Joshua Keel

Less but better

April 30, 2021

Feeling overwhelmed? What if the answer isn’t becoming more productive? What if trying to do it all is what’s burning you out in the first place?

Let’s try a different tack. What’s truly essential? What items on your todo list seem important, but don’t actually take you where you want to be?

Reversing the question, what are two or three things that would really make a difference in your life, if you could do them?

Do those things, and leave the rest aside.

Reflect on your life. Give it space. If you’re constantly striving to be “productive”, but you don’t ever seem to get anywhere, try stepping off that treadmill.

Many of the things you think you need to do can be dismissed as unimportant. Others can be postponed until the essential work has been accomplished. And if you can’t stop doing it, or wait on it, trade money for time by paying someone else to do it.

At the end of your life, will you say to yourself, “you know, I really wish I had mown the lawn more often”? Or, will you wish you had spent your life creating more, sharing more, doing the meaningful, high-impact work only you can do?

Do less, but do it better.