become too hungry, I found myself compensating at my next meal and overeating. This will be detrimental to any fat loss.

This rule is a sort of cheat for my brain. I have trained myself to eat until I’m full and then I know I’ll be hungry again in 4 hours.

4. Lay Off the Carbs (Low Carb Diet)

This is a no-brainer, carbs are the devil, but they’re also delicious. Let’s not go into good carbs and bad carbs, but a reduction has a huge effect on weight loss. Why?

Mostly because carbs are a calorie dense food that are easy to eat. For example, there are about 200 calories in one cup of white rice. Now, how many cups do you think you could eat in one sitting? And if we are being honest, we use carbs as a filler, something to mop up a delicious sauce, or to hold together our foods.

So, while carbs are fine in a balanced diet it’s just too difficult to actually balance it. Avoidance, or at least reduction where we can, will go a long way. I go into a bit more detail about this in Option 2.

5. Measure

I needed to measure my weight loss. Otherwise, I would become downhearted at points when I ‘feel’ like I haven’t lost weight. We've all done it. Ate an ice cream and then grabbed at our love handles in guilt afterwards. Even though we know that it couldn't have caused fat gain so quickly.

When I do this, my first instinct will be to fall off the waggon again. But if we have empirical evidence of our weight loss or maintenance, then we can get over these mental bumps.

We could weigh ourselves every day. I only do it once a week. Regardless, I’d make sure it's done at the same time every day or week. For instance, I weigh myself before breakfast on a Saturday morning. And I will always weigh myself before breakfast on a Saturday morning. I make sure to wear the same clothes each time too.

On top of that, I do not mix weighing scales. I use the same one and fight the urge to get on some other scales I see. I did this once and felt like a fat bastard for a whole weekend. Weighing scales are not of a universal quality, so we must measure comparatively. This means keeping the experiment’s conditions the same, not changing scales, time or clothing. Any of these changes will affect the measurement. And then it will affect your mental state.

On top of weighing myself, I measure myself too. Weighing is simply not enough. Using a measuring tape, I measure around my stomach (belly button area), arms (upper), legs (upper and lower). I do this at least once a week and keep a note. It’s important to note that some weeks I wouldn’t lose weight (on the scales). But I did lose fat and this is when the measurements showed the difference.

Finally, I take a picture once a week so I can compare. I take a picture side on, front on and back. And again, I keep the same outfit in all and take the photo in the same place (for lighting purposes). Wash outfit on occasion! Why? When I go out and splurge from time to time, I would regularly feel like shit afterwards. But with photographic evidence, I can see that I’m never as bad as I feel. This is a mental game after all, and every trick helps.

It’s important to note that option 1 is a long-term option. This will enable a person to lose weight over a long period or maintain their current weight. But if you’re after quicker weight loss (and a lot of overweight people will), then option 2 is the answer.

Option 2: Rapid Weight Loss with Heavy Restrictions

There are a lot of diets out there. Men aren’t bombarded as much as women. Women get targeted a lot more. My girlfriend could riddle off about 18 different types of diets I had no clue about. I knew 5, max. A lot of them are fads and promise impossible results. Eat this fish diet to get a toned bum! Lose belly fat in 10 days! It’s ridiculous. First, no diet or exercise can target a specific area for fat loss. That is a fact. Second, what does tone even mean? I’ll talk more about the exercise parts later, but for now, let’s get to the diets.

A lot of the diets nowadays are targeting the same topic in similar ways. They call it by different names. Or they give a different marketing spin. But most of the diets are zeroing in on the same method for rapid weight loss. Fewer carbs.

But why?

Short answer, because it works.

Long answer, because it wooooooooooooooooooooorks.

Science Bit

Whenever we eat food, our body breaks it down into nutrients. Glucose is the main nutrient used by the body. It’s used mostly for energy and fat storage. The glucose nutrients are released into the bloodstream when we eat. As a response, insulin is produced by the body. Insulin is the hormone that decides what to do with the glucose. Burn it for energy, or store it as fat.

We have already discussed that fat storage only occurs if we are at a calorie surplus. We also have proof that what we eat doesn’t matter. Remember the Twinkie guy? So, why are all these diets converging on the same advice? Why fewer carbs?

The problem is with how much insulin is produced. Foods with a high glycemic index (GI) will cause the body to release more insulin. Often too much insulin. When too much insulin is created, there will be a higher craving for more glucose. This makes us want to eat more, especially more of the high glycemic foods.

And when we digest more food, we know what happens. It will be sent straight to our fat cells if our muscles and organs already have enough glucose. Our fat cells have an almost unlimited capacity. Our muscles and organs do not.

So, what are high glycemic foods? All the tasty ones, of course. Anything that is a simple carbohydrate will have a high GI. Sugar is a simple carbohydrate. Anything it contains will be too. White bread, rice, cereal, potatoes, pasta, the list goes on. These are all simple carbohydrates. Fruit, when encased in their natural fibrous shells, are not simple carbohydrates. But once they are taken out of that shell, it's a different story. Fruit juice, smoothies or anything similar become simple carbohydrates again. I’ve written more information on my website but I won’t bore you any further.

Simple carbohydrates (carbs) and sugary foods cause us to feel less full. And when we inevitably eat over our daily caloric burn, our body will store it as fat.

And this is why the majority of diets advise low amounts of carbs. There are better carbs, of course, such as wholemeal. And some diets will OK these types. But in the beginning, for a lazy person at least, avoiding as many carbohydrates as possible gives the best results.

Less carbohydrates and sugar mean we will likely feel full for longer. And when eating meals consisting of veggies and protein, it’s extremely difficult to overeat. So, the inevitable result on these types of diets is losing weight.

To lose weight rapidly, I followed the below method. It’s a slight tweak of Tim Ferriss’ Slow Carb diet. Others can follow the same or pick a diet such as paleo or low-carb. They are very similar. But the slow carb impressed me as it was the simplest approach that appeased my lazy psychology.

1. Avoid Simple Carbohydrates

This includes all bread. Rice (including brown as it's sometimes dyed white rice), cereal, potatoes, pasta, tortilla and fried food encased in breadcrumbs. Removing all these carbs keeps it simple. We could discuss the merits of wholemeal and other better carbs but it gets complicated. Plus, food companies are trying to trick you into eating their products. Announcing they are healthy when they are not. So, remove them completely to keep it simple.

2. Eat the few same meals over and over again

Mix and match from the following for each meal, one must be chosen from each group.

Main Proteins: Egg Whites. Whole Eggs. Chicken Breast or thigh. Beef (more of a low-fat version the better), Fish, Pork.

Low Carbs: Lentils, Black Beans, Borlotti Beans, Red Kidney Beans, Soya Beans. These have a few carbs in them and will help you feel fuller for longer.

Vegetables: Spinach, mixed veggies (including Broccoli and Cauliflower). Sauerkraut/Kimchi, Asparagus, Peas, Green Beans. (Mixed bell peppers to a lesser extent)

Also, any spices can be used. For sauce or dressing, extra virgin olive oil, macadamia nut oil and balsamic vinegar are the go-to's.

Only pick 3 or 4 meals and repeat them. Simplicity is key or at least for the first few weeks, otherwise, you won’t stick to it. I eat as much of the above as I wish. The key here is that it's difficult to eat over my daily calorie needs.

3. Don’t drink calories

Drink massive quantities of water. I mean massive, the water helps your body with fat loss, you will not lose much without drinking a lot of water. I aim for 4-5 litres a day.

I drank unsweetened tea or coffee (no milk)

Milk (including soy), normal soft drinks or fruit juice were not allowed.

If you must have a diet drink, limit it to no more than a can a day. Drinking this every day did cause me to plateau weight wise. So, I keep it as a treat for Thursday, Friday and Saturday and stay away from it all the other days.

4. Don’t eat fruit

Only exceptions are tomatoes and avocado (avocados eaten in moderation). There is so much sugar in fruit and it doesn’t help fat loss. I could have it on my cheat day anyway.

5. Take one day off per week (Cheat Day!!!)

Whatever day you want (but start the first cheat day at least 6 days after you begin on the diet), eat whatever you want. In fact, anything you wanted during the week you could have written down and saved it for that day.

Don’t feel bad about it either. The need for this day is two-fold. First, spiking our intake once per week keeps our rate of fat loss high. It stops our body downshifting from extended caloric deficiency. It keeps the starvation mode away. Second, is that any diet is a mental game. Having light at the end of a long week is amazing. We get to reset once a week with zero guilt.

Let me give an example of my last cheat day. I had sugary yoghurts, Banana and some Melon. Three large toasted cheese sandwiches with lots of mayo, and two large cookies. For breakfast. I then had a crisp sandwich (try it), a cup of tea and two more large cookies. A cronut (croissant/doughnut), a jam bun and an apple turnover. This was brunch. Struggling, I then wolfed down 6 slices of double pepperoni pizza for lunch. As well as a Nutella milkshake, another cookie and cronut (I was ready to explode now). Dinner consisted of my movie snacks. 5 packets of crisps and a large box of assorted sweets (skittles, chocolate, fruit pastilles, etc.). With a large Pepsi. And then I had one last ditch attempt at finishing my cronuts and cookies. Of which there were 2 cronuts and 5 cookies. It was epic.

