The productivity trap: why doing less leads to achieving more

I sometimes find myself feeling like I’m running on a productivity treadmill that just keeps getting faster, and I can do nothing about it.

This comes from feeling that I need to be everything to everyone: the perfect parent, a high-performing professional, a dedicated runner, and an aspiring blogger. There are times during the year when there feels like there simply isn’t enough time in the day.  There’s so much I must do and I want to do.  I’ve got big goals that I want to acheive.  Something has to give…but it feels hard to admit that.

The wake-up call

I recently finished reading Oliver Burkeman‘s “4,000 Weeks” (loved it – easy 4 stars for me) and one section in there nailed it for me. His words resonated really deeply:

“We rarely stop to consider things so rationally, though, because that would mean confronting the painful truth of our limitations. We would be forced to acknowledge that there are hard choices to be made: which balls to let drop, which people to disappoint, which cherished ambitions to abandon, which roles to fail at. Maybe you can’t keep your current job while also seeing enough of your children; maybe making sufficient time in the week for your creative calling means you’ll never have an especially tidy home, or get quite as much exercise as you should, and so on. Instead, in an attempt to avoid these unpleasant truths, we deploy the strategy that dominates most conventional advice on how to deal with busyness: we tell ourselves we’ll just have to find a way to do more – to try to address our busyness, you could say, by making ourselves busier still.”

This challenged what I believed about productivity and self-improvement.

The myth of doing it all

I’m starting to question if we’ve been sold a lie that we can have it all if we just optimise our lives enough – wake up earlier, go to bed later, find the perfect productivity system, download all the right apps to manage tasks for you etc.  I’ve immersed myself in all of this, trust me.  And to some degree, this is still important, but reading 4,000 weeks, it has helped me learn that this approach is like trying to fill a leaking bucket really, by pouring more water in.

The real answer isn’t doing more – it’s doing less, but better.

Practical steps to scale back and thrive

Burkeman suggests many useful fixes, but on reflection, I think these are key:

1. 1. 1. Choose your ‘big rocks’ (or golf balls in the reel below): pick the really important priorities that truly matter to you right now. For me at the moment, it’s dealing with a busy day job, and really trying to prioritise and fit in my fitness during the week around everything else going on.
      2. Practice ‘strategic incompetence’: choose areas in your life where you’ll deliberately be “just okay.” I wish my car was cleaner than it currently is, but I need to learn to live with that.
      3. Time-block your priorities: give your important activities dedicated time slots during your day / week. Sit down once a week and set out the week ahead and make sure that you protect these like you would a crucial meeting.
      4. Embrace the power of no: Start saying “no” to good opportunities so you can say “yes” to great ones (that align with your big rocks). I know that’s not easy, but it’s necessary if you want to make progress and stay sane at the same time!

Jesse Itzler (currently obsessed with consuming podcasts with him on!!) sums it up perfectly on the Joe Rogan podcast:

 

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The 1% approach to doing less

Here’s the key paradox: when you start to focus on fewer things, you truly make more progress.  Start by eliminating one small commitment this week and notice how that extra space feels. Use it to go deeper into what truly matters to you (your big rocks).

Remember: Progress isn’t about adding more rocks in your jar. It’s about carefully choosing what makes it in and what doesn’t – pick your big rocks carefully!

 

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