How to Simplify Your Life Using the “Five Pillars” Rule

Or how to cut out the fluff

I live and die by five simple living “pillars.”

They are my priorities and where I spend my money with abandon and without guilt. They are also where I spend 90% of my time and thus, keeps my life hella simple.

Even better, they’re completely personal and customizable. Your own pillars can be whatever the hell you like.

At the risk of sounding like a 1980s TV self-improvement guru, adopting your own pillars will make you wealthier, healthier, happier (cringe, I know).

Let’s do this.

The “Charlie Brown approved” 5 pillars of simple living

Why five? Because below that feels like deprivation and more feels like complication.

Here are mine:

• Writing
• Exercise
• Coffee, food, and wine (all within reason)
• Spending time with my husband, family, and friends
• Traveling

I have eliminated almost everything else in my life so I can focus on these five areas. They embody both my personal and professional life. They are what I love and they keep my life as simple as possible.

But they are personal to me. I fully expect yours to look different (although perhaps they’re the same and we can become besties).

Simple living isn’t all that complicated — most of it boils down to prioritization. What do you genuinely care for in this life? How would you spend your time if you could?

Knowing that — then cutting out most of the rest of the fluff — is the key to living with simplicity.

Here’s how I figured out my five pillars, and how you can do the same.

What fills your tank? Start with that

I used to live my life by a) what other people expected of me and b) what I thought I loved to do.

People expected me — a college graduate — to have a good (read busy) job so I got one. People expected me to spend time with them even if I didn’t like them, so I did that.

I loved partying and being surrounded by people so I did that.

It was only once I psychologically crashed and burned and ended up in therapy that I discovered the concept of “filling the tank.”

Filling the tank means focusing on activities that fill your energy levels rather than deplete them.

The big job and the partying didn’t make me feel great — even if I thought I enjoyed them at the time — they just made me exhausted.

But writing did. Exercise did. Being around people I love did.

Once I realized what truly makes me feel both alive and filled with energy, that’s where I put my focus.

Figuring out your own pillars is as easy as making a list

Make a two-sided list. On the left, list activities that make you feel good (filling the tank). On the right, list anything that makes you feel like crap or exhausted (emptying the tank).

Back when I first did this exercise, my list looked something like this:

Filling the tank

• 8+ hours sleep
• Meditation
• Cooking for friends
• Weekends away
• Running
• Writing
• Going out for coffee

Emptying the tank

• Drinking too much in the evenings
• Being a manager at work
• Being surrounded by negative people
• Watching crappy TV
• Saying yes to events I don’t want to attend

You might notice that my filling the tank list looks suspiciously like my simple living pillars. Which goes to show — you probably already know where you should be spending the majority of your time, even if right now it feels impossible to do so.

Once you’ve identified your list all you have to do is make the activities on the left-hand side your priority. Simple.

But not necessarily easy.

Become ruthless in creating (and protecting) your pillars

I had to fight tooth and nail to create a simple life. It required a complete overhaul of everything, from where and how I lived, to my job to the people I hung around with. My life now is nothing like my life two years ago.

You might not have to go as extreme as selling all your stuff, changing your job, and hitting the road to protect your pillars. For you, it could be as simple as perfecting the art of saying no.

No to crappy events.

No to time-stealing people.

No to anything that fits the right-hand side of the aforementioned list.

None of this comes easy to any of us. As I’ve written before, living a simple life is rejecting everything you previously thought was normal and that’s freaking hard. People might think you’re weird for cutting back what you do with your day, your life. They might think you’re unambitious (little do they know, eh).

So you’ve gotta get ruthless. Find ways to make your pillars your priority.

For instance, if one of your five pillars is spending more time with your kids, could you reduce the number of items in your house so you have time to play with them in the yard instead of tidying and cleaning all the time? If one of your pillars is traveling, could you move to a smaller place in order to finance your travels?

Protect those pillars — they protect you, after all.

What it’s like to live by the five pillar rule

It’s fun.

It’s slow.

It’s simple.

It’s sustainable.

It’s never boring.

It’s contentment in spades.

It’s an incredible budgeting tool.

It’s the satisfaction of knowing you’re living your life by rules that fill you with energy.

It can be hard.

It’s a battle against “normality.”

It requires constant evaluation.

It’s a sure-fire way to make people think you’re weird.

It’s totally worth it.

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