6. Breakfast within 30 mins of waking up (30% protein)

When I wake up, I aimed to eat a high protein breakfast within 30 mins (an hour is ok if pushed). The breakfast should be at least 30% protein. This one rule alone helped me to lose the most fat.

The key to losing weight fast is to eat fewer calories than we need on a daily basis. As it is very difficult to count calories, the recommendation is to eat a very low carb diet. Mixed with intermittent cheat meals/days. This makes it a lot easier to eat fewer calories than needed so we lose weight. But there is one option left, one that enables us to lose weight rapidly and keep a normal diet.

Option 3: Rapid Weight Loss, Little Restrictions

Intermittent fasting. You’ve probably started to hear about it. It’s all the rage these days. I’m not immune to fads but, when it comes to diets, I would normally run a mile from such things. But it kept coming up. It kept knocking on my door. It was fucking annoying, so I decided to give it a test.

There are a lot of advertised benefits of intermittent fasting. But the science isn’t in on these yet. So, I won’t bring them up here, and nor do I believe in them much. The only reason I tried this diet was for weight control. I wanted to know, did it work, and did I feel good when on it?

So, what is intermittent fasting? Whatever fancy definitions we read online, I like to summarise it as follows. Periodically not eating for an extended amount of time. As for the period, intermittent fasters choose anywhere between daily, once a week or monthly. And the amount of time not eating varies from 12 hours all the way to 72 hours. So, there are many options. And the best one all depends on the diet salesman we talk to.

But what has worked for me, and will work for other lazy people like me, is the simplest version of this. It’s skipping breakfast as many days per week as I can. I go to bed around 22:00 PM most weekdays and stop eating at around 21:00 PM. All I do is skip breakfast the next day and wait until lunch time for my next meal. I’ll wait until 14:00 PM for my lunch

So that works out as 17 hours fasting per day. It can easily be changed to suit my needs too. But I aim for 13-17 hour fasts during the week. Now, I could throw some science around here to explain why this works, but at this stage, I think we all know why. I’m eating less than my daily caloric needs.

The key is to skip breakfast and then eat as normal for lunch and dinner. Do not overcompensate or it ruins the effect and will not result in weight loss.

During the fast, coffee or tea can still be drank, water and other low-calorie beverages are all on the cards. I love my breakfast foods though; my favourite is eggs and bacon. But I don’t need to miss out. I just shift eating those foods to lunchtime. It’s amazing.

“But breakfast is the most important meal of the day?” Is the slogan that Kellogg’s successfully created in the 19th century. But to be fair, John Harvey Kellogg also believed that masturbation was the devil and that bland cereals could be the cure. So, we should really listen to him.

Breakfast being important is a fallacy, born from an advertising campaign. It’s not that important at all. It can make us hungrier throughout the day and, as a result, make us eat more calories. More times than not, it’s a high carb meal, which as we know can be detrimental to health loss goals.

So, simply skipping breakfast and maintaining normal eating habits will enable us to rapidly lose weight if required. Why not give it a go?

Exercise

"My favourite exercise at the gym would probably be judging" - Unknown

Exercise! The blight of lazy people all over the world. A marathon to me is watching back to back episodes of a TV series. An Ironman is a superhero played by Robert Downey Jr. CrossFit is an exercise community based around incessantly talking about CrossFit.

In all seriousness, I would never look down on someone's exercise regime. Whatever it is, if it works for that person, then that's great. But being lazy, I found that most regimes and plans were too difficult for me.

I hated jogging. I hated having to go to a gym. I was 100% exercise averse. But I knew I had to do something. I knew I could never have a good physique without it. So, I started to read. I looked for something even I could do. Something that would give results. Something I could stick to and continue long-term.

The first thing I found is that for any type of physical aims, diet is at least 80% of the effort. If weight loss was the only aim, it could even be 100% achieved through diet.

That means if I only eat fewer calories than I burn, I will lose weight. I could sit on the sofa all day. I could sleep in all morning. I could watch TV all week long. This is a biological fact.

But everyone believes that doing exercise will help speed up the weight loss process. And that is true, but there are two catches to this statement.

The first catch is for those that are very overweight. Working on fixing a diet and starting exercise at the same time is not a great idea. Especially for a lazy person. There is only so much willpower going around. To attempt two large life alterations at the same time will most likely result in failure.

What's more, a very overweight person will only be able to do mild exercise. Walking, slow jogging and the like. But this type of exercise will only have a mild effect on weight loss. So small, in fact, that it simply isn't worth it if it will increase the failure rate of the already difficult diet change.

The second catch is for those that like certain types of exercise. By all means, we need to do what we love. But if our aim is weight loss, then all exercises were not created equally.

Take jogging for instance. Hard on the joints. Time-consuming too. A 30-minute jog, for instance, would likely only burn 300 calories. And it takes a lot of willpower to get out jogging in the rain or cold.

Compare jogging to interval sprints. Only 15 mins could double the number of calories that a 30-min jogging session can. But this is still hard on the joints. Plus, we need a lot of willpower to make ourselves go into a full sprint.

So, what am I advising then? What's the lazy man's guide to exercise?

I needed to know what was the best system I could use. One that would provide constant benefits regardless of whether I hit my goals or not. It turns out the fitness industry is quite a complex beast. The amount of information out there, even for free, is somewhat impressive. But it's confusing. Some of it is gold. But a lot gets contradicted too. And it was very easy for me to get lost in it all.

In the end, I could do nothing else but wade through it and pick out the accurate pieces. That means you don't have to. I've done the heavy lifting already. So, before we talk regimes and routines, the lazy man’s guide to exercise needs to start with some simple information.

If our goal is weight loss, exercise is not needed at all. Everything helps of course. But due to the reasons discussed before, concentrating on diet alone should be the main focus. To lose weight, we must eat fewer calories than we burn.

If adding exercise to help with weight loss, then cardio rather than weight lifting is better. High-intensity cardio (sprints, HITT, Spin classes) will give the quickest results.

Toning is not an actual thing. The 'toned' look is a combination of low body fat (being able to see the muscles) and high muscle mass.

A specific area (bum, legs, thighs, stomach) cannot get targeted for weight loss. Weight loss occurs across the whole body but not always in an equal manner. The first place that usually gains weight (stomach for me) is most likely the last place to lose weight too.

We cannot lose weight and gain muscle at the same time. There are plenty of fitness experts and amateurs that say it may be possible, of course. Yet, without masses of willpower and scientific levels of measurement, it is impossible.

To gain a lot more muscle, we must eat more calories than we burn.

After diet, rest is the most important aspect for fitness goals. Rest periods are when our muscles grow. It also helps with injury prevention. For high-intensity cardio in the pursuit of weight loss, 2-3 times per week is as much as should be undertaken. For weightlifting in the pursuit of muscle gain, 3 times per week is also as much as should be undertaken.

Eating more to gain a lot more muscle will also result in added fat. The amount of fat depends on the type of food eaten. A clean diet (low-fat protein, veggies and complex carbs) will result in less fat. It's recommended to only start a muscle gain regime once the body is at 10%-12% body fat. It's ideal to stop a muscle gain once the body is at 15% body fat. This is when a weight loss (cut) cycle can start.

When aiming to gain muscle, the recommendation is to eat at least 500 calories more than the daily amount. When aiming to lose weight, the recommendation is for at least 500 fewer than the daily amount. More than 500 calories can result in faster results, but this amount is the healthier option.

To gain muscle mass, the body needs progressive resistance. This can be in the form of weight lifting or body weight exercises. Weightlifting, in most people's cases, is the simpler method. Body weight exercises become more complicated as resistance progresses. For instance, it's a lot simpler to add extra weight to a barbell than adding weight to a push-up.

The number of repetitions of a lift is not as important as form and the final repetition. The key is to lift the weight as instructed and to push the targeted muscle to exhaustion for the final rep.

The recommended number of repetitions for muscle gain is 5-12.

To gain muscle mass, we need to increase the weight that is being lifted at each workout. Not increasing can result in stagnation. Decreasing the weight can also reduce or cut possible results. Remember, muscles need rest to grow. The recommendation is at least a day between sessions. If the diet is correct and progression stalls, then we should increase rest periods.

Muscle mass gain takes a concentrated effort. We cannot become neckless muscle bound freaks without a desire to do so.

Women that weight lift will not start to look like muscle men either. A common misconception is that women should stick to cardio only. Women cannot look like a bodybuilder by accident.

