Simplify Your Work Life
By Elaine St. James
Hyperion
304 pp $15.95

Elaine St. James used to have a typically hectic career full of pointless meetings, long workdays, and tight schedules. Then she discovered simplicity. Or, to be more precise, she discovered a market for books about simplicity.

A few years back, St. James quit her job in real estate and settled down to write the best-selling book Simplify Your Life. Four other books quickly followed, including Living the Simple Life and Inner Simplicity. Negotiations for Simplify Your Inner Simplicity are presumably under way. For now, St. James has given us Simplify Your Work Life, another logical step in the series. After all, she shed the burden of the 60-hour week, so why shouldn't you?

Early on, we learn the key to a fulfilling, low-stress career: Work fewer hours. And don't worry about the money. As St. James illustrates, shortening your workweek can be a great financial move. "When I simplified my life and cut back to forty hours a week, I doubled my income; when I cut my workweek to thirty hours, I quintupled it," she says. To paraphrase, your life would be a whole lot simpler and more rewarding if you quit your crappy job and wrote a best-selling book.

Taking the clutter out of your work life is unquestionably a noble goal. The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health reports that 25 percent of all Americans say their jobs are the most stressful part of their lives. Who wouldn't want to streamline their job and save more time and energy for home life? If you need a little help getting started, Simplify Your Work Life might be worth a quick read. Even if you don't find much useful information, you'll definitely get a few laughs.

St. James divides her book into 85 sections, but she could fit all of her advice under three different headings. One section could be called "Practical Information That Might Actually Help." The next would be "You Can Shorten Your Commute by Moving Closer to Work, and Other Stunningly Obvious Observations." And then there's the third section, the one that really sets this book apart: "Goofy Advice from Planet Bizarro."

First, the practical stuff. St. James recommends setting firm boundaries between work and home. As soon you leave the office, work should be the last thing on your mind. If you're an overstressed office worker, stop working nights and weekends. If you're always taking work home with you, you need to be more efficient during the day. If you find it nearly impossible to leave your briefcase at the office, she says, start by leaving it there one or two nights a week.

St. James also offers tips to help you become more efficient, although the advice doesn't apply to everyone. If you're flipping burgers or cutting down trees for a living, you can skip the section on personal data assistants.

Still, many of her observations rang true for me. I'd get much more done if I cleared my work space of distractions, blocked out a specific part of each day for business calls ("It's almost impossible to be productive and creative when you're constantly interrupted by a ringing phone," she says), and checked my e-mail just once a day ("Just because inflow is constant and instantaneous doesn't mean your responses have to be.") It would also help if I could learn how to say no. ("Write a book review? Sounds interesting, but ...")

St. James devotes a good portion of the book to financial advice. This apparent sidetrack is justified in two ways. First, you wouldn't need to work so hard if you spent less. Second, her work-related advice wouldn't come close to filling a book.

Regardless of her motives, she makes a good point: No matter how much you earn, you have to live below your means. "Someone who makes $200,000 but spends $250,000 is far less wealthy than someone who makes $50,000 but spends $40,000," she says. St. James urges her readers to plan their budgets carefully, forgo fancy cars and houses, pay off the balances on credit cards every month, and save as much as possible. No one could argue with that.

But this particular best-selling author may be out of touch with real-life finances. First of all, she warns readers not to transfer debts from high-interest-rate credit cards to cards with lower rates. She follows this blatantly bad advice with the following observation: "Remember, the typical millionaire doesn't make all that much more than you do. In fact, many probably make less." That's right, all of you elementary school teachers and police officers out there. You make more than most millionaires, so quit complaining.

Her collection of blindingly obvious observations makes for fun reading. For starters, she suggests going to fewer meetings. The idea here -- try to follow now -- is that you'll have more time to be productive if you spend less time in meetings. She also advises readers to keep their desks organized, pay attention to details, and learn how to use their computers. And, of course, you should cut back on those hours. She heartily recommends a six-month sabbatical. You'll really enjoy the time off and come back to work refreshed, she says.

A reminder: This book sells for $15.95. For that money, you'll also get a trip to a strange world, a place where office buildings ring with fake laughter. St. James prescribes five minutes of forced belly laughs as a sure-fire cure for stress. She even encourages her colleagues to join in a laugh session before every meeting. Picture your team sitting around the conference table, laughing on cue for five minutes. Now picture somebody picking up the phone to call the authorities.

And that's just the beginning. If your energy starts to flag, "thump your thymus gland" -- in the middle of the meeting, if necessary. And, she adds, when faced with a particularly thorny business decision, stand up and relax. If your body leans forward, the answer is yes. If it leans backward, the answer is no. Your days of carefully studying the pros and cons of each situation are over.

St. James also tells us to tap into the power of our subconscious minds. "Your subconscious mind is like an employee available to work for you around the clock," she says. While most people's subconscious minds stay busy cooking up dreams, hers is apparently filling out spreadsheets.

With her Simplify series, St. James has tapped into a national hunger for a less cluttered, more serene life. Her latest work, however, offers few real solutions. In the end, the best way to simplify your work life is to do your job really well. But that's a whole different book.

-- Chris Woolston, M.S., is a health and medical writer with a master's degree in biology. He is a contributing editor at Consumer Health Interactive, and was the staff writer at Hippocrates, a magazine for physicians. He has also covered science issues for Time Inc. Health, WebMD, and the Chronicle of Higher Education. His reporting on occupational health earned him an award from the northern California Society of Professional Journalists.

First published September 13, 2001
Last updated December 7, 2007
Copyright © 2001 Consumer Health Interactive

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