Be less busy

For as long as I can remember, the opinion of our society seems to be that busy = good. If you’re constantly rushing from one thing to the next, if you’re telling everyone there aren’t enough hours in the day, and every day you work from 6am-11pm, then you obviously must be very important and a big success. I’ve seen the situation where working silly hours becomes a badge of honour, and being a martyr to your business or your job is somehow viewed as a positive. I’ve been there myself and it really isn’t.

Now I’m not saying that we don’t all have to work hard, or put the effort and hours in if we want to drive something forward. We all do sometimes. It’s just not a sustainable way of living your life. It’s fine to do this occasionally, and I still like to do so myself, and actually enjoy to, but it’s not something that should become the norm. In the end something will suffer, usually your health or relationships. As those things are far more important in anything else in life, don’t do it.

It’s easy to slip back into the habit of working longer hours and taking too much on, and again this is something I’ve been guilty of myself. So how do I stop myself doing it again? A couple of years ago I came across something called “The Lazy Manifesto” after hearing about it on a Tim Ferriss podcast. I re-listen to this every so often, just as a reminder to myself to be less busy. It works.

I really do recommend you give this a quick read and then listen to it yourself. It’s only 15 minutes long, but ironically I can hear you telling yourself that you’re too busy to listen to it right now ;)

https://tim.blog/2015/04/03/lazy-a-manifesto/

Thanks

Richard