To get visible abs, thousands of sit-ups are not required. In fact, sit-ups are a poor exercise in general. The ab muscles will show once our body fat percentage is low enough. Everyone already has ab muscles. How defined they become does depend on ab exercises, of course.

So, what are my recommendations? I like to keep things very simple. Remember, it is easy to find a complex solution. In the fitness industry, there is no lack of people trying to sell complex solutions. Sticking to the basics, to begin with, will work best.

Weight Loss

As stated before, a calorie deficit is all that's needed for weight loss. I recommend starting with one of the methods from the diet chapter and doing nothing else. If we try and start too many big changes at the same time, the results will most likely be a failure.

Once the diet takes little willpower to adhere to, then we can move on to some light exercise. For older, or more overweight people that don't exercise much, light walking is ideal to start with. I'm not a fan of an organised walk, I try and build this type of exercise into my day to day. So I get off a stop early for work and walk the rest. Or I walk to the shops. Having a purpose for the walk helps me mentally.

The key is to not use willpower to decide on what exercise to do. Have a routine for this (similar times, etc.). And don’t burn out. Too much exercise will result in not being able to do the next day's exercise and a downward spiral will ensue.

Stay away from jogging (unless in love with running). As discussed before, the bang for our buck here is poor.

For those that want to speed up the fat loss process, then any kind of high-intensity training will do. Interval sprints, HIIT or spin classes. Warning though, these are tough and take a lot of willpower (of which we have precious little).

Finally, if we want to get ripped while losing weight, then go to the getting ripped section below. To be honest, who doesn't want this? But know that results will only be visible once body fat percentage is low enough.

Get Ripped (at current or while losing weight)

This I found to be the simplest method. No need for a gym membership either. I have to give credit to Tim Ferriss on introducing me to this. Even though it's an old exercise, I hadn't really factored it into my routines until reading Ferriss’ take on it. It won me over because of its simplicity, that it doesn't need much equipment, and that it employs minimal time.

That exercise is the two-handed kettlebell swing. Look up this move on the internet for tips on form. Any description I give will not do it justice.

For men, the kettlebell should be between 22-28kg.

For women, the kettlebell should be between 10-16kg.

A kettlebell can be bought for fairly cheap new or even cheaper second hand, it takes up very little space and requires little area to use.

To start, twice a week (I do it Monday and Friday) attempt at least 75 kettlebell swings. It doesn’t have to be in one go, I currently do 2 reps to get to 75. Others may need more. But as fitness and strength improve, we'll be able to do 75 in one set. When doing 2 or 3 sets the rest period between sets should always be the same. I recommend 2 minutes rest between. Don’t stop at 75 if you can keep going though.

The kettlebell swing works the hips, glutes, hamstrings, lats, abs, shoulders and pecs. It will also have you sweating a lot and is very efficient at burning calories.

It is an easy to follow and safe movement. It's key to avoid injury so we don't lose momentum. I've been doing the swing for two years now and haven't needed to miss a single session.

The kettlebell swing only takes about 15 minutes too, so we are talking 30 mins a week for a very noticeable difference in physique. If you have no other exercise in your week, I'd add a third day of kettlebell. It's only 15 mins. Why not? But remember there should be at least a day’s rest between sessions.

Men might notice that there is something missing. Biceps! It's true, the swing doesn't work the biceps much. And as men are always pursuing those 24-inch pythons, I recommend one addition. The close grip chin up. A chin up is the one that our palms are facing towards our head. Do as many of these as possible in three sets.

And there is no need for a gym here either. Temporary chin up bars are available that can be attached to any door frame. Or we can use any type of bar (tree branch, monkey bars, etc.). There is no excuse.

Muscle Gain

There is one thing to note before beginning a muscle gain regime. If new to weightlifting, muscle gains will likely be much quicker. Good news for all those that skipped weightlifting when they were younger. For those that already lift, muscle gains will likely be slower.

A bulk period should last at least a month. I've been experimenting with shorter periods but the jury is still out. A bulk period should begin when our body is at 10-12% body fat.

A bulk period should end when our body is at 15% body fat. The reasons for this are to make sure we don't gain too much fat that will be hard to remove later. We may have big guns but we don’t want a full case of ammo in the front as well.

A bulk period should consist of a clean diet where we have at least a 500-calorie daily surplus. A clean diet is not necessary but it is advisable to minimise fat gains.

Once a bulk period is over, we can enter a cut period. This will consist of at least a 500-calorie daily deficit. This should continue until body fat is 10-12% then a bulk period can start again.

During both a bulk and a cut period, I use the below exercise regime. Credit to Reddit users for this one, it's called Phrak's Greyskull LP Variant (the name just rolls off the tongue). I recommend a gym for this as anything else is too complicated.

The routine is 3 days a week, with one rest day between sessions. Place them on the best days that suit you.

*Alternating. It means that for each new session, we alternate between the exercises shown. For instance, day 1 is chin-ups, day 2 will be barbell rows, day 3 will be chin-ups, day 4 will be barbell rows and so on.

**The "+" denotes that last set for all lifts is AMRAP - As Many Reps As Possible. Note that this should not be to true muscular failure, and you should leave 1-2 reps "in the tank" on these sets.

Day 1

3x5+ Chin-ups OR Barbell Rows (alternating)

3x5+ Overhead Press OR Bench Press (alternating)

3x5+ Squats

Day 2

3x5+ Chin-ups OR Barbell Rows (alternating)

3x5+ Overhead Press OR Bench Press (alternating)

1x5+ Deadlifts

Day 3

3x5+ Chin-ups OR Barbell Rows (alternating)

3x5+ Overhead Press OR Bench Press (alternating)

3x5+ Squats

In the beginning, it will be difficult to figure out the weight to start with. It’s a little bit of trial and error. The best advice I got was to try a weight at first, if it feels too easy (i.e. you could do more than 10) then stop and rest for 2 minutes. Go up to the next weight available (at least 10lbs more) and see again how easy it is. Then once you’re only able to do 8 reps of a weight, stop again and rest for 2 minutes. The starting weight should be 10lbs less than this or 10% less than this depending on which is higher.

This means that the first time doing the above routine will take a bit longer than the rest. Once we determine a starting weight, we need to make sure to take notes, what weight we are lifting, how many reps, etc. week to week. It’s too easy to lose track. I use a spreadsheet (it’s on my phone) but there are apps that do this too. Make sure and input the numbers once the lift is complete, we will not remember it after the session.

As we progress, we should be increasing the weights each session by 10 lbs or 10%, whichever is greater. If we are eating at a calorie surplus and resting correctly, this should not be a problem.

Another important component to this routine is what type of food we eat. Protein is a very important factor in a muscle gain diet. The common rule is 2.2 grammes of protein per kg of body weight.

So, if I weigh 75 kg, then I'll need to eat 165 grammes of protein. 100 grammes of chicken breast gives 31 grammes of protein. So, I would need to eat 530 grammes of chicken a day. An average chicken breast is anywhere between 150 grammes and 200 grammes, so I would be aiming for at least 3.5 chicken breasts a day.

This is only an example, of course, we can get protein from many different sources.

So, that's the simple stuff of exercise. Not too simple, right? A lot of information, isn't it? My advice is to attack one goal at a time, this makes it a lot less complicated.

Emotional Health

“Emotional sickness is avoiding reality at any cost. Emotional health is facing reality at any cost.” - M. Scott Peck

What is emotional health? For me, emotional health is the ability to accept that life is not 100% amazing all the time. Shitty things will happen. I will be the cause of some of those shitty things. Sometimes other people that are close to me will affect my life in a negative way. Or it might be that things completely outside my control, or my loved one's control will flip my life upside down.

Emotional health is accepting these things. But it's also about taking responsibility for dealing with them too. Happiness is a talent. And the key to long-term happiness is the ability to bounce back from these setbacks.

But the real question is, how do we improve our emotional health?

Yesterday, I got so annoyed at my girlfriend for asking me 3 times what I was getting in the Ice Cream shop. "Oreo and Snickers" I yelled, sure in the knowledge I had already told her 2 times before. What an asshole. I was fine after the outburst, but the minor amount of destruction I left in the wake caused a shitty atmosphere.

Why the fuck would my brain do that? I could look for the complex answer here. Did I tell her 3 times and this was an acceptable response to that? No. Was there an underlying problem I wasn't discussing? No. As a child, did I have a bad experience in an Ice Cream shop and this was my eventual emotional outburst? No. I was fucking tired. I was also coming down off an earlier sugar high and, like a junkie, I was twitching over my next fix.

First, know that we all have the same issues. Nelson Mandela punched a few prison walls in his time, he wasn’t always level-headed. Bill Gates has no doubt had to tell some mosquito-ridden African kid to fuck off as well. The kid might have been trying to sell him some shit ‘native’ jewellery all day, and poor Bill had hit his limit. Everybody has their issues.

All I’m saying is, our life won't be perfect. We'll cause shitty situations sometimes and that's OK. What is not OK is either not responding to these outbursts with an apology or not attempting to improve.

