084. Simple vs. Complex: How to Know What to Simplify for a Calmer, More Organized Life

Learn how to balance simplicity and complexity for a calmer, more organized life. Zee shares what to simplify, and what deserves your energy, for Beautiful Living.

Some things in life should be simple: your home, your schedule, your email inbox. But others are just meant to be complex, like your relationships, your health, and your purpose.
In this episode, I'll share how to tell the difference so you can focus your energy where it truly matters and finally enjoy a calmer, more organized life.

✨ What you’ll learn:

• ✨ Why simplifying everything isn’t the goal; alignment is.
• ✅ The 8 parts of life that thrive on simplicity (hello, email inbox).
• 🔑 The 5 areas that need your depth and reflection, not shortcuts.
• ✨ How simplicity creates calm while complexity deepens meaning.
• ✅ How to apply the 5 Principles of Beautiful Living to balance both.

🧭 It’s not about doing less — it’s about being choosy with your energy.

Resources mentioned in this episode:
NAPO Blog, The Pre-Holiday Purge: How to Help Kids Declutter before December (Without the Tears)

Episode 081 - How to Save Hours, and Save Money, on Meal Prep — The Choosy Organizer Way

Episode 080 - Stay Organized with ADHD: 10 Brain-Friendly Ways to Finish the Year Strong

Keep choosing what matters and let the rest go.
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#DeclutteringTips #HomeOrganization #IntentionalLiving #BeautifulLiving #SimplifyYourLife

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Transcript

A few weeks ago, I wrote a post for NAPO’s blog, that’s the National Association of Productivity and Organizing Professionals. It’s this wonderful group of over 2,000 organizers and productivity consultants from around the world. My post was about helping kids declutter before the holidays because we all know the gift avalanche that’s coming, right?
If you’re interested, I’ll link the blog post in the show notes for you.
But here’s what happened. After that post went live, my inbox exploded. I received so many messages, emails, and even one handwritten letter - an actual letter in the mail - from Standolyn. (Standolyn, if you’re listening, thank you, it was such a treat to get real mail!)
And you know what all those messages had in common? People said the same thing: that the way I made decluttering feel simple, user-friendly, and part of everyday life, especially for families with kids, was really helpful.
These aren’t beginners either, right? These are fellow professional organizers, people who’ve been doing this work for decades, and they’re saying, “Zee, I shared your post with clients and family, and I needed that reminder too.”
And that got me thinking.
If people who do this for a living need a reminder that simplifying decluttering works, what about everybody else?
So that inspired today’s episode, where we’re exploring why some things in life are better kept simple, and others, by their nature, need to stay complex.
And more importantly, how knowing the difference can help you be more organized for Beautiful Living.

Welcome to Organizing for Beautiful Living with me, Zee Siman—The Choosy Organizer.
This podcast is for women who are done organizing everything and ready to be choosy—about what matters, what’s enough, and what can wait. Because Beautiful Living starts with a little less stress and a lot more intention.
Ready to get beautifully organized? Let’s make it happen.

