Is Simplifying Ever Simple?

Ok - so I'm on a quest (yet again) to simplify my life. I have a to-do list started and am adding to it as I think of things - and at the top of this list are my convoluted Yahoo Groups memberships. You see, over the years I've created three yahoo email accounts and have subscribed to several groups under each one. This strategy made sense at the time but has long since outlived its usefulness. It's been so long, in fact, that I'm not sure I even know how to sign in to one of them. And I'm only active on a couple of groups, and that's intermittent, so . . . Anyway, I figure I'd just go in and delete everything, right?

WRONG!

Well, I finally get into obsolete account #1 and guess what? It's tied to my facebook account. That's right - since I joined fb a year or so ago, every time someone posted on someone's wall or made any of the countless other moves on fb that trigger an email, that's where it went. I'm up to 900 or so - and that's just because I only have a few dozen friends. So I obviously can't delete the Yahoo account in question or I'll be getting all that crap on my real email. Not good!

Why is it So Hard to Simplify?

Let's face it - it's very easy to get way too much going on. Sometimes it's conscious and sometimes things just slip by unnoticed at the time. Then all of a sudden, the realization hits - THIS IS CRAZY!

Yearning for a simpler life seems to be common these days. Just about everyone I know personally wants to cut back on clutter - material possessions, activities that take up so much precious time, digital and mental clutter, etc. So I've been spending a little time on the blogs of like-minded folks for inspiration and motivation.

Getting started paring down any area of your life is tough but following through and letting go is often even more difficult. That's why simplifying is so hard. And then there are the unforeseen roadblocks, like my yahoo and facebook accounts being tied together.

What To Do?

So what are my options? Well, I could just delete the Yahoo account, but I think that would have consequences that serve to complicate rather than simplify. I could leave everything as-is, but then I've made no progress whatsoever. I think my best course is to immediately eliminate what I can (900+email messages and five groups) and then work toward slowly transition elsewhere everything that I need to keep.

How are you simplifying your life?