To improve my emotional problems, I needed to care less about inconsequential things. How do I do that? With great difficulty, of course. Caring less about inconsequential things is not easy. But it gets easier when I realised that I was responsible for all my actions and responses. So, even if someone else is at fault or society at large is at fault, it doesn’t matter. Only I am responsible for how I perceive the issue.

When my brother died, some took it better than others. I had my moments for sure but I realised that it wasn’t my fault, it wasn’t his fault. It may have been something or someone's fault but it didn’t matter from my perspective. But it was my responsibility for how I was going to perceive this tragedy.

Life can be shitty a lot of the time. And I’m not saying we should always have a happy outlook on life. Perception is not the same as being that happy fucker with the big grin. It’s ok to be down. It’s ok to seek help. It’s ok to be unhappy from time to time. But it’s our perception of that unhappiness that is key.

The way I perceive it is that it’s ok to be unhappy now and then. Life cannot be one continuous stream of delight. It’s like that Christmas song “I wish it could be Christmas every day”. Well, I think everyone can agree that’d be shit. What a mid-twenties Roy Wood was thinking when he wrote that I don’t know. But LSD is one hell of a drug I suppose.

So, the key to emotional health is knowing that nobody is an adult, we’re all making it up as we go. Everyone. Knowing this is half the battle. The other half is our perception of that knowledge. Yeah, we all have problems, so in that case, it’s ok and normal to have my own.

Another way to improve our emotional health concerns our surroundings. Some people enjoy the quiet. Some will enjoy crowds. Some love the company of friends and family. Others may have toxic friends or family. Being in a job that always stresses us out is not good. Living in a place that isn’t the right environment for what we like to do is not good. Hanging around people or in areas that damage our emotional state is not good. We all have to find what maximises our personal energy. Then we need to work at prioritising those moments. We need to do these things in our spare time.

I gather meditation is also a good solution for this. It can calm the mind. But I don't meditate, at least not in any normal definition of the word. But I do take my mind off things when I'm cycling. Or when I'm playing video games. Or watching a movie. We all need a break from the world every now and then. Everyone has something like this. It's a form of meditation and it helps to improve emotional health.

Finally, I try and embrace honesty as often as I can. This means that if a situation is pissing me off, I will say so. I don’t have to be mean, I’ll say it in a calm voice. Sometimes I'll blame hunger or tiredness to deflect any hard feelings. Likely, that is the cause of my annoyance anyway. I’ll also be honest with myself. I avoid situations I know will annoy me when I can. I learnt to say no. It’s made a big difference to me.

With all this said, I continue to have random outbursts. I continue to piss off my girlfriend, my family or my friends often. This will never completely stop. That’s OK. But the key is to keep improving.

Mental Health

“We need so much more openness, transparency and understanding that it’s OK to talk about depression as an illness. It’s not a weakness. It’s not a moral shortcoming. It’s not something people brought on themselves.” - John F. Greden

We’re going to go deep for a moment.

My brother killed himself at the age of 35. He was a member of the Irish army (a job he couldn’t wait to retire from). He had a loving girlfriend, a great dog and a few good friends. He had a loving family.

He was always the black sheep of the family and sometimes wasn't treated with the respect he deserved. But in retrospect, he was more like our parents than anyone. He was an extreme version of my parents. He had my Dad’s loyalty and temperament, and my Mum’s caring attitude.

This mental health story is as old as the hills. We didn’t see it coming. He had a good life. Why did he do it? Was it our fault?

Depression or mental illness is nobody's fault. The person who has it is not to blame, nor can anyone else be to blame. The path to depression is a long road. But once there, it’s an even longer road back, and it feels like a pit with no way out.

Depression or mental illness is not like emotional health. It’s a whole other kettle of fish. It’s a sickness, a disease of the brain. We should treat it as such but we don't. Both the people with the illness and society at large stigmatises it. It should compare to a more aggressive form of cancer or heart disease. Instead, people who have a mental illness see themselves as a burden on society. Others that don’t have it may sympathise with those that do. But the majority of us will not back up that sympathy with any meaningful action.

I include myself in this. Only since my brother died have I realised my issues. Only now do I talk about suicide in an open and frank manner. When I mention it to people, I can see the look in their eyes. But I try my best to make them comfortable, to discuss it as if it was any other disease. One that has taken too many of our friends and family.

But while de-stigmatising it is one thing, how can we combat the disease?

Sometimes a person gets hit with many issues, sometimes the brain's chemistry gets messed up. Now we are in dangerous territory. It’s a compounding issue. And it will only get worse unless we talk to someone. The preference is for a professional but any sympathetic ear will do. We do not fight cancer on our own, or try and shrug off liver failure. We go to professionals. We seek help to cure ourselves of a disease. Mental illness is no different.

Depression is a deep hole, one which light can rarely get in. Once a person has depression, it opens up a pathway for the brain. One that is simple to crawl down again, like a recurrence of cancer after remission.

Likely, someone with depression will not be reading this book. Depression leaves them lethargic and unable to be as functional as they'd like. If you do have bouts of depression and you are reading this book, please reach out to someone, anyone. It’s an illness and it’s not your fault. It can get better. But you cannot do it on your own. Only you can take responsibility to reach out to others. Deep down, you know life is good for some people, you can have a chance at that life but only if you reach out.

For those unable to comprehend suicide, I read a very descriptive analogy for it. The majority of people have seen the 9-11 images on TV, the planes hitting the twin towers. I watched it live after school, it was horrific indeed. The most horrific image was of people jumping out of the upper stories and falling to their deaths. On one of the videos, there is a woman commentating and crying “why would they do that? Oh my god the poor souls”.

Exactly, why? They were jumping to their deaths. And I do not believe these were suicides either. In fact, they were deemed as homicides. But the fires in there were so hot, and so horrible, that the alternative was better than that reality. Some thought there may be a tiny chance of saviour by hanging out the window. I’m sure they knew the odds were almost impossible, but it was better than dealing with that searing heat.

And this is the way I see suicide. The searing heat for people with depression is the thoughts of life in general. The hanging out the window, the only other option for them, is suicide.

I urge everyone reading this to reach out to those that you know have a mental illness. Treat it like any other sickness. Ask them about it. Get them talking. Push them to go talk to a professional.

As we all do this, the attitude will change. It already is. But we've a long way to go.

Productivity

First Principles of Productivity

“The normal way we conduct our lives is we reason by analogy. [With analogy] we are doing this because it’s like something else that was done, or it is like what other people are doing. [With first principles] you boil things down to the most fundamental truths…and then reason up from there.” - Elon Musk

As a lazy man, the biggest problem I had was with productivity. I wasn’t productive where I needed to be. Sure, I could do the things I loved doing, and even then, not for too long. But I couldn’t sit down and sort out my taxes. Or my retirement plans. I couldn’t write that book idea I always had. I couldn’t write the screenplay I always dreamed of. I couldn’t follow through on business plans.

I was a starter, not a finisher.

I’d get hit with some inspiration, usually at night before I nodded off to sleep, wake the next day and not be able to do a tap.

Or I'd get lucky, motivation would strike in the middle of the day. Then there would be a flurry of activity. But never on something which I was midway through. I never got the motivation to do those things. It always had to be something new and exciting.

I finally got so sick of this. Everyone else, it seemed, was accomplishing so much more than me. I saw and read about those fuckers every day. In the newspapers, on social media, on TV, I couldn't get away from the overachieving pricks. So I decided to kick my laziness once and for all.

And it, of course it backfired and I was right back in front of Netflix and my Xbox soon after.

The thing with productivity is that when I tried too hard, it would only get worse. And that's why I decided to follow a minimum effective lifestyle. If I wasn’t going to beat it, I decided why not join it, see where it led me.

The common wisdom with problems of productivity is that we need to find ways to work harder. Just knuckle down and we’ll get there. But that is a preconceived notion of productivity. And preconceived notions usually cloud the actual issue.

This is where the method of first principles became so valuable to me. It’s the process of breaking down any problem to its very root. Removing any mental cargo that was stopping us from finding the solution along the way. Too often our issues are mired in assumptions and common cultural baggage. So much so that we fail to see the simple solutions. The method of first principles helps us avoid that.

Yuval Noah Harari is a historian most noted for his books Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind. In the follow-up book, Homo Deus, Harari gives a brief history of the lawn.

I haven't sold his book well with that sentence. But it is more fascinating than you'd think. The question he posed was why do we value a lawn? A large area of short green grass, in front of our houses, important buildings and malls. Is it not a waste of land? It does not grow food or provide any other value beyond looking nice.

He traced this love all the way back to the European aristocracy. Setting aside a large piece of land for the sole purpose of having some well-kempt grass was a status symbol.

Poor landowners could not waste precious time and land on lawns. So it became such that the larger a lawn the wealthier, more powerful and more important the person was. A poor lawn may mean financial trouble.

