I owe a great deal to Leo Babauta.

Before discovering Zen Habits while web surfing a few years back, I’d never paid any attention to blogs, thinking they were merely somewhat exhibitionist online diaries. Leo changed all that for me.

It helped that at the time he was talking a lot about David Allen’s Getting Things Done, exploring it, and developing his own stripped-down version, Zen To Done. I’m a productivity and systems geek. I was hooked.

But mainly what Leo did for me was show me that a blog could be topical, useful, and interesting…and make me think, “Hey! I could do that, too!”

So I was happy to hear of his just-released book, Focus: A Simplicity Manifesto in the Age of Distraction, and I downloaded the free version within minutes of hitting the page. As I waited for the download to finish, I noticed where he’d written, “…you’re free to review the book, give away the free version on your blog, or interview me.”

Considering that Leo is almost singlehandedly responsible for opening me up to the world of blogging, I jumped at the chance to interview him. Then, in the midst of thinking about what I wanted to ask him, it struck me that I’d rather give  my readers the opportunity to do the asking.

So thanks to everyone who shared with me what they wanted to ask Leo! They’re great questions..and here are the answers.

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Q: Leo, I know you’re an advocate of gradual, one-step-at-a-time change. But sometimes we really do get jolted by unexpected insights or new ways of thinking. Since starting Zen Habits, have you had any “lightbulb” moments when something just clicked for you suddenly? Even if you didn’t do anything about it right away?

Leo: I have those moments all the time. That’s what I love about life—there’s never any shortage of things to learn!

Some examples:  the amazing connection that you can form with readers and other bloggers when you start a blog, the way that blogging forces you to reflect on your life and what you’ve learned, the difficulty and joy in finding a way to communicate what you’ve learned clearly so that readers can understand and put it into action, the joy of giving up goals for your business, the passion I’ve found for what I’m doing, the power of stripping down my site to nothing but the content. I could go on all day.

Q: I’m currently reading Focus, and unsurprisingly, I think the content is fantastic. But I’m curious—what was your process for choosing and organizing the material in it?

Leo: I started with the issues I face with finding focus, and the solutions that have worked for me. I expanded with some of the broader philosophical things I’ve been exploring and learning about.

Then I asked readers to share some of their problems, and the holes that I didn’t cover, and they responded brilliantly. I wrote a bunch of chapters to address these problems and holes, and I think it turned out much better than if I hadn’t gotten feedback from readers.

Q: One of my readers would like to know what advice you would give someone with a pattern of all-or-nothing thinking, who gets overwhelmed by everything (s)he thinks (s)he has to do, and can’t imagine tackling only one small change at a time? Someone who thinks, “At that rate, I’ll never get anywhere”?

Leo: I’d suggest a little experiment: one week, try tackling everything you want to tackle at once. The next week, force yourself to make one small change and do only that. Repeat this experiment once more if you dare. See which works better. I don’t know which will work best, but it would be fun to find out.

Q: Another reader asks, “How can we convert intellectual understanding into action? I know everything up here (taps head), but I have such a hard time implementing it!”

Leo: You don’t really understand something until you do it. I conduct little experiments of 1 or 2 weeks, sometimes up to a month. I say, “What would happen if I try this?”

And then I see what happens—sometimes I “fail”, but actually it’s a successful experiment because I’ve learned something. So I suggest you approach it by putting everything you learn to a practical test—a 1 or 2 week experiment—and see what you can learn from actually doing.

Q: Here’s another insightful one—“I love the idea of rewarding myself for building positive habits, but the kinds of simple pleasures you talk about are actually hard work for me. I get antsy and uncomfortable just sitting and enjoying a sunset, or walking without my mp3 player, etc. What are some absolute baby steps for amped-up, anxious people who find stillness scary?”

Leo: It might be interesting to explore why you’re afraid of stillness. What are you afraid might happen? What’s stopping you from giving it a try, and enjoying it? Be completely honest with yourself or you’re wasting your time.

