Your "Silent To-Do List" Is the Number One Barrier to Your Simpler Life

That thing is a killer

Lambs don’t have silent to-do lists and their lives are super simple. Snapped in North Wales, April 2023

If you’ve never heard of the silent to-do list, let me enlighten you.

The term was coined by Japanese author Fumio Sasaki in his book Goodbye Things and goes like this:

Every item in your home and life needs to be taken care of or maintained. Each item will “signal” that to you, forcing you to create a silent to-do list in your mind.

Some examples:

• Dirty dishes signal you need to clean the kitchen.

• Plants signal they need watering or maintenance.

• Clothes in the closet could spark guilty thoughts like why have you not worn me yet?

• A cluttered desk signals you need to tidy it before getting down to work.

• Dirty clothes on the floor signal they need to be washed, dried, folded, and put away.

I wrote a whole article about the silent to-do list on Medium last year and it struck a chord with multiple thousands of people.

And I’m not surprised.

Right now I’m spending a few weeks in the UK, staying between my brother's and my mother’s house. And boy, has my silent to-do list grown since being here. So much so, I am coming to the realization that the silent to-do list is probably the biggest barrier to living a simple life.

Because right now, my life feels anything but simple.

Thankfully there is a solution.

Cut the clutter, cut the list.