“In 1967, Charles Hummel wrote a book called Tyranny of the Urgent. A man ahead of his time, Hummel describes the tension between two contestants which battle for our time: the urgent and the important. He argues that the urgent things–such as the demands at the office, the demands of other people, and even our own “inner compulsions”– typically trump the things which are important, like regular dates with our spouse, personal solitude, exercise, or meditation. With incredible depth of insight, he noted that important things are polite; they don’t clamor for our attention. They just wait patiently for us to act. In the long run there’s a price to pay for this neglect of the important stuff. Like a volcano, there comes a day when the neglected areas of our life explode and wreak havoc. Ironically, we wonder how we missed the early warning signs.”

“Simplifying your life can be more than just removing physical belongings. If minimalism is the intentional promotion of the things that I most value, it is also about deciding what is most important in my life and removing the things that distract me from it. It is about removing the urgent for the sake of the important.”