If you can figure out your fear, you’re bringing it out into the light. Then you need to shine more light on it:  is it really real? Test it out with a small test:  sit still for one minute, and see what happens. Did your fears come true? If not, maybe the fear isn’t grounded in reality—try a slightly longer test, and so on, until you gain the confidence needed to toss the fear aside.

Another important thing: find ways to be still or quiet that you actually enjoy. If you don’t like sunsets, maybe you like a quiet bath, or a massage from your spouse, or reading a good novel, or doing some yoga, or looking at art. There are so many ways to find beauty in stillness—if you haven’t found it, keep looking.

Q: A reader wants to know, “What role does fine art play in a lifestyle that values simplicity and decluttering?”

Leo: Simplify and declutter so that the fine art may stand out, so that you may enjoy it more fully.

A painting in your home, for example, is much better appreciated if it isn’t surrounded by clutter. Great music is better enjoyed when you’ve found the stillness and quiet that doesn’t distract from the music. A beautiful novel is best experienced when you’re able to shut off technology and disconnect for a little while. By simplifying, you find the time and space to enjoy art.

Q: And finally, someone asked a personal question. She’d like to know how your recent move to San Francisco has affected your own life’s simplicity and focus? (I’m going to tack on my own question, since I live here, too, and ask you what the biggest surprise has been for you about San Francisco?)

Leo: The process of finding simplicity and focus are the same no matter where you are—they just allow you to enjoy wherever you are that much better.

Guam is a very different place than San Francisco, and I love the differences between the two wonderful places, but in the end, I still love writing, spending time with my family, reading, getting outside and getting active, taking walks, enjoying simple food. That hasn’t changed, but the nature and people and food have.

The biggest surprise … hmmm. I can’t really think of anything, except the Giants making it to the World Series! I’ve been a Giants fan since I was a teen-ager, so this has been incredible. Other than that, I came into the city without expectations, so no surprises or disappointments. Everything has been perfect.

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Considering that last answer, it’s definitely fitting that as I sit here finalizing this post for publication tomorrow morning, the San Francisco Giants have just won the world series. I can hear the fireworks and happy yelling through my open window right now. (Go, Giants!)

Thank you, Leo, for agreeing to this interview and responding so quickly to my request. You’re a blogger and a gentleman.

And thanks once again to those who contributed their questions. Feel free to continue the conversation in the comments!

If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you’ve probably noticed something.

I am very drawn to the ideals of voluntary simplicity.

 This is one of my interests passions obsessions. I have an aesthetic sensibility that leans strongly toward minimalism, and the fact that this isn’t very apparent where I live causes me mental and emotional stress.

I’ve come to realize that’s just one more facet of my perfectionism.

Despite the fact that I own less than the average person (I share a rented apartment and basically live out of my bedroom), I still feel like I have too much stuff, and I’m always trying to whittle it down even more.

But I’ve got nothing on this guy.

I’m officially in awe of Jay Shafer and his 96-square-foot home.

Actually, he has since gotten married and had a child, so they’ve moved into a 500-square-foot home, with his little one pulled up next to it. Still pretty darn small, though, since the size of the average home in the U.S. was a little over 2,300 square feet as of 2004, according to the National Association of Home Builders.

Jay now creates plans and builds tiny houses for others through his Tumbleweed Tiny House Company, and says that the demand for them is growing. (In fact, his house is featured on Yahoo’s front page today, and the server is so busy I can’t even get through to the site now.)

On the face of it, these little homes look like the ultimate in simple living.

But that ignores what the foremost proponents of voluntary simplicity say. For example, the front page of The Simple Living Network tells us that “…simple living is not about poverty or self-inflicted deprivation. Rather, it is about living an examined life—one in which you determine what is important and enough for you, and discard the rest.”

I like that a lot.

Jay Shafer has examined his life and figured out that he can live in extremely tiny houses. Me? I’m kind of claustrophobic, and a house I could walk through in ten steps or less would drive me nuts. Even if I were to succeed at something like The 100 Things Challenge, I’d still need some physical breathing room around me.

And then there are my books. That’s the one area where I have trouble minimizing, because I do read them again and again. I’ve long since gotten rid of the ones I don’t—and even some of the ones I do. I just ended up buying those again.

