The Simple (Writer’s) Life

Until almost a year ago I was stuck in the daily treadmill of work.

That in and of itself is nothing bad. Writers have a day job and it can even be one that you enjoy. Also, working lets you expand your knowledge in other areas.

But the problem was my money – time ratio.

My spending had grown according to my earning, so I needed to maintain a full-time job in order to pay my flat and my other expenses.

But because I was working full-time I had little time (and little energy) left to work on my writing projects.

I realized I needed to make my life cheaper, which meant getting rid of a lot of stuff, finding a cheaper apartment, or even just a room somewhere, which meant I needed to spend a lot of time taking care of that.

Which would mean even less time for writing.

A catch 22.

Many people have that problem.

But you can get out of that trap.

I did. Although it took me a while.

For a couple of months I did nothing else (almost) every day than sorting my stuff, deciding what to keep, what to throw away, what to give away for free and what to sell.

I posted the stuff to sell online, I put a lot of old books in an open bookshelf (the ones on the street where you can swap books for free), and I asked around who wanted stuff that I gave away.

I started to read books on how to save money and adapted a few habits I learned there.

It was tough because it ate into my writing time and in part into my sleeping time.

But I just kept going and now, as the time of this writing, I have a couple of boxes left in a storage somewhere and I’m mainly living off of my backpack, renting a room in beautiful northern Spain.

Now, I’m not telling you this to brag, or because I think that is what you should do. That’ snot the point.

The point is that I realized how much accumulating stuff keeps me from having a simple, flexible life.

Now it’s easy for me to move into a much cheaper, smaller flat because I have hardly any stuff left.

I cut my expenses almost in half, which allows me to be more flexible in terms of what kinds of work I will or won’t do. Or how much of it.

Making your life simple and easy frees up so many time and energy that you can put into your writing.

Because the more stuff you have, the more you need to take care of it.

And thinking about having to take care of stuff all the time can be a great inspiration blocker.

If you want strategies for how to make your life cheaper and easier (according to your own needs) to free up energy for your writing: