Notes on doing fewer things

A little over a year ago, I made a list of everything I was committed to. Work projects, side projects, volunteer roles, recurring calls, newsletters I’d promised to write, hobbies I felt I should be keeping up. The list ran to two pages.

Then I asked a simple question of every item: if this disappeared tomorrow, would I be relieved or disappointed?

More than half the list fell into the first category.

What I let go

I didn’t quit everything overnight. Some commitments needed to be wound down gracefully, and a few took months to hand off. But one by one, the list got shorter. I left two committees. I stopped a side project that had been “almost finished” for three years. I unsubscribed from almost every newsletter and turned off nearly all notifications.

The hardest part wasn’t the work of stepping away. It was the feeling that I was letting people down, or worse, becoming less interesting.

What I gained

The most obvious gain was time, but that turned out to be the least important one. What really changed was attention.

With fewer things competing for my focus, I could actually finish what I started. I read whole books again. I cooked more. I had long conversations without checking the clock. My work got better, not because I was working more, but because I was working on fewer things at once.

Busy is a choice we keep making without noticing we’re choosing.

What I missed

It would be dishonest to say there were no downsides. I missed some of the people I used to see at those meetings. A few opportunities passed me by that I would once have jumped at. And there were weeks when the extra space felt less like freedom and more like boredom.

But boredom, I’ve come to think, is underrated. It’s the feeling right before an idea.

A few rules I kept

• One big project at a time. Everything else is maintenance.
• A week’s notice for new commitments. If it still sounds good in seven days, it might be worth doing.
• An empty afternoon every week. No plans, no errands, no screens if I can help it.

Doing fewer things hasn’t made my life smaller. If anything, it’s made the parts that remain feel larger and more vivid. I’d make the same list again tomorrow.