Achieve Success by Doing Less

Think success requires hard work? Think again. It’s not about how much you do, but what you focus on. Learn how doing less can lead to greater success.

Less is more — Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

Doing Less: A Social Taboo

Tell someone they don’t work hard, and they’ll likely get defensive, explaining why they do indeed work hard. This reaction is understandable.

Working hard is valued and seen as a virtue. It’s perfectly acceptable to work tirelessly on entirely pointless tasks. Dedicate yourself to things that neither benefit you nor the planet. As long as you work hard, people will approve of you, and that approval is precious for many.

However, everyone is sometimes lazy, and laziness is far from a virtue. So, when we are lazy, we feel ashamed and think we must work hard.

Talking about working less is entering new territory. We are challenging societal norms passed down from our ancestors. Doing less is taboo because those who do less are seen as lazy, and laziness is viewed negatively.

Think success requires hard work?

Think again.
It's not about how much you do, but what you focus on.

Learn how doing less can lead to greater success.

— Jolanda de Koff (@Jolandadekoff) June 17, 2024

We Know: Less is More

“Less is more” is a beautiful and true saying, but it feels counterintuitive. Our culture believes in “more is more.” And it’s true: doing more means more tasks, and having more means more things. The misunderstanding lies in the value we place on more.

The common belief is that more is better. We think having more, doing more, and being more improves our quality of life. However, natural laws disagree.

Let me explain. I love coffee. I prefer good coffee to drinking a lot of coffee (which my body doesn’t appreciate). So, I got an espresso machine. Delicious coffee, excellent to look at, all good. However, having an espresso machine also means increased complexity. The machine broke. Now, I must deal with calls, warranty, shipping, and waiting.

That’s extra work I wouldn’t have had if I had made coffee with a more straightforward method. The additional complexity brings extra work. Sometimes, this extra work is worth it (good coffee is essential to me). Sometimes, the extra work adds nothing to your life, but you do it anyway because it appears.

Unnecessary work doesn’t make you more successful or happier. It just makes you busier. And more busyness is probably not what you’re looking for.

There are many tasks you can do to become more successful. Usually, only a few tasks are essential. These tasks genuinely help you move forward, making you truly successful. Eliminating all other tasks can be challenging, but you’ve faced more demanding challenges. Good and complex things are often worth it.

The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak. — Hans Hofmann

How to Do Less for More Success

Doing unnecessary things drains your passion, creativity, and happiness. So, let’s see how you can become more successful by doing less. It starts with the question, “What do I want to achieve?”

You can only determine which tasks are unnecessary if you know which tasks are essential. And you only know which tasks are necessary if you know what you want to achieve.

If you want to enjoy your work, spend as little time as possible with your annoying boss. But if you’re going to climb the career ladder, then spending time with your annoying boss (and getting to know him better) suddenly becomes essential. So, investigate what you’re trying to achieve. Keep asking questions. Do you want to earn more? Why? Because you want to feel more secure? Fine. Then, your goal is to feel more secure, and gaining more is a way to achieve this. Are there other ways (perhaps easier) to accomplish this goal?

You can feel freer by having more money. You can also feel more accessible immediately by meditating. Which step brings you closer to your goal faster? Exactly, meditating. Plus, it makes you feel relaxed.

So, assuming you know what you want:

Which tasks bring you closer to this goal? These are often the tasks you were hired to do, the challenging tasks that draw on your knowledge, skills, and creativity.

• Which tasks do you regularly perform that hardly yield results? Think of wasting time on social media, maintaining useless administration, organizing your to-do lists, etc.
• Simplify your life as much as possible. Work towards one clear goal to which you tie the rest of your tasks. A goal can take a lot of work to achieve, but to keep it simple, you should be able to summarize it in one sentence. This way, you can easily stay on course, as can those around you.
• Stop taking on new commitments and do your best to shed existing obligations that don’t help you reach your goal.
• Occasionally do nothing. By doing less, you free up time and have more time to relax. That might feel strange since you’ve learned that you must always be busy. If you do less, you become better at the things you do. Your best ideas come when your mind is empty and you are relaxed.

You achieve more in a day if you complete a few essential tasks in a few hours and then relax than if you work hard all day on non-essential things. The question is not “How much did I do?” but “How much closer did I get to my goal, my ideal life?” You can do a lot and achieve nothing.

Believe that you don’t always need to be busy to be successful. Not all busy people are successful, and not all successful people are busy.

Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away. — Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Personalized Guidance Available

Are you ready to sharpen your focus and achieve your goals with the power of simplicity? Schedule a personal consultation now. Discover how targeted guidance and strategies can accelerate your progress and enhance your success.

Take Action

Let this be when you focus fully on what truly matters. Book a Consultation and turn your clear vision into reality. Be focused. Be successful.

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