Achieving More with Less Effort

People often ask me how I accomplish so much while maintaining a peaceful life. Balancing productivity with tranquility has been transformative for me. Here are my tips.

Being busy is a form of laziness – lazy thinking and indiscriminate action. – Tim Ferriss

Busy is Failing – My Motto

We all know those people: they are always busy, it’s almost impossible to schedule an appointment with them, and they constantly ‘complain’ about how much they have to do and how indispensable they are.

Many see this as a sign of success. After all, if your surroundings demand so much of your time, you must be an essential person. There might be some truth, but I chose not to participate long ago.

No – when I’m busy, I see it as a problem that needs to be solved. I see it as a signal that I have strayed from my center and that something needs to change.

I’m not anti-busyness, by the way. Sometimes, I love working hard and achieving a lot, like launching a new website, make a new script or taking a course. But these periods are always interspersed with moments when I am less busy. It’s never my goal to be busy; it’s mainly a product of my enthusiasm that I quickly take on too much.

But still – I am usually less busy than people expect when they look at my output. If a friend calls me for lunch, I’m the first to say ‘yes.’ And if a friend has plans to do something fun, I almost always have the space to join.

People often ask me what my ‘secret’ is. How do I get quite a lot done without running around like a headless chicken? Here are four things I do differently than most people.

If It Doesn’t Fit, I Quit

Let’s start at the beginning: I am a minimalist. And that might not mean what you think it means.

Yes – I declutter and probably have less stuff than most people. But you know – if you walk into my house, you might not notice it immediately. Yes – it looks tidy, but it’s not bare.

You only notice more when you open a closet and see that many of my storage spaces are barely filled, that my wardrobe is a quarter of the average wardrobe, and that there is no attic full of junk.

But that’s not the most important thing. I apply minimalism to every area of my life, including my productivity. People look at the things I do, but you learn more if you see everything I don’t do.

For example, I don’t bother with time-consuming collaborations that take up much time but yield little for all parties involved.

All those things are fine activities and can yield a lot. Income, satisfaction, and a more extensive network. But all those things also have a clear price: time, attention, and energy.

And I don’t spend those three scarce resources just like that because the time I spend on extra things is time I can’t spend writing articles, chatting with a loved one or reading books.

My focus is on optimizing the quality of life for myself and my surroundings. I want to use my talents to have as much impact as possible. My mission is to make our society more loving. That also means I practice self-love and do things that make me happy. Some tasks fit perfectly into that; others don’t.

And that saves me an enormous amount of work. So be it if it means earning a bit less.

Minimalism is not a lack of something. It’s simply the perfect amount of something. – Nicholas Burroughs

I Make a Checklist

Honestly, I can’t express how much joy checklists bring me. I don’t even have that many, but every time I use one, I revel in the incredible efficiency.

A checklist is a to-do list that you can use repeatedly. I weave checklists into every part of my life to save time and reduce stress.

When I notice that I perform a task frequently, I start by recording my steps in my Bullet Journal (BuJo).

My work includes several procedural tasks repeated over and over (writing and scheduling articles, checking statistics, developing habits, grocery shopping, etc.). Checklists prevent me from forgetting steps and allow me to work faster with less mental effort. This way, I reclaim time, attention, and energy.

Too many people spend money they haven’t earned to buy things they don’t want to impress people they don’t like. – Will Rogers

I Plan My Week Fully, but Not with Work

At the beginning of each week, I plan my week, which is always on Monday. How I do this has changed over the years, but I have been writing everything down in my bullet journal lately. I used to use other online tools like Obsidian for this. Now, I use Obsidian for big projects.

I love my weekly review because it’s also a moment when I go through a checklist that refers to other checklists. For example, one of the steps in my weekly review is to go through my financial health checklist or my loved ones checklist, which reminds me to schedule appointments with loved ones who have busier lives.

My secret is simple: planning your week doesn’t automatically mean you’ll be busy. On the contrary – planning helps me keep my week calm.

I schedule the most critical tasks and consciously plan moments to dawdle or do things I enjoy that are not necessarily ‘useful,’ like reading a book during the day or waking with my dog.

Then, I have to follow the plan loosely. It’s relaxing because I don’t have to think about anything yet and still get everything done. And because I schedule enough downtime, I don’t feel rushed. It’s a lot of fun.

Work Is Not the Most Important Thing to Me

There was a time when I thought work was the most essential thing in the world. Fine, it probably came with my age.

So, although work still often takes precedence (old habits are sometimes hard to change), I increasingly prefer to spend time with loved ones. Sometimes, I shorten the workday because someone spontaneously visits, and I’d rather have tea.

Because, you know – ultimately, it’s all very simple. If life is somewhat on track, and you have your income and what you need to live a good life, more success won’t improve things. At the end of my life, I won’t wish I had posted more on Instagram. I wish I had spent more time with the people I love the most.

So yes, work is important to me, and I put as much into it as I can. But it’s not the most important thing, so I do my best to balance it so there’s time left for what matters most.

The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking your complex overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks, and then starting on the first one. – Mark Twain

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