You know, when I got all those messages about the NAPO post, it made me realize something: we live in a world that glorifies optimization. We try to optimize everything, right? Our homes, our routines, even our relationships.
But what I’ve found is that not everything needs to be optimized. Some parts of life are meant to be simple. Others are meant to be complex.
And the secret to being organized for Beautiful Living isn’t about reducing everything to one-size-fits-all systems. It’s about knowing which category something belongs to.
Let me give you a quick reminder of our 5 principles that help us to be Organized for Beautiful Living:
One, Live light - which is all about living more sustainably with less
Two, Love your home - which guides us to creating spaces that we love but also support the way we live during the current phase of our life
Three, Connect often - which reminds us that social connections keep us grounded in our communities, no matter where those communities are, right? Because we live in both a global and local society
Work to Live Well - which encourages us to align our life’s work with our lives, that these things are not separate
And Five, Thrive Daily - which is how we tend to our physical and mental well-being every single day.
OK so now that you have that reminder, let’s explore the 8 things that I believe we should keep simple and the 5 things that I think are better left complex.
And as we go, I want you to notice what that brings up for you. Which ones make you think, ahh, I could use more simplicity there, and which ones are making you think, hmm, maybe I’ve been oversimplifying this one.
Let’s start with the simple.
Some things are meant to be simple because simplicity creates space for calm, for connection, and for clarity. These are the things that keep your everyday life humming smoothly.
OK so things to keep SIMPLE:
Number 1: Decluttering and organizing your home.
This is where the Live Light principle shines. Simple systems are sustainable systems. When your drawers, your closets, and your kitchen counters are easy to manage, you free your mind from decision-making and decision fatigue. You stop wasting time searching for things. You stop clearing the same spots over and over. You reclaim peace from at least this area.
It’s like the CLEAR-5 framework in action, right? When you Clarify your vision and Limit what belongs, you realize organizing doesn’t need to be a big emotional project. It’s a rhythm.
But here’s where I think it gets interesting. The goal isn’t minimalism for its own sake, which I think some people believe sustainability is or living with less means. 
But I believe the goal for Beautiful Living is alignment. Your home becomes a mirror for your values. You start asking, “Do I actually love this?” instead of “Should I keep this?”
And when you do that, you make space for more of the stuff you really love, of course, or more of the stuff that’s really and truly useful to you and your family right now, and not in some arbitrary “what if” future.

Number 2: Simplify your schedule.
This is pure Work to Live Well. A cluttered calendar can be just as overwhelming as a cluttered closet. It’s why I’m always thinking: a full calendar is not a full life. A full calendar is not a full life.
Try using the LIMIT step from CLEAR-5 here, too. Set boundaries around your commitments. Ask: “Does this move my life forward, or just keep me busy?”
I heard a time management expert say “Interrogate your calendar” one time, and it’s stuck with me. You’re interrogating each entry in your schedule. Why is it there? Do I really need to do this? 
When you simplify your schedule, you start to have control over your time again. And isn’t that what we’re really craving?

Number 3: Simplify your meals 
This is Thrive Daily. You don’t need a 12-step meal prep. You need consistency, not complexity.
Think about rotating meals your family actually enjoys, and taking 5 minutes each week to plan that out. You can listen to episode 81: How to Save Hours, and Save Money, on Meal Prep — The Choosy Organizer Way, for an explanation of how to do this, by the way, so you’re not spending hours on finding recipes, creating these pages-long grocery lists and buying ingredients that you’ll use once, and the rest goes into the pantry for years, right?
Number 4: Simplify your Movement
Physical movement I think is something else that we tend to overcomplicate. It’s easy to think we’re not doing enough to keep ourselves healthy and strong. So the simple thing to do is to identify your goal. Days per week you want to work out, even if you start with less and work up to those number of days, and what you enjoy doing for these workouts.
I’ve come to realize that I don’t really want to go to a gym, so I work out best at home. It doesn’t mean that I’ll never set foot in a gym, but I can be most consistent at home.
But if you’re finding that no matter what you think you like to do, you’re not doing it, think about what bridges you can build to get there.
I leave my gym shoes in the room where I work out, so I never have to go hunting for shoes. If you can never find your sports bra, or gym towel or whatever, and that slows you down, then give yourself permission to have just 3 sports bras and 3 sets of workout gear, and you do a load of that laundry only every 3 days. That way, you’ll always find your sports bras.
Believe it or not, sometimes the hardest thing for people is when they have too many of something. Then they procrastinate doing the laundry, or they don’t know where they put that one item, right?
So find the bridges you need to construct to get you to do the physical movement you want to do.
By the way, no one says you need special workout clothes, right? You just want to be comfortable and supported. So if you just want to put on your sports bra under your stretchy pajamas to work out, I’m not judging. Just, you know, put those pajamas in the washing machine after, maybe, ok?
And also, work out when it works for you. If school dropoff was delayed, or a work meeting was pulled earlier so you didn’t have a chance to workout first thing in the morning, maybe you can find another pocket of time to do something simple, like a walk, or an afternoon workout. Whatever works! We’re being choosy because when you do simple habits repeatedly, you can create real results.
And when your physical health feels simpler, your emotional health stabilizes too.

