The art of simplifying: 4 unnecessary stresses to remove from your life

by Lachlan Brown | August 19, 2025, 6:59 pm

I used to think that stress was just part of being productive. The busier I was, the more important I felt.

But somewhere along the way, I realized I was carrying around a backpack full of rocks—unnecessary worries and complications that weren’t actually moving me forward.

The truth hit me during a particularly chaotic period when I was juggling multiple projects: most of my stress wasn’t coming from the work itself, but from all the mental clutter I’d accumulated around it.

That’s when I discovered something powerful: simplifying isn’t about doing less—it’s about removing the noise that drowns out what actually matters.

Today, we’re diving into four specific stresses that you can eliminate from your life starting right now. These aren’t just productivity hacks; they’re sanity savers that can give you back the mental space you didn’t even realize you’d lost.

1. The stress of doing everything at once

Here’s something that took me way too long to accept: multitasking is a myth.

I used to pride myself on juggling emails while on calls, scrolling social media during meetings, and writing while listening to podcasts. I thought I was being efficient, but I was actually making everything harder.

This is well backed up by experts who have noted that multitasking can reduce productivity by up to 40%. 

The stress relief came when I started doing one thing at a time.

Now, when I write, I close everything else. When I’m in a conversation, my phone stays face down.

Your brain isn’t designed to split attention—it’s designed to focus deeply. Give it what it wants, and watch your stress levels drop while your actual productivity soars.

2. The worry about decisions that don’t actually matter

You know what’s truly exhausting? Spending mental energy on choices that have zero impact on your life.

I used to agonize over everything—which shirt to wear, what to have for lunch, which route to take to work. By the time I got to decisions that actually mattered, I was mentally drained.

As folks at the World Economic Forum note “willpower is like a muscle that becomes fatigued from overuse”. Every small decision chips away at your capacity for the big ones.

I started automating the trivial stuff. Same breakfast most days. A simple work uniform. Default routes and routines that require no thought.

It sounds boring, but it’s actually liberating. When you stop wasting brainpower on meaningless choices, you free up space for creativity and problem-solving where it counts.

3. The financial anxiety you can’t control right now

Money stress is brutal because it follows you everywhere—into bed, into conversations, into moments that should be peaceful.

I’ve been there. There was a period when I’d check my bank account obsessively, as if looking at it more often would somehow make the numbers change. The constant worry was eating me alive.

Here’s what research shows: financial worries can hit low-income people’s thinking skills as hard as losing a full night’s sleep—or taking a 13-point drop in IQ . That anxiety literally makes it harder to think clearly about solutions.

The shift happened when I separated what I could control today from what I couldn’t. Can’t control the economy? Fine. Can’t magically make more money appear? Okay.

But I can control my spending today, my side hustle efforts, and my financial education.

Set aside 20 minutes once a week for money matters, then let it go. Constant worry doesn’t improve your financial situation—focused action does.

4. Approval from people who don’t really know you

This one might hit close to home: how much energy do you waste trying to impress people whose opinions shouldn’t matter?

I used to craft social media posts like I was writing for a board of directors. Every photo, every comment, every decision filtered through this imaginary panel of judges. It was exhausting.

The worst part? Most of these “judges” were acquaintances, distant relatives, or people I hadn’t spoken to in years. I was letting strangers dictate my stress levels.

The relief was immediate when I stopped performing for an audience that didn’t even really see me. Real friends accept your messy, imperfect reality. Everyone else’s opinion is just noise.

Here’s a simple test: before you stress about what “people will think,” ask yourself—which people, specifically? If you can’t name three people whose opinions genuinely matter and who actually know your situation, let it go.

Your mental peace is worth more than the approval of people who are too busy worrying about their own lives to judge yours anyway.

Final words

Simplifying your life isn’t about becoming a minimalist monk or throwing away everything you own. It’s about recognizing that most of our stress comes from mental clutter we’ve unconsciously collected along the way.

The beautiful thing about removing these unnecessary stresses is that it happens fast. You don’t need to wait months to feel the relief—it starts the moment you stop multitasking, quit agonizing over trivial decisions, or release yourself from other people’s imaginary judgment.

I’ve talked about this before, but the goal isn’t perfection. You’ll slip back into old patterns sometimes, and that’s human. The key is noticing when it happens and gently redirecting your energy toward what actually serves you.

Start with one of these today. Pick the stress that resonates most and just… let it go. Your future self will thank you for the mental space you’re about to reclaim.

Lachlan Brown

Lachlan Brown is an entrepreneur and co-founder of Brown Brothers Media, a digital publishing network reaching tens of millions of readers monthly. He holds a Graduate Diploma of Psychological Studies from Deakin University, though his real education came afterward: a warehouse job shifting TVs, a stretch of anxiety in his mid-twenties, and the slow discovery that studying the mind is not the same as learning how to live well. He started experimenting with Buddhist principles during breaks at the warehouse and eventually began writing about what he was learning. That writing became Hack Spirit, a widely read personal development site, and his book Hidden Secrets of Buddhism became a bestseller. His work breaks down complex ideas into frameworks people can apply immediately, whether they are navigating a career change, a difficult relationship, or the gap between knowing what to do and actually doing it. Lachlan splits his time between Singapore and Saigon. He writes about high-performance routines, decision-making under pressure, digital innovation, and the intersection of Eastern philosophy with modern life. His perspective comes from having built things from scratch, failed at some of them, and learned that clarity comes from practice, not theory.