My new discovery about Dutch way of life includes rounding the change in the shops – they don’t have one or two pence coins, only five pence and up. So if you spend, say, 2.62, then they count it as 2.60. Or if you spend 2.64, you pay 2.65.

I actually find this very smart! How have we not thought of that in the UK? I mean everyone hates 1 and 2 pence coins, carrying all that metal, why not get rid of them completely? On the other hand, if one were to think bigger, retailers could get rid of uneven prices completely. We could live in the world where all prices could be multiples of 5 or 10.

I strongly believe that small and smart things like this are what makes us happy, as a society. Not getting boggled down in the minutiae and instead getting a bird’s eye view and saying, hey, why don’t we do it in a more practical way? Simplicity is not just genius, simplification is also a direct way to happiness.

I love simplifying things, have been doing it for some time. Try this today – simplify something. In your home, affairs, life. See how it feels. Let me know.

PS: I can not leave this without comment, as a former financial services person, the UK is heading there in a different way – through rapid development of contactless and NFC payments. So in the very near future, British may not care about 1, 2 or 5 pence change completely and leave it to credit card companies instead.