Number 5, Simplify your Tasks and Projects
Sometimes you’ve got something you need to get done, and it feels like a mountain you have to climb. I mean, that’s when procrastination happens, right?
So simplifying here means breaking it down. Sink into the task or the project, think what specific one thing do I need to do first?
That first thing could be something as simple as “look up a phone number”, or open Google.
That’s it. Do that. Then think of simple step 2.
Now is that going to take a long time to complete your task or project? Maybe. But what you’ll find is that having those first few steps completed are going to either lead to momentum, and you’ll carry on with the rest of it, or it’ll lead to clarity, where you’ll see clearly what has to be done, what information you’re missing, where you might need help and so on. Each of these things is moving forward, ok?
So what you want is for your tasks and projects not to feel hard or ginormous or really complicated. You want to break them down, and take the first few steps so you can see where you’re going with it.
Number 6, Simplify your Email
Do I need to say more? 
I used to recommend using a service like Unroll.me or Leave Me Alone, but there are all kinds of privacy and third party data issues that honestly, I don’t recommend any of those services anymore. I recommend you do unsubscribe all the time! Like, without mercy! 
And if you have 20,000 unread emails dating back to 2015, you can be bold and delete anything older than 2024. Scary, huh?
Less scary is to move everything to an Archive folder, and start fresh. Unsubscribe from today onwards. Don’t keep anything that’s a “maybe”, right? Be bold!
Only go into your email inbox 4 times a day, and then process all the emails there. Unsubscribe, trash, forward, and reply. Anything leftover, move it to the Archive folder.
Don’t let your email complicate your day.
Number 7, Simply your To-Do List
I talked about how to do this in episode 80: Stay Organized with ADHD: 10 Brain-Friendly Ways to Finish the Year Strong. It’s what I call the DONUT method, which stands for:
Do it
Outsource it
Nix it
Uncomplicate it (aha!)
And Table it.
Those are the only 5 choices you need to make with your to-dos, and my favorite is to nix it! What have you written down that you can take off your to-do list? Remember you’re looking to simplify things that are routine, so you have more energy and brain space for the complex stuff that we’re going to get into. So nix the busy work, ok?
And Number 8, Simply Your Commitments
I was exchanging emails with a friend last week, and we were talking about going to the Miami Book Fair, and she said, oh yeah, by the way I’m going to also meet up with so-and-so because I just got roped into helping out with their nonprofit.
Now, it’s a wonderful nonprofit, but my friend is already contributing her knowledge and expertise to many, many causes.
So, question your commitments. Which do you have the space, the mental energy for in this moment of your life? Which is most important? Push those to the top, and see if you can declutter your commitments, too, ok?
OK, now the things that I think are necessarily complex, because not everything in life should be simple. 
These are the places where you want depth, where you grow, connect, and understand yourself better.
Let’s start with Number 1: Your Health.
Medical issues and mental health, these are complex because they involve both science and soul. So they deserve nuance, care, and a lot of patience. You can simplify your routines around them, like taking medication or creating a calming bedtime space, but the healing itself stays complex.
It’s part of Thrive Daily: honoring your body’s rhythms and your mind’s needs without demanding a quick fix.
And that need for nuance extends into another realm that many of us try to oversimplify: our relationships.

