How to Simplify Your Life : Seven Practical Steps to Letting Go of Your Burdens and Living a Happier Life [Paperback]

Werner Tiki Kustenmacher (Author), Lothar Seiwert (Author), Tiki Kustenmacher (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 2, 2004

Practical wisdom on work, money, health, and relationships

The international bestseller How to Simplify Your Life offers concrete advice on achieving happiness in a time of economic contraction and uncertainty. The book explains, in seven steps, how to get rid of unnecessary stuff and unload the burdens of modern life--and points the way back to what we know is important but have forgotten. By following the path outlined in the book, readers will learn to organize their time (and their desks), change the way they think about money, improve their health and relationships, and find meaning in their lives.

The book shows readers how to:

• Eliminate chaos in the workplace
• Cut back on activities and slow down
• Get rid of money hang-ups and get out of debt
• Balance private life with career life
• Make room for relationships

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

Seven proven steps for clearing out the clutter and getting back to the basics of a simple, happy life

You don't have to put up with the complications and hassles of an overwhelming daily grind! The international bestseller How to Simplify Your Life will show you how to clear off your desk, clean up your life, and make room for the things that really matter. Packed with practical techniques for simplifying work, money, health, and relationships, this seven-step program gives you the tools you need to lead a fulfilling life.

You'll learn

• How to conquer the paper piles on your desk once and for all
• How your soul will profit from a tidy house
• How to get richer by letting go of your worries about money
• How to enjoy time to yourself without feeling anxious or bored
• How to stay fit and healthy, without overdoing it
• How to make friends and enjoy your family
• How to find the right balance between your career and your spouse or romantic partner
• How to find your deepest goal in life

When you learn to throw off the burdens and drudgery that hold you down, you may find yourself growing wings! The practical techniques in this book will help you eliminate all the chaos, jettison your self-defeating habits, and take control of every aspect of your life. You will discover and achieve the things that are most important to you.

About the Author

Tiki Kustenmacher is a Lutheran pastor, author, and seminar leader.

Lothar J. Seiwert is Europe's leading expert in time and life management. His books have been translated into 20 languages.

Product Details

• Paperback: 300 pages
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill; 1 edition (March 2, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0071433864
• ISBN-13: 978-0071433860
• Product Dimensions: 6 x 0.6 x 9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #760,104 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

30 of 30 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A Simple Plan January 11, 2005

By AppleBrownBetty

Format:Paperback

People turn to books for advice on many issues, but the most successful books that fall into the self-help category deal more often with weight loss than self-actualization. That makes it all the more surprising that "How to Simplify Your Life," now in its 13th printing in Germany, has achieved a feat most German books, let alone those focused on self-help, so rarely accomplish: It has been published in English.

The German author duo comprised of Werner Tiki Kustenmacher and Lothar J. Seiwert is a formidable team of self help gurus, the former a trained Lutheran minister and free-lance cartoonist, the latter Germany's most sought-after professional coach. Since their book was first published, the "Simplify Your Life" brand has developed into a complex brand of lifestyle books and products - and a perennial bestseller at home and abroad.

Kustenmacher and Seiwert outline their vision for a simpler life in a seven-step life pyramid that starts with the charge to purge oneself of unnecessary objects and ends with the lofty goal of embracing one's life dream. The steps in between - and there are hundreds of them - stem from both men's private practices and from the over 600 American and German self-help books the authors analyzed while creating their own book.

Money isn't the object in their pursuit of happiness, but neither is an austere lifestyle. Readers are encouraged to weed out the clutter at office and home, which, the experts say, mentally blocks your personal development. If that doesn't scare the packrats to action, they offer ample evidence that having too much stuff in your life can actually make you obese.

Finance and time management form two further tiers of the pyramid, and here as well, the authors' advice is sound.... Going far beyond their initial sections on how to unblock the flow of money and reduce debt, Kustenmacher and Seiwert have a collection of valuable tools for preventing interruptions at the office and at home, unlocking more free time. For the technically savvy but punctually bereft, they offer quite a few helpful hints for managing that ever-growing email deluge.

Its section on untangling family ties and building a good life partnership could be a book in itself. Here, the authors' advice ranges from using networking to end isolation and how to be a good guest and hostess to dealing with envy and learning to accept your partner's differentness.

The "Last Steps" section is perhaps the most nebulous section of the book - and also the most uninspired. Few will be reassured by short paragraphs on how to develop one's life dream, and the fill-in-the blank greatest strengths test only detracts from the other practical information in the book.

