Less Is More
Do you want to achieve more in life? Would you believe me if I told you that the first step is to do less? Read on to find out why, for most people, this is the best way to start.
Many people will have so many things to do in a day; go to work, do the shopping, see friends and family, walk the dog, get the toilet fixed, clean the house. These things are what most people would consider to be day to day things that are a part of their lives. So if you start fitting in exercising, reading, personal business, hobbies, relationships you can imagine why people start to feel overwhelmed in life.
People will often start their self-mastery and self-progression journeys by starting a new habit and adding it into their daily lives. However, if you’re already feeling stressed by your current lifestyle and routine how could you possibly fit more in? Some people do but often it becomes a chore and additional work causes them more stress and for many they give up and quit. So how do you avoid this?
The answer is making more time by doing less of the things that aren’t productive towards your goals and self-mastery. Do you want to lose weight and become healthier and fitter? Stop going out every possible night and drinking loads of alcohol. Do you want to read more and learn something new? Stop binge watching TV shows and movies and wasting hours of your day.
Time is the only resource we share the same amount of equally. How we choose to spend that time is the only difference between people. The more time you spend doing productive activities the more successful you’ll be.
I suffered from this as a young man. I wasn’t aware enough to see that every night I went out drinking with my friends was taking me further and further away from my own goals. I would drink loads of alcohol, which would hinder my fitness and finances, and then wake up the next day hungover. Not only did I lose progress in my pursuit of fitness, health and money that night I also lost most of the next day being hungover. This occurred for years. The amount of time I lost in pursuing my own goals and self-mastery could have been used to improve myself and my life now would most likely be very different.
If you want to get more time back in the day for more productive things then here is what you need to do. First you need to know your goal, what it is you want to achieve. You can use your goal to work out what actions you need to take and what habits to create for each day. Then you have to take note of all the things you do in the day. You can create a list or write a journal, anything that you can look at and see what you spend your time and energy doing. Now go through your current list/journal and figure out all the things you do that take you away from your goal.
This comes with a degree of realism. You can’t quit your job if it’s your only source of income and your new goal and actions won’t replace that. But if you’re going to be building a business and your job is what’s stopping you from growing the business it may be something to consider.
A good way to do this is by creating a plan for your day and seeing what you spend your time doing and when and then seeing where you can make time and be most productive. You can read more on this in the article titled: How to win the day and be more productive. This not only helps you to choose what you spend your time doing but also how to plan it into your day to get the most out of your time.
Before you go ahead and wipe the slate completely clean, first be aware that this will take time to learn, practice, and master. If you have spent the last 3, 5, or 10 years spending hours of the day watching TV, playing video games, or socialising with friends these habits will be ingrained in you. This is where the hard work comes in. You need to find a way to break those habits. Some people can go like a flip of a switch and change. Others need more progressive adaptation until they’ve made a full transition into the new habits. If you need to progress slowly make sure that you complete all the productive work first before consuming anything that isn’t productive.
One thing to note when cutting out all the unproductive habits you do is that you can still enjoy life and relax. This may sound hypocritical to what I’ve just said but understand that removing bad habits isn’t that they will ruin your life in any amount. It’s that most people will not do the work they need to achieve success because they are busy doing unproductive things. With this in mind if you can wholeheartedly say that you have completed every task you need to complete in the day and you have free time at the end of the day watching 30 mins of a TV show will not ruin you. The issue is that most people will binge watch 2-3 hours worth instead of going to the gym, reading their book, building their business. As long as you’ve done the work you can relax and enjoy the free time you have made. You may even find that with time you’ll come to enjoy the productive things more to the point your way of relaxing is to do more of the things that are productive towards your journey of self-mastery.