I think those of us with overly self-controlling and perfectionistic tendencies need to be careful not to (*cough*) over-complicate voluntary simplicity. Or any other movement.

As I often like to say (apparently agreeing with Julia Child in the bargain), “Everything in moderation–including moderation.”

Because the one area where we really do need to be minimalistic is in our methods of self-flagellation. We’re too good at that already.

It’s far too easy for us to tell ourselves that we must meet some arbitrarily created “simplicity standard,” such as living in a wee little house or owning a certain number of things.

But simplicity and minimalism are really about finding your own answer to the question of what is enough for you.

I find that walking this line is a challenging balancing act. What about you? How do you determine what’s truly necessary in your life? Please share in the comments—I’m very interested in hearing your thoughts and experiences!

Today’s blog post is brought to you by the term wabi-sabi.

No, it’s not something you would order at your neighborhood sushi bar. Nor is it a new character in a manga comic book. It’s a Japanese compound word which describes an entire philosophy and aesthetic in four simple syllables.

You’ve got to love the Japanese for being so elegantly efficient.

A little Internet research reveals the inevitable drama and conflict—some say that the two words wabi and sabi should never be used together. (Neither word translates directly into English. Wabi holds connotations of loneliness, rustic simplicity, humility, and quietude; sabi refers to imperfection, the aging process, and the interest these lend to things.) Others decry the new popularization of wabi-sabi in the West, and its commoditization as a new “style” in architecture, interior design, and the like.

So here’s my disclaimer. I’ve spent maybe 30-45 minutes looking into the term, and it’s pretty much guaranteed that I’m not going to do justice to the subtlety and richness of the concepts involved. But since the object of this blog is to highlight the practice of imperfection, it feels like it would be very humble-and-imperfect of me to continue.

Of all the discussions I found online, this is my favorite. From the first two paragraphs:

Pared down to its barest essence, wabi-sabi is the Japanese art of finding beauty in imperfection and profundity in nature, of accepting the natural cycle of growth, decay, and death. It’s simple, slow, and uncluttered—and it reveres authenticity above all. Wabi-sabi is flea markets, not warehouse stores; aged wood, not Pergo; rice paper, not glass. It celebrates cracks and crevices and all the other marks that time, weather, and loving use leave behind. . . . Wabi-sabi is underplayed and modest, the kind of quiet, undeclared beauty that waits patiently to be discovered. . . . It’s a richly mellow beauty that’s striking but not obvious, that you can imagine having around you for a long, long time . . .

I started this blog to talk about perfection and imperfection, but in my mind, they keep bringing me back to concepts like clarity, simplification, and authenticity. There’s a close relationship between these things and allowing myself to let go of my need for perfection, and that’s why I was excited to find a strongly resonant term that ties them all together.

But there’s also a paradox. I have a personal aesthetic that is very wabi-sabi on its surface—my dream house, for instance, would contain lots of grainy wood and irregular stone and earthy-looking fabric and soft, natural tones and comfy furniture you could put your feet on, and very little plastic and shimmer and glitter and ruler-straight lines and loud colors and modular, matched fixtures.

My desire to pare down my personal possessions to only those things I truly need, love, or both also seems to fit the wabi-sabi philosophy very well.

But I’m forever wanting to declutter, organize, buy things that look artfully distressed, and otherwise force-fit my space and my belongings into the spare, uncluttered, and peacefully serene picture I have in my head.

In other words, I think I have a romanticized notion of imperfection.

Ouch.

Rather than trying to fit myself into an idealized image of what I think imperfection “should” look like, wouldn’t it be more authentic and humble and mentally/emotionally quiet and peaceful of me to simply accept that my space doesn’t look like I want it to, and make changes slowly as I can without beating myself up over the fact that it’s all . . . erm, not perfectly imperfect yet?

This new revelation actually came about as I was writing this post. Yay! Fresh insight! Now I just have to let it percolate for a while.

I guess what it all means is that (cough) I would like to lobby for making wabi-sabi not just a hobby, but a part of my regular jobbie.

(And if I haven’t just scared you off with that, feel free to comment!)