Lawns became synonymous with wealth, political power and social status. And it is the reason we still love lawns to this day. If you think about it, it's a very silly reason. That love of lawns was passed down to us. And it's not something that is exactly logical. And now that we know this, why can we not think differently, and choose something else entirely.

And this is Harari's point. To break something down to its root. It removes the mental cargo that was stopping us from finding a different solution. This is first principles.

“This is the best reason to learn history: not in order to predict the future, but to free yourself of the past and imagine alternative destinies”

Elon Musk has hoards of people believing him to be the next coming of Christ and savior of mankind. To be fair he has created several billion dollar companies. Revolutionising online payments (PayPal), the car industry (Tesla) and space travel (SpaceX).

Everything he touches seems to turn to gold. His achievements and merits are too long to list. If you believe he deserves this credit or not there is one thing we cannot categorize Elon Musk as, and that is lazy.

I’m not about to say that the minimum effective lifestyle will have you performing as well as Elon. Don’t worry. I went through that phase myself. Looking up those BuzzFeed articles. "What does Steve Jobs, Elon Musk and Richard Branson all have in common". It was meditation if you're wondering. Or “these 5 simple things that made Elon Musk so successful”.

I read all those, and they were shit. So I'm not about to spout some bullshit about making you the next Elon Musk. But he does believe in what is the holy grail of the minimum effective lifestyle. That is the method of first principles.

The Muskinator has some pretty daunting goals in his life. Making humans a multiplanetary species is one of them. Only James Bond's arch nemesis thinks like that. But it’s inevitable that life on earth will become unsustainable at some point in the future. It may not be anytime soon, but at the very least our sun will die at some point and Earth will be no more.

This is the idea Elon started with. Saving the human race by becoming a multi-planetary species. This is a thought exercise for anyone else. But Elon used the method of first principles to make tangible steps in the direction of his goal.

There are different ways to do this, but for my purposes, I break down a problem by always asking why.

So, why should he do anything about this issue? Well, he noticed that nobody else was doing anything. NASA had written off even visiting Mars for the foreseeable future. They had canceled the program at the time. So Elon thought someone has to do it.

But why him? The best way, he surmised, would be if a large chunk of humanity were striving for the same thing, not one man alone. Akin to the space race in Russia and USA in the 50s and 60s. It's amazing what humans can get done with a single driving goal to guide them.

So he knew he had to get a large group of people excited and building towards this goal. To become a multi-planetary species. To do this he needed his own version of landing a man on the moon. And Mars was the obvious choice. It’s relative closeness and habitability meant success is within possibility this century. And Mars had delighted minds for generations in science fiction. What better single driving goal.

To get to Mars though Elon needed money. There had to be some fellow crazy, big money backers, who may or may not be part of Spectre out there. He would need to convince them to part with billions. With high risk of not getting any return. But why did he need this?

Why not start smaller? Why not build a business that made its own money off space travel. Which could then afford to invest in such a crazy hair-brained scheme as a trip to Mars? The main way of making money in this field was to be able to launch satellites into space. So now the problem has become raising a smaller sum of money. Investing it in rockets that could get satellites into space.

How much does a rocket cost? They are not exactly available on eBay, although who the fuck knows, I’ve seen some weird shit on there. But it turns out second-hand rockets are expensive. $60-$70 million expensive.

But why is this so expensive? Elon looked into it. He saw that the parts that made up a rocket were nowhere near that expensive if bought separately. He factored in the cost of the build process and the expertise required. And he still reckoned he could reduce that $60-70 million price tag by almost 97%.

So that is what he did. The company Space-X was born shortly after. They are now a large sustainable business. They've launched several satellites into space. All while building towards a trip to Mars.

On top of that, they’ve already succeeded in capturing people's imaginations. Their success has even pushed NASA to renew their Mars program and look to land a man on the planet in the 2030s.

Using first-principles Elon broke down his original problem into something manageable. All the while he questioned why he was doing this. Now I’m not saying that if you do this you’ll have your volcano death base in no time or whatever Space-Xs head office is like. What I am saying is that this process is vital to the minimum effective lifestyle.

The simple way to use the method of first principles in our own lives is to ask one question. Why? And to ask it over and over again, like an annoying child. We can make something easy to achieve or wholly unnecessary by asking this question.

For example, at some point, I decided I needed to go traveling. It was most likely while watching Planet Earth. Or when I saw some dickheads amazing Instagram pictures of his trip to Peru. Regardless, I had in my head that I wanted to go. OK. The normal way to do this is to save some money up. Let’s say a year's worth. Then quit my job and head off to a location of my choosing. Travelling from place to place as I go.

But why save for that long? Why not work abroad? Or why not cut my expenditure so low that I could save the same amount in a few months. Why not go somewhere that my money goes a long way. Why do I need to quit my job? Can I work remotely?

The exercise of asking why so much is to question the common wisdom. This is the method of first principles. It breaks the problem down into its principal components. To make it simpler or, in some cases, not required at all.

The main purpose of the fundamentals section of this book is this exact process. To get to your fundamental motivations in life. To get to the root of the problem. Everything else is a distraction.

But sometimes I’ll lose sight of my fundamentals. I’ll think, shit, I need to have a six-pack, or I need to go traveling. The simple act of asking the question of why you must do something can, in an instant, make it unnecessary.

This became one of the most important drivers of my productivity. First, I ask why I need to do something. I'll remove it if I don't have a good answer. Then, if I still deem it necessary, I'll ask why as many times as I can. Until I get to the bottom, the first principles of the issue at hand. Once I’m there it becomes quite an easy task. Heroic feats of productivity are not required.

Below are a couple of examples of how this worked for me and others.

Finance

I wanted to ‘retire’ as soon as possible. Why? So that I could pursue my own interests almost exclusively.

Ok, seems like a good reason. So, what's the best way to do that? I'll need at least £40k per year for my girlfriend and me to retire. I'll need to save at least £1 million for that. If I save £30k a year, that will take me about 30 years or so.

Not exactly early. But this is based off what my common wisdom is. I need to break it down and make it much simpler. Let's ask the why's. Below is the line of questioning I gave myself. It may seem like a ramble at first, it is. This is an exercise in creativity. And a ramble is allowed.

Why do I need to retire to pursue my own interests only? Can one of my interests not make me that type of money? It might do. And this should be an aim of mine but it's not 100% in my control at the moment. So let's move on.

Why do I need £40k per year? Is that how much I need? It's the amount that my girlfriend and I spend in a year currently. We have a comfortable lifestyle. But we live in London, so expenses are high.

Why do I need my girlfriend to 'retire’ as well? Why is she not pursuing her own 'retirement'? Why not focus on my own retirement first?

Then the question is why do I need £1 million? Could I achieve the same with less? If it is my retirement only then 25k - 30k is more than enough.

Why can I only save £30k per year? The biggest expenses I have are a result of living in an expensive city. If I spend less and save more, then I don't need as much when I retire and I get there sooner too. Why do I live in London? Why do I spend so much?

So now I can start to reframe the problem. The idea of 'let's retire early' has become 'let's think about living in London or not' and 'let's reduce my spending'. It might not be the same for others of course but it's an example of how I broke down one of my issues.

I didn't leave London by the way. I decided to remain as the pay was worth the higher expenses. But I did whip my budget into shape. Using the same methods I outlined in the finance section I began to save much more. And on paper, I've shaved 10 years off my retirement age through savings alone.

Following a Dream

My girlfriend and I once met a French girl in Ecuador. She explained her dream of owning a little bakery, the Parisian dream if you will. I was in the middle of writing this chapter. So I had some advice bombs for her. But she didn't need them. She had run this same first principles logic herself.

Most people approach this issue with "When I have enough money I'm gonna do X". She decided to skip the whole "when I have enough money" bit and was giving it a go. She did this by asking why?

Why own a bakery? Why not work in one instead? Why take the risks and then find out it's actually not that enjoyable.  Why are the risks so high? Why are the expenses so high? Why Paris? Why Europe even? Why not go somewhere where it would be a very low cost to set up a bakery? Why own the bakery? Why not rent and see how it went.

All these questions led her to an easier first step. Renting a small bakery in a Paraguayan town. The costs were very low, she spoke Spanish already and her boyfriend lived in South America. So she found an option that was low risk but with a high reward. If she liked it and it was successful then she could stay, or take the bigger risk and move back to Paris or elsewhere.

Writing a book

I've always wanted to write a book. I wanted my whole life to be creative but never got the chance when I was in school. So this dream I always had on the back burner. Never devoting any time to it. So I applied first principles to the idea. It worked out pretty well...if I do say so myself.

Why do I need to write a book? It's something I've always wanted to do. I think because I've learned and enjoyed so many other people's books, I wanted to do the same. I love imparting knowledge. I could make it an evergreen business too, something which makes money year-round for me.

Ok, that's in line with some of my aims in life.

