Doing Less

2023-07-02

I’ve mentioned how I enjoy having less, but I’ve been realizing that I also enjoy doing less. Doing fewer different things at any one specific moment, or at any one specific day.

When I aim to do less I actually do more.

Productivity is usually seen as maximizing the number of things that you do in a given time. Kevin Kelly however, prefers to see productivity as maximizing the amount of time you spend doing the things you most want to do.

Since the moment I heard it I loved this perspective. So similar, yet so fundamentally different from its “standard” definition.

The goal is still to maximize, to prioritize. But it’s no longer the number of things, rather it’s the amount of time you spend on the selected few things that you most want to do.

You no longer rush to finish each thing so that you can do another. Now you take the time, the most you can, to do the one thing you’re now doing. You prioritize the process over the finish line.

Yet another scenario where less, for me, prevails.