Regardless of the situation, the ways in which they become (or we perceive them to be) complex are much the same. Combined with the hustle of everyday life, problems or scenarios that in their essence aren’t all that complicated far too easily get amplified, exaggerated, dramatized, and overwhelming. Consider these five steps your blueprint for Simplifying any situation.

1. Eliminate the extraneous and be still 

Your first order of business is to remove all unnecessary elements from a situation–people who don’t really need to be involved, distracting factors and details, negligible materials, and so on.

Too often the sense of overwhelm we feel at having to solve a situation causes us to involve more voices than is needed or is helpful (think: too many cooks in the kitchen) and to fixate on negligible details.

Remove any and all elements from the situation that aren’t entirely pertinent to its handling. Then you sit yourself down and have yourself a little moment of zen is what.

Shh, quiet down, frazzled. Be still. Stop freaking out. Breathe.

2. Identify the core intention/desire/need

Once you’ve settled yourself to the point of regular breathing, ask yourself: what is the goal right now? What is the problem–in its most basic term–that needs to be solved? 

Your answer should be as streamlined as the following statements:

I need to get my belongings from point A to point B.

The kids need to be picked up at school.

This room is cluttered and I want it not be.

Our customer is dissatisfied and we need to make things right with them.  

3. Define actions and absolutes 

Now, staying just as calm and centered as you were when you listed out those core problems, start to build your roadmap towards solving them.

You can do this by taking the streamlined statements from above and tacking onto them the situational specifics and realistic limitations.

I need to get my belongings from point A to point B…by this date and I don’t have any time to do it myself. Thus, what I really need to figure out is: I need to find another person or way to get my belongings moved from point A to point B by this date. 

If you work well with boundaries, you might factor in such details as:

I have this many monies to devote to getting my belongings from point A to point B by this date.

Or, if you prefer to work backwards by first laying out the goal and then filling in the steps to get there:

In my ideal world, this is the manner in which my belongings would get from point A to point B by this date. 

Do not for one second think this means factoring in some crazy mental-talk about this person’s feelings and that person’s opinions of you and blah blah. No. We’re all set with that.

4. Call in your resources

Now that you’ve gotten good and clear with yourself about what in no uncertain terms needs to happen, you can proceed with putting those plans into action.

Of course you should take initial steps you need to do yourself before further action can progress: make the phone call, send the email, schedule the pickup. But really what you’re doing in the process is enlisting the help of your resources.

It doesn’t matter what the situation is, everyone needs help in some form or other. Help might come in the form of a professional service, or the parent of a kid who attends the same school as yours, or an honest friend.

You have resources at your disposal if you know and have been kind to 1 other person.

Handle the tasks only you can accomplish and then pass those babies along to the next person in line on the way to Living Simply.

5. Allow it to be Simple

Don’t dismiss this last step as woo-woo nonsense. Shit is real.

So many people complicate things through the sheer belief that it can’t really be that Simple. Well, it can. If you decide it can. If you decide it can be handled swiftly and decisively.

Situations will never be Simple unless you allow them to be by believing they can be.