But why a book? Can I get the same benefits from a blog? Why not keep the risks low. Instead of writing a whole book why not start smaller. With a book, I'm risking hating the process. I'm risking nobody caring about it and wasting my time. Why not write a few blog posts and see how I get on? If I enjoy it I can write a book.

Why write a book at all. Why not keep writing blog posts and then edit them all into a book? Why do I have to write the book? Can I get a ghostwriter for it?

So the problem went from wanting to write a book to writing one blog post. I used Medium instead of having the hassle of creating a blog and then I put it in front of people. I had little response but it was enough for me to continue and it snowballed from there.

The point is to ask why to get to the fundamentals of an issue. This way, we can remove the unnecessary, and make the necessary quicker to obtain. This is one of the keys to being productive. Using first principles is like having a secret weapon. You do less but you become much more productive as a result.

Doing Less

“When you are overwhelmed, tired or stressed, the solution is almost always less” - Unknown

Productive people are fuckers. I hate them because they are who I want to be. But how did they get there? Do you ever think how some people are extraordinarily prolific at life. The celebrity that is an A-list actor, wrote several books, and got a master's degree in Political Studies on the side. That successful businessman that amassed billions in a short lifetime, invented several life-changing products and now is trying to cure the world of malaria. What a bunch of over achieving wankers.

But what is productivity? It’s such a loose term really. What if Steve Jobs’ ultimate ambition in life was to run a small orchard, live the quiet life and sell some homemade cider to earn some crust while living off the land? Then we couldn't possibly say he was ever productive, regardless of what he achieved in his lifetime, right?

Productivity must be the ability to get the things I want done in life. Those overachievers I hate, it turns out they are good at getting the things they want done. And sure I could claim it’s easy for them. They are rich, they can have pay someone else to buy and stock the toilet roll. Someone else can sort out their taxes. They can outsource the crap that everyone else has to focus on, right?

This kind of thinking makes me feel better. But I know deep down that some of those famous productive bastards weren’t always rich. And some still even purchase their own bog-roll while also penning their new novel. So I should have no excuses. But how do they do it? How can I become as productive as them?

The secret apparently is to actually do less. I know now that whenever I rush, or stress, and attempt to do so much it will inevitably end in disaster. I end up half-assing multiple things and even not finishing some, feeling worse as a result.

Now I’m not suggesting we stop buying loo-paper, or give up on personal hygiene because it’s not aligned to our life-goals. But there is plenty of things we can all do with doing less of. The sheer vastness of things we feel we need to do is the biggest psychological barrier we have to becoming productive.

There are two zones of laziness people can occupy. The first zone is for the people that flat out can't do anything productive. They see the mountain of work piling up and they just put the head down and search for that YouTube video where the horse kicks the guy in the balls. And while they are doing something that is considered fun and instantly gratifying they are not happy bunny's. They know there is work looming and they know it is piling up, but they just can't seem to get up and do it.

Then there is the second zone. This is the area where people look busy. They answer all their emails. They get engrossed in cleaning one of their kitchen shelves. They organise their computer folders. They jump on the next unimportant suggestion in work, they get shit done. But not important shit of course. Just something to keep the wheels turning and keep them feeling 'busy’.

I was in, and still occasionally flirt with, the second zone. While the first zone is not a good place to be, at least those people are not in denial. They understand that they are not doing what they should be and are unhappy as a result. I used to busy myself with unimportant tasks. Answer emails when they came in. Jump on the next thing that came across my desk. Re-plan and organise my actual task lists. All while thinking I was doing good work. All while I stressed out and rushed about and told people how busy I was.

The second zone is where the majority of people lie. Anyone whom, when asked how their day is, says something along the lines of - 'very busy’. When someone utters these words, or something similar, it's a sure sign we're talking to an undercover lazy person living their life in the second zone.

The appropriate response to this answer is of course, 'well, at least it's better than the alternative!’ But is it really? What's the alternative? Not being busy? Sounds glorious to me.

The problem is, for people in both zones, that their to-do list is massive. For those in zone 1, it's overwhelming. So they give up and give in to instant gratification.

For those in zone 2, the massive list just prevents them from doing the important things. The things which actual move their lives forward in some tangible way. They busy themselves with minutiae, and keep themselves placid in their lives. They can give into instant gratification and still feel happy that they've done some work that week.

So this is where doing less comes into the equation. I'm not going to say that we’ll never give into unimportant tasks, or never sit there for hours, looking at pictures of celebrities from the 80s and what they look like now. This will still be the case, but it must be minimised if we are to be productive.

What do I mean by doing less?

This is where the initial chapters on the minimum effective lifestyle really earn their keep. In those first few chapters we determined what our goals and systems should be in life. Then we decided to measure our weekly output. Likely, once we do this, we will find that the vast majority of what we do in week is not in any way working towards our goals or systems.

And this is the first step. Coming out of denial. Denial that you are in anyway actually productive at the moment. Or denial that you really do have soooo much to do.

The next step is to reduce all that crap that we do. The first principles method we discussed should help with this. But we need to go further. We need to experiment.

I started experimenting with work. I don’t necessarily recommend to start this way. But at the time, I wasn’t enjoying my job much and I had no problem making changes. So I started doing less.

Working in investment banking, this type of attitude is not the norm, to say the least. The push is for more hours, more dedication, to take on extra work. But I started working fewer hours than my peers. I came in on time and left on time. No excuses. I wrote less documentation than my peers. I started to remove things I saw as unnecessary. I took more breaks. I stopped reading every email as and when it came in. I said no to things I felt were not helping in the long run.

And what was the result?

Working fewer hours gave me more energy to pursue side projects. I no longer came home and fell into a complete heap on the sofa. I could write a little when I got back. I felt a bit more willing and able to hit the gym. My fitness improved as I had more time and willpower to take care of it. I had more time to spend with my friends and family.

And the benefits weren’t only outside of work. Writing less documentation than my peers gave me the time and energy to work on core delivery. While others wrote 30-page word documents, I would write single pages with similar amounts of information. While others wrote massive test documents, I used the same one-pager I had written the first time. I removed all the waffle that goes with those types of things. While people wrote long worded emails, I reduced to a few lines.

Removing unnecessary things sped up my project deliveries. They were and still are issues but my doing less helped my colleagues as well. Sometimes they followed suit. But even if they didn’t, they still spent less time going through crap that I might have created for them.

Taking more breaks in work helped with my mental health. I stressed less and performed better as a result. The productivity improvements from routine breaks have been well documented. The law of diminishing returns kicks in as we work longer and longer. With the end result being a complete burnout and a decrease in work quality. So when I started doing less I actually completed more. It was quality not quantity. And breaks improved quality.

I won’t pretend I don’t still waste my time and others on trivial shit. But I’ll always look to reduce.

All of this resulted in a 4x increase in my salary over a 5-year period. More important than that, it resulted in a much happier life. Not because of the money (although it helps with some of it for sure), but because I did less. I worried about less. And I got more done.

There is one problem when attacking work like this. It’s that there are plenty of things that others may deem unnecessary. Things like office politics. But we all know these are necessary to get ahead. I never removed something that would shoot myself in the foot. While the quest is to reduce, it should not be done at the expense of our reputation, relationships or careers.

Some self-help gurus advocate to reduce everything. But in the workplace, while we need to be ruthless, we can’t be dumb. We can't reduce the things that will alienate us from our colleagues. Meetings are one thing that I’ve struggled with. I still have to have them. But I’ve settled on reducing them to 30 mins rather than the full hour. It works well.

I applied this thinking to a lot of my life. I used to beat myself up about playing Xbox or watching TV. But, I became pleased to know, that doing these things made me more productive when I was working. Everyone needs downtime. Forcing work when our mind needs a break is disastrous.

The same is also true of choices. Having choices is great, something the Western world is privileged to have. But too many choices is a problem. It is the root of procrastination, a byword for laziness. Too much choices uses up our mental capacity, even while we are thinking of something completely different. So, in the spirit of doing less, we can reduce some of our choices too.

This can be done in many ways. My favourite is to embrace constraints. We all do this with restaurants and hotels. We only choose those with a high rating on our favourite site/guide. We cut a tonne of choices from the get-go. But similar constraints can be applied to other areas of life too.

We need to learn to say no. It’s incredibly difficult. But once started it gets easier. I have a little mental checklist to help. Is it good for my health and well-being? Is it going to help me with my goals and systems? Is it good for my relationships? If the answer is no to all of those questions then it’s a no-brainer for me. I don’t need it. It will only take away from my actual productivity in life.

OK. Let’s recap. Lazy people or the non-productive come in two flavours. Those in denial, the undercover lazy, and those that can’t even start. Both groups have the same problem. There is too much to do so they don’t really do anything.

Productive people are those that get stuff that they want done. People that work on their goals and systems often. To become one of these people we need to reduce, do less and not worry about it. We need to say no. We need to constrain our choices, enabling us to dedicate more time to our own personal goals.