So Number 2: Your Relationships are complex.
This is what Connect Often sometimes entails, right? You can organize your entryway all you want, but you can’t organize your partner into better communication. You can label bins for your kids, but not their emotions.
The most meaningful connections require your curiosity and care and nurturing, not your control.
Simplifying your space gives you the capacity to navigate this emotional complexity with a lot more grace. You can handle a hard conversation better when you’re not staring at piles of laundry. But the conversations themselves? They deserve depth, not shortcuts.
Simplifying your space also gives you the ability and the comfort to easily invite people over, to create more connections and nurture your relationships.
Number 3: Parenting is Complex
It is both mystifying and incredible to me how we raise and teach and prepare our kids, and then they grow up and become their own people!
OK this is old news to you if you have adult kids, and while I knew this logically, it did hit me one day that wow! My kids are so their own people, with their own beliefs and thoughts and outlooks that I can’t really control.
It’s just amazing to reflect on how we turned out the way we are, and how our children are turning out to be who they are. So, parenting will always be complex.
But you’ll have more bandwidth for that complexity if you simplify the things that are routine, right? The meal prep, the laundry, the scheduling, the email, all of that so you have more time here, in the parenting.
Number 4, Your Identity and Belonging is complex
We are each evolving. None of us ever stays the same over time. 
We organize ourselves for how we’re living right now, though, the stage of life we’re in now, so that at least daily life can be more routine, less taxing on your decision-making. And that way, you can enjoy that evolution of yourself.
Are you finding that you enjoy spending time with a different group of people than you used to? Or that for some reason, you’re starting to feel more distant from a close friend? I mean, all of that is complex and requires exploration. It’s meant to be complex, and it’s doubly complicated because not only are you evolving, but your friends are, too. Everyone else is, too. So every day is like new discoveries. 
And Number 5, Your Purpose and Personal Growth is complex
There’s a lot of discussion about the word “Purpose.” Like, is having a purpose the way to contentment and happiness in life? Or is it personal growth, or relationships, or health? I mean, isn’t it all of the above?
I think the takeaway is that having a single purpose in your life is not the goal. Like I said, we’re all evolving. You’ll pass through one stage of your life where you know one purpose was parenting, raising your kids. But was it your only purpose? I don’t think so. I think a purpose we all have no matter what stage of life we’re in is learning more. That’s personal growth right there. It’s all intertwined, and having a checklist of books to read or organizations to volunteer with is not how you simplify what your purpose is. 
Understanding your purpose, if you want to use that word, requires reflection, discomfort, and grace.
So instead of trying to simplify your purpose, try creating space for it to unfold, ok?
Identity, belonging, and purpose, these are lifelong projects.
They connect to every single one of the 5 Principles. Living Light helps you let go of old versions of yourself. Loving Your Home grounds you. Connecting Often reminds you that you belong. Working to Live Well ensures your ambitions align with your energy. And Thriving Daily keeps you healthy enough to grow.
When you really think about it, the goal of Beautiful Living is to know where simplicity serves you and where complexity shapes you.
Because simplicity without depth becomes sterile, routine, and dull. And complexity without boundaries becomes chaos.
Beautiful Living, the way I see it, sits right in the middle, where your systems are simple enough for your day to run smoothly, and your mind and your heart are free enough to think and feel deeply.
So as you go about your week, here’s what I’d like you to notice:
Where can you make life simpler, to reclaim some calm?
And where can you allow life to stay complex to honor how you evolve and grow?
Maybe that means cleaning out your email inbox but letting your parenting be a work in progress. Or simplifying dinner but allowing your personal growth to stay really nonlinear.
So here’s your reflection for the week:
What’s one area of your life that deserves more simplicity, and one that deserves more space for complexity?
Journal on that or think about it tonight. Let it guide how you spend your energy this week.
And if today’s episode gave you a new way to think about simplicity and complexity, share it with a friend who might need the same reminder, that Beautiful Living isn’t about having it all figured out. It’s about choosing what deserves your time and your care, and what can be simplified to run basically on its own.
Have a beautifully organized week, ok? I’m Zee, and I’ll see you on the next episode.