Presents guidelines that show managers how to cope with complexities by focusing on essentials in areas such as management, leadership, marketing, long-term planning, and motivation.

Today’s busier, faster society is waging an undeclared war on childhood. With too much stuff, too many choices, and too little time, children can become anxious, have trouble with friends and school, or even be diagnosed with behavioral problems. Now internationally renowned family consultant Kim John Payne helps parents reclaim for their children the space and freedom that all kids need for their attention to deepen and their individuality to flourish. Simplicity Parenting offers inspiration, ideas, and a blueprint for change: • Streamline your home environment. Reduce the amount of toys, books, and clutter—as well as the lights, sounds, and general sensory overload. • Establish rhythms and rituals. Discover ways to ease daily tensions, create battle-free mealtimes and bedtimes, and tell if your child is overwhelmed. • Schedule a break in the schedule. Establish intervals of calm and connection in your child’s daily torrent of constant doing. • Scale back on media and parental involvement. Manage your children’s “screen time” to limit the endless deluge of information and stimulation. A manifesto for protecting the grace of childhood, Simplicity Parenting is an eloquent guide to bringing new rhythms to bear on the lifelong art of raising children.

Combining the rational, logical instincts of the left brain with the passionate and artful skills of the right brain, this book offers a leadership approach that is both highly effective and deeply inspirational. Perfect for anyone assuming a leadership position, it presents simple solutions on such topics as effective collaboration, achieving goals, leadership styles, team-building, inspiring people to success, and more.

Ten laws of simplicity for business, technology, and design that teach us how to need less but get more. Finally, we are learning that simplicity equals sanity. We're rebelling against technology that's too complicated, DVD players with too many menus, and software accompanied by 75-megabyte "read me" manuals. The iPod's clean gadgetry has made simplicity hip. But sometimes we find ourselves caught up in the simplicity paradox: we want something that's simple and easy to use, but also does all the complex things we might ever want it to do. In The Laws of Simplicity, John Maeda offers ten laws for balancing simplicity and complexity in business, technology, and design—guidelines for needing less and actually getting more. Maeda—a professor in MIT's Media Lab and a world-renowned graphic designer—explores the question of how we can redefine the notion of "improved" so that it doesn't always mean something more, something added on. Maeda's first law of simplicity is "Reduce." It's not necessarily beneficial to add technology features just because we can. And the features that we do have must be organized (Law 2) in a sensible hierarchy so users aren't distracted by features and functions they don't need. But simplicity is not less just for the sake of less. Skip ahead to Law 9: "Failure: Accept the fact that some things can never be made simple." Maeda's concise guide to simplicity in the digital age shows us how this idea can be a cornerstone of organizations and their products—how it can drive both business and technology. We can learn to simplify without sacrificing comfort and meaning, and we can achieve the balance described in Law 10. This law, which Maeda calls "The One," tells us: "Simplicity is about subtracting the obvious, and adding the meaningful."

Interior designer Nancy Braithwaite’s long-awaited first book is a striking tutorial in the power of simplicity in design. In the world of interior design, Nancy Braithwaite is known for her single-minded devotion to the principle that has guided her work for more than forty years: simplicity. Braithwaite’s work is luxuriously minimalist, its beauty inextricably tied to its Shaker-like purity. While her work varies from art deco to country, the underlying rules remain the same: every element should strive to be simple and powerful without compromise, and every room must have a level of power that comes from commanding scale, repetition of elements, subtleties of color, or the sheer beauty of forms. In Braithwaite’s world, excess is not opulent. Simplicity is opulent. Braithwaite takes the reader deep into her singular vision. Divided into five sections, the book begins with her manifesto on simplicity and the aspects of design used to achieve it, including architecture, scale, color, texture, pattern, and composition. She then presents three categories of style—country, classic, and contemporary—and explains and illustrates each with iconic rooms from her portfolio. Finally, she presents several houses as case studies, displaying the power of these principles in action and emphasizing the importance of craftsmanship in design, from a stunning modern seaside retreat on Kiawah Island, South Carolina, to her unforgettable country house in Atlanta.

In The Power of Simplicity, Danny Lanier writes about his own experience growing up in rural Alabama and the lessons he learned while becoming a successful financial executive at AT&T and Lucent Technologies. He believes that life experience shapes us and inspires our ultimate success. Each of us has what he calls an X-factor that is a unique quality capable of propelling us beyond our expectations. Readers will learn how Lanier discovered his X-factor and how it played a critical role in his success. It will inspire you to discover your own X-factor and unlock your potential forever!

Which activities give you energy and connect you with God? Do you know what behaviors are life-draining for you, separating you from God? In this book Jan Johnson provides small experiments with simplicity as well as questions for discussion or reflection to help you discover the unhurried rhythms of grace.