As for the success of its translation, "How to Simplify Your Life" is laced with fun facts about modern German life, but seems an appropriate tool for Americans as well. It has earned its place alongside that other great self-help book for our times, "Who Moved My Cheese?" Read more ›

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Packed With Knowledge! September 16, 2004

By Rolf Dobelli HALL OF FAMETOP 1000 REVIEWER

Format:Paperback

Do you ever wish that you were born with an owner's manual? Well, Tiki Kustenmacher, simplicity expert, and Dr. Lothar J. Seiwert, professional coach, offer a digestible life guide that reads like an operating primer for the human spirit. Livened up with Kustenmacher's cute illustrations, each chapter tackles a different facet of life, such as managing clutter, taming finances and establishing goals. The practical tips from these bite-size chapters are easy to digest and implement. Their recipe for a simplified life includes valuable suggestions for handling difficult emotions (jealousy) and life events (marriage, death). Although the text is fun to read, the authors skip around and circle back to different subjects in each chapter. Tighter organization would have made the book's counsel easier to track. And, each chapter begins with an unnecessary, somewhat annoying "dream of simplicity" visualization. Just skip those little appetizers and dive right into the main course. Also check out the excellent reading list at the back of the book. We recommend this manual to pack rats, workaholics and all those who would welcome simplicity as a relief from life's chaos.

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Simply great! June 1, 2004

By A Customer

Format:Paperback

Modern life is stressful and complicated, we are torn between working life and private life, we are pressed for time constantly, we are swamped with outstanding tasks - sometimes our everyday life is nothing but chaos. Fortunately, a friend of mine gave me this brilliant book. It shows, how to clean up your life and throw off unnecessary ballast. The practical advices are very easy to implement: after reading the book, I started immediately to clear up my room, and, believe it or not, it was fun and gave me a feeling of rearranging and organizing my life. Of course the book deals not just with tidy rooms. You'll find out what really matters, in your job, your relationship, in your life. Recommended! It works!

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars An organizing reference manual February 25, 2006

By wallatom

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

This is a very useful and practical approach to organization. Starting with your living arrangement, desk and closets, you progress upward in importance to organizing more important things like free time, work, relationships with others, and with yourself. I find myself carrying this book around and referencing it regularly. My wife and I reread certain chapters and we then tackle another organizing project. I highly recommend this book. There is even a web newsletter run by the author with new tips and suggestions.

17 of 20 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars 2.2 stars: A Challenge to Make Lasting Results on this Track August 2, 2007

By Renee Thorpe

Format:Paperback

Author touts this book as a way to live to one's full potential. It'll get the reader closer to that, but there are a few problems in the philosophy behind the methods.

The PRACTICAL tips for simplifying are the best part of this book, as it outlines methods for dealing with mail and other important possessions, whether at home or while traveling.

I concur with the review before me, in which the reader says he uses the book as a reference. And that is because most of the book's practical tips and methods of dealing with emails, debt and savings, the garage, closets, and even friends, are certainly workable. And they do take WORK. You'll need to crack open the book often, just to get back on track. Nothing wrong with a user's manual, no sir.

But there is an underlying philosophy that I find objectionable and I'll get right to that. The author is suggesting ways of doing away with stress which are, frankly, disempowering. I can totally dig that an angry, stagnated, confused, and hopelessly disorganized person is in dire need of sweeping changes... but this book has more than one section in which "letting go" is promoted to the point where readers see a choice of either staying obsessively stressed on the little things or else going into a virtual / mental rabbit hole. Without tools for dealing with many things that can be confronted and easily resolved.

I was aghast to find in the book a kind of encouragement for giving up on the problems of the world. Yeah, you will experience less short term stress if you stop thinking about global warming and the children starving in Africa, but people who involve themselves in small ways in these kinds of global issues will tell you that it does wonders for stress about our puny concerns in the rat race.... Talk about simplification! That wonderful expansive perspective of the giving soul, the humanist, the global citizen, is not part of Kustenmacher's method. His vision is limited to a small scope.

There are some lovely self-affirming nuggets in the book like thinking positively and ideas on how to express yourself in positive ways. Plus a great section on ending TV addiction. These are things that do give a person an enormous boost in self worth. But many of the how-to-make-a-decision tips are ridiculously poor, and some of the relationship tips would be very, very difficult for most marriages to apply without supervision. Scant true knowledge of the workings of relationships, false data in the book will lead some astray.

The only thing really useful about this book is that it helps the reader paint for themselves some very real, very healthy goals. The book's little nudges toward a less wasteful life, a more healthy life, and a less messy life, are definitely nudges in the right direction. But this book is not the be-all and end-all to why the average person's surroundings are so complicated and yet meaningless.

Some good tips for your personal realm, but doesn't help anyone reach Nirvana.

Recently discovered Problems of Work by Hubbard, avail here at amazon in both DVD format (very entertaining) and book form (full of tips, tools, and help); I'd enthusiastically recommend that one over the Kustenmacher one, as it undercuts most problems people are having with a life too complicated. Read more ›