Doing More with Less
At the beginning of the year, I experienced a lot of worries. A lot of things in my life were changing. I was for example moving out and undergoing a job transition. There was a lot of uncertainty, fear, and anxiety. I wanted to fight all these unwanted feelings. So, I asked myself: What do I do? How can I do more? How can I be more productive and do something about my situation? How can I be more efficient, more perfect?
The questions are burning ones in a time of economics where productivity is key to success. I don't think that perfection and especially efficiency is about doing more. It is not about doing less. Perfection and efficiency are when you can't take anything away from what you're doing. Everything you do more is unnecessary. You can still be a productive person. Doing the bare minimum has nothing to do with laziness. Nowadays being busy is just another form of laziness. Being overwhelmed is often as unproductive as doing nothing and is far more unpleasant. Being selective - doing less - is the path of the efficient, productive, and perfectionists. Being efficient means you have set goals clearly. You focus on the important few things and ignore the rest. If you stay efficient and execute plans with this new way of perfection, it will also ensure that what you do is close to your heart and desire. Ask yourself how can I achieve the goal with less? When it is not something that you really want, you will do less than is needed to achieve the goal and you can refocus on what you want. If you take on goals with the mindset of modern society and do more and more, you will reach the goal, but you will also feel exhausted and it doesn't feel good either. Perfection and efficiency are not about how can I do more! It is how can I achieve my goal with less and asking questions like; Am I being productive or just active?
It is not laziness. It is only doing less meaningless work so that you can focus on things that are of greater importance to you. Our modern 9 to 5’s are the perfect example. Doing less is hard to accept because our culture tends to reward personal sacrifice instead of personal productivity. To live an uncommon life we have to take uncommon actions. In a world where living a satisfying life is uncommon, we might need to take actions that seemed to be disapproved by our society. If you feel stuck it might be the right time to dig again for a purpose... How can I do the same with less?
Book —> ‘The 4-hour work week’ by Tim Ferris
Book —>‘The little prince’ by Antoine de Saint-Exupery