We still need discipline which I'll talk about in the next chapters. But trying to push ourselves to max out our effort will only backfire. So, do less.

Creativity & Shock Meditation

“Why do you go away? So that you can come back. So that you can see the place you came from with new eyes and extra colours. And the people there see you differently, too. Coming back to where you started is not the same as never leaving.” - Terry Pratchett

I’m writing this chapter from a bus. 8 hours into a 24-hour journey from the Argentine Lake District to the heart of Patagonia. Sounds exotic and adventurous until you realise I’m on a fucking bus…for 24 hours. 20 minutes earlier, it was a sauna on wheels, two small windows, broken air conditioning and dust roads. Nice. Now the sun is going down and I’m in the Goldilocks zone with a beautiful breeze on my face. Of course, it will be an ice box on wheels in a matter of hours. Look, Mom! I’m travelling.

The Travel Image is Bullshit

We’re sold the image of the adventurous soul, the bearded, travel-worn man walking through a local market. The woman looking out across a vast mountain landscape while wearing a backpack. We laud travel as the ultimate experience. 2 weeks, 2 months, 1 year. The more time we can spend on travel, the more successful we are. The more exotic the location, the greater ‘points’ we gain.

When I dreamt of travel, I conjured those images above. And for those lucky enough to get those dreams, well, it can quickly become a pissing contest. Exactly with whom I’m not sure. But when I thought I’d take 3 months off, I then realised from all the blogs that this was not enough time at all. My god, some people had been travelling for 3 years. When I thought of driving around Europe (my home continent), I realised this wasn’t exotic enough. I needed to think bigger.

Let me get this point clear. I’m on a trip of a lifetime and loving every minute. I realise how privileged I am to be in this situation. I’m awestruck often and get lessons in modesty daily. But I don’t need to be in these exotic locations to have these feelings, I don’t have to be gone for months to finally ‘get it’. Travel (at least my definition of it), is so much simpler than that. Most people who travel won’t tell the truth though. All the spectacular things we experience. All the interesting people we meet. The truth is that we could have enjoyed most of it in our own country. Even right on our own doorsteps.

My new definition of Travel

Earlier, while sweating my proverbial (and actual) balls off, I had no desire to write anything. Zero inspiration. Then I got some ideas for a book I want to write. Then I got the notion and the inclination to write this. What I realised is that travel to me is a shock to the mind, it kick-starts my creativity, it’s a hard restart for my brain.

Travel is different for everybody. Insofar as people have different experiences, different thoughts and different conclusions. But travel is the same for everyone in what it changes. It resets the mind, allows you to look at things from a different perspective. It’s like meditation but a more invigorating or shocking alternative. Meditation is more relaxing, like letting the engine cool down. But travel is more like hitting the engine with a spanner to get it going (I’m no mechanic, so forgive the analogy). Travel is shock meditation (is this a wanky name? It’s hard to tell, my brain is too jarred by all the rocks on this Flintstones road I’m on).

How Do I Shock Meditate?

Each to their own on this one, I’m not one to tell someone else how or where to travel. For me, it involves weekends, getting on my bike or walking around the city I live in. Only for a couple of hours. I get a coffee somewhere new, walk a street I’ve never been on. The key for me is to take my time and look around at my surroundings in a more deliberate manner.

It’s OK to repeat the same things, of course. Like going to the shops for the newspaper. Turn it into travel, talk to people if you can. Go a different route to work when possible. Seasons change, weather changes, this is all refreshing for the mind. Listen to different music. Whatever, it’s so easy.

Aside from that, I save up for bigger trips, like the one I’m on now. But not everyone can do that (kids, debt and other things can understandably get in the way). A few points I want to add here. First, travel can be for free every weekend, or days you have off. So, debt should not be an excuse to not shock meditate (and, in fact, should be a reason you need to shock meditate). I’m not saying you can live in Costa Rica on $10 a day (because that’s a lot of bullshit), I mean free.

Second, having kids should not be an excuse either. My brother has two kids. Every other weekend he takes them on what he calls “the adventure walk”. It’s a small path leading away from his house, through a wooded area, up to a hill. It takes 30 mins and the goal at the end is a packet of crisps and a drink (brought from home). They’ll never forget those walks. Never. And as for my brother. During that time, he sees the walk through the kid's eyes, and it’s never the same. If that is not a type of travel, I don’t know what is.

Why Do Shock Meditation?

The benefits of travel are being bandied about the internet for years. In my personal experience, my mental health has improved due to this. I do not in any way have mental issues. Unless cynicism and mild narcissism count. But I do get low motivation from time to time, or a little bit of overwhelm, like everyone I assume (and hope). I did this shock meditation at least once a week and it always allowed me to recharge my creative batteries. I would then go into the rest of the day and the next week feeling pepped up. I cannot say the impact it will have on you, but why not give it a shot?

For my physical health, it has been a massive boost as well. My preference for travel/shock meditation is to cycle my bike around the city. Or go on long walks (city or countryside) when I have the chance. While I’d struggle to measure the impact, I did go from being able to walk for 30 mins to 2 hours in comfort. And from being able to cycle for 1 hour to 3 hours in one go. So, my fitness has improved in that regard.

Finally, one of the main reasons and benefits of shock meditation for me is the opportunity. I get all my new ideas in this frame of being. I’m most open to new opportunities when I’m shock meditating. I need to remember sometimes that opportunity doesn’t knock at my door. I’ve most likely missed many a chance because I was in the wrong frame of mind or watching TV. So, I need to get out there.

All in shock meditation helps my productivity. I can’t do normal meditation. It’s difficult. But I can do something that take my mind of things. I can disconnect. And this gives me more energy than anything else. Taking this time makes me more productive.

You’re a Hypocrite

All the above talks about very simple travelling. But I’m now on a 6-month trip to South America. “So, you’re saying travel is simple while you go on a jolly up around the world. Sounds hypocritical.”

We can mix the simple travel as explained in this chapter with some good old-fashioned world travel. Only when it’s an available option, of course. But it’s not necessary. And I only realised this a month into my travels. I have other goals for this travel. Such as learning to work from different locations so I'm not tied down to a specific city or area for work. But below are the main benefits I get from this type of travel.

Organising a trip (any sort, it doesn’t have to be of this size) has many benefits for me. The happiness I garner from organising is quite frankly scary. This may not be your bag, but I assume you would at least look forward to a trip in advance. For me, it can be 6 months of happy thoughts (thinking about and planning my upcoming travel). The trip itself has all the benefits I already mentioned, of course, and in this case, it will last 6 months as well. And finally, there is the happiness I take from the memories created. This has a very long half-life. I still get giddy when I remember my childhood summer holidays to the countryside.

So, one small piece of shock meditation can give many multiples of happiness. It stands to reason that larger pieces, such as 6 months travel, can increase that further. I understand it is easy for me to say to others that they don’t need to travel while I’m actually doing exactly that. But it beats the normal attitude. The ‘you must go <insert activity> in <insert exotic location> because I’ve done it, and it’s magical’ attitude. It’s also my honest opinion on the subject.

Productivity in Practise

“I wake up everyday planning to be productive and then a voice in my head says: Haha, good one. And we laugh and laugh, and then take a nap” - Unknown

OK, so if we summarise the productivity section so far what do we have?

I've advocated the use of the method of first principles. To break down whatever you want to achieve to the smallest first step, or make it unnecessary in the process.

I argued that by doing less we can actually achieve so much more. It gives us a much better chance of reaching out productivity goals.

And then I discussed the simplest way to creativity. The concept of shock meditation.

I tried to make these steps as actionable as possible. But I also understand that people need something simpler again. Something more practical. So I've put together my BuzzFeed-esque article of productivity 'hacks’. Steps that can be taken now and have an immediate impact. After lots of research and failed attempts, the below is what worked for me.

I always hear people talking about flow. It sounds new age but we've all experienced it. Those moments when we lose all sense of time. We keep working and ignore everything else. All of a sudden we realise 6 hours has passed and we've forgotten to eat.

This is productivity nirvana. It's the place where we are most effective. But getting there has become such an infrequent occurrence for most of us. And it's why the majority of us get nothing done.

The key to being more productive is to make these moments less infrequent. To maximise the chances of getting into it, and not having it interrupted. But how do we do that?

Emails, Facebook, Instagram, News Feeds and other shit (aka communication crack-cocaine)

Most of today's tech companies have a well-crafted consumer-focused story. How they are changing the world for the better. But all they are trying to do is get our eyes on their platform. Then selling that opportunity to advertisers. They don't give a fuck if they make our life better. They want our attention. They are using us. And so they make it as addictive as possible.

So we receive pings, notifications, updates, stories. Constantly. Sometimes, without even knowing it, we’ve opened an app automatically. I needed to ring my mum last week. So I opened my phone. Sure enough, I was on Reddit and knee deep in a thread about Mark Wahlberg for 10 minutes. Only then did I realise I had completely forgotten the task at hand. I’ve been conditioned. These guys are using science and technology to do this. My poor brain never stood a chance. I’ll never be able to defeat these malicious attempts for my attention.  Even if I had Gandhi’s levels of self-discipline.

There is no middle ground to combat this issue. We’d need a full blackout. Turn off all automatic notifications. Now. Grab your phone and block all your apps. No pings or noises. No popup messages showing you’ve got a new email or Facebook message or news alert. Be ruthless. You can always click on the app and see what you’ve missed. But we’ll start to remove the conditioning behaviour.

By turning off notifications, stopping the news feeds or latest posts, we take back our attention. Or only give it on our schedule. And the excuse that we want to remain informed is not a valid one. The news today does a terrible job of informing us. Long form articles are a better proposition. But I guarantee, without reading the news you will still be informed of the big stories. Our friends, family and strangers will make sure of that.

Remember, we want to maximise flow. It doesn’t mean we can’t reward ourselves with endless Reddit threads now and then. But getting disturbed from our flow because our Instagram friend took a picture of his spaghetti bolognese is stupid. It only harms our productivity.

Timelines

There is only one thing that defeats our cravings for instant gratification. It's the brains panic mechanism.

Two weeks to hand in this paper? No problem, loads of time, Netflix binge it is.

This paper is due tomorrow.  Shit, shit, shit. All nighter of work it is.

We all know those people that get stuff done in advance. Those dickheads that buy all their Christmas presents in November. Or finish that assignment 2 weeks in advance. Yeah, as a lazy man I’m not there yet, and may never be. So I need to trick my brain.

To do this I set short timelines for every task. I have weekly sprints (as detailed in the Sprint chapter). So I don’t look beyond one week deliverables. And even with that I still leave the majority of the tasks to the end of the week. But that’s OK. I need my panic mechanism to kick in a little. And this happens because I have a one-week timeline. No matter if the task at hand is required to be finished that week or not.

Once I started this process it became a system for my brain to set short timelines. Real or not. This way I would have a mini-panic that would scare away any ideas of instant gratification. It would get me working on finishing the tasks I set out for myself.

Doing the bare minimum

I want a Lamborghini. But knowing myself, I get a little bit realistic and settle on getting a Mercedes. But in reality, when it comes to delivery I’ll be happy with a Fiat.

That Fiat will get me from A to B as well as the other two. It does the job fine. So why do we always obsess about the Lamborghini? A perfectionist isn’t someone that does things perfectly. It’s someone that obsessively fantasizes about doing something perfectly.

So I don’t look to add bells and whistles, ever. Get something done. Something that works, is always better than still working on that perfect solution. The majority of the time the bare minimum is enough. And when it isn’t enough, I can always add more.

Let’s take writing this book as an example. I could have gone to the end of the Earth. Making each chapter a masterpiece. I also would have died before I got there. But still, I would have almost written an amazing book. Instead, I write something that gets my points across. If I’m unhappy or readers give me bad reviews, I can update the book. Adapt it. Likely it will turn out even better this way.

And this approach works for a lot of things in our lives. With this idea as part of our arsenal, we can become incredibly productive. So, do the minimum required for your task, usually no more is needed.

Motivation is for Chumps

It's true. Motivation is overrated.

Discipline is what gets shit done.

I've touched on this before. But I cannot hope lady luck falls on me today or any other day. She will not provide me with plenty of motivation to finish my goals. Nope, I need consistency to be productive.

For me, this is 8 hours sleep. It's breakfast 30 minutes after I wake (if I'm not fasting). It's 4-5 litres of water a day. It's eating every 4 hours. We don't need our energy to be up and down through the day.

But consistency isn’t the same thing for everybody. It almost always requires a consistent sleep schedule. But beyond that, it can be anything. Listening to the same music while we work. Working in the same location every day. Taking breaks at the same time every day. Whatever it takes to steady the ship and keep our energy on an even keel.

So don’t rely on motivation. Discipline is the key.

Environment

I’ve discussed this previously in the book. The environment we surround ourselves in has a massive effect on our productivity. We must find the people, places and things that help maximise our personal energy. In order to maximise the amount of time we can be in our productive flow.

I don’t like crowded places for instance. If I’m doing work, I hate noisy environments. So I avoid when I can.

When it comes to people, I want to surround myself with those that motivate me, inspire me and make me happy. They don’t have to do all three at once, of course, but I need a good sprinkling of these people in my life. People’s good habits will always rub off on us. And we don’t have to find a guru or mentor, some billionaire or other untouchable. Most people will have some knowledge we don’t. They’ll be better at something we want to do. We just need to find out what it is and surround ourselves with it as much as possible.

There is a saying, “if you want to be wealthy then surround yourself with people that are wealthier than you. If you want to be happy then surround yourself with people who are poorer than you”. I hate it. I see the point, and I hate it. But what I will say is that competition is an important productivity motivator. It never hurts our productivity when our friends or family do well at something. So, we should share our success and surround ourselves with friends that strive to be better. Regardless of what they do. They may not be playing the same game as ours but there is no better drive than knowing they are winning at theirs.

Outside the Box Thinking

I wanted to finish with this one. I’m well aware it’s manager speak. Like using synergy in a sentence. Or asking to “take something offline”, or “let’s circle back to that one later”. I dislike the overused saying, it’s waffle that is usually presented as something profound. But it is the best way to describe my point. To not be constrained by the current social reality. To experiment and see what works.

Each individual is different, and sparks of productivity can come from a myriad of places. If we are measuring, as discussed in the fundamentals section, then we can quickly see the impact on our production. So try something new. See how it affects your productivity. Do more of it if it works. Remove it if it doesn’t.

One of my favourite “out of the box ideas” is below. God bless the internet for this one. There are some funny bastards on there.

“Narrate your life in third person while you procrastinate, guarantee you start doing what you have to do after 30 seconds of "and he continued to sit on the couch and eat cheetos while he watched reruns of Law and Order SVU". Works every time” - Unknown

So, those are my practical tips, the major ones at least. I hope they help others reach their productivity nirvana.

Fin

The minimum effective lifestyle is a lazy man's guide to a great life. But some of those words have bad connotations.

Doing the bare minimum is looked down on in today's society. To be considered hard workers and successful career people, we need to be bleeding from the eyeballs with tiredness. We need to work at least a 40-hour week. We need to go above and beyond in everything that we do or don’t bother at all. This whole attitude stops people from attempting big changes in their lives. It keeps people in the office late at night. It keeps people unhealthy and consistently stressed.

A lifestyle is seen as a choice. Only for those who have too much time and/or money. A yuppies construction. But if we are not creating our lifestyle, someone or something else is. If we are not in control, then someone or something else is. And in that case, we can just hope that they have good intentions for us or else we’re fucked.

Finally, to the word lazy. It’s a word that has been thrown around as a condemnation. One nobody wants to be branded. Elders use it to describe the new generations. Colleagues defame other colleagues with it too. But being lazy is a symptom of a problem. One nobody ever wants to address. Being lazy is good. It is telling us there is something wrong with a situation. We just have to listen, readjust and experiment.

I hope this book finds you well. I hope it speaks to you. I hope it helps you think a different way.

If you enjoyed this book, please leave an honest review. They provide me with the motivation to write but they also help others find this book in the future. Thank you.

Table of Contents

About the Book

About the Author

The Minimum Effective Lifestyle

Introduction

The Fundamentals

My Brain is a Dick

The Holy Trinity and the Simple Solution

The Average Joe

Systems Thinking

The Minimum Effective Lifestyle

Step 1. What is my moral strategy?

Step 2. What does success mean to me?

Step 3. Tear it all down

Step 4. What makes me happy?

Step 5: Who do I want to be? What does success mean to me now?

Step 6: What goals or habits will likely get me to be that person and to be happy?

Step 7: What will likely stop me from getting there?

Step 8: What system can I devise to get me closer to those goals. How?

Step 9: What are the first order positives and negatives of my system?

Step 10: Prioritise

Step 11: How can I measure?

Step 12: Action now.

The Lazy Man’s Sprint

Finance

I’m a Fucking Cyborg!

Following My Passion Is Bullshit

Being the General of My Career

Knowing My Number

Investments and Pensions

The Biggest Financial Decision

Budgeting

Minimalism and Savings

Early Retirement

Health

Self-Awareness and The Healthy Mind

The Lazy Man’s Diet Guide

Option 1: Maintain

Option 2: Rapid Weight Loss with Heavy Restrictions

Option 3: Rapid Weight Loss, Little Restrictions

Exercise

Weight Loss

Get Ripped (at current or while losing weight)

Muscle Gain

Day 1

Day 2

Day 3

Emotional Health

Mental Health

Productivity

First Principles of Productivity

Doing Less

Creativity & Shock Meditation

Productivity in Practise

Fin