Doing Less to Do More

We live in a culture of doing more.  We have high expectations - of ourselves and of others. We are products of this culture and we also perpetuate it.  Our family, work and social lives and even our exercise and wellness regimes are premised on doing more. 

The more, more, more approach to living is creating an imbalance in us individually and collectively. 

Folks with families with kids who are involved in extracurricular activities know about balancing the untold number of events in the weekly calendar. This can be overwhelming. 

Work lives have become a blurring between work time and personal time; technologies have added to this and a culture of doing way more work than we're actually paid for has grown in the last two generations. We are connected to work 24/7. When do we shut off from work? 

With an already jam-packed calendar, we squeeze into it social engagements.

Somehow we may fit exercise on top of it all and more often than not this includes a pushing-hard approach to achieve some sort of peak performance. This includes sweating it out in a hot yoga studio, doing a few extra reps at the gym or getting in a few extra miles during the run.

We're in a society that is all about doing more and pushing harder and trying to get to some unreal level of achievement. But to what end?

Pushing hard to achieve imbalanced goals will not serve us in the long run.

How are you Being in this world?

The Corona Virus and the shutdown forced us to pause and slow down. Some of us were able to make some changes that will become permanent while others are itching to get back to the frenetic pace - if indeed they left it. 

Moving forward

Consider the following on a going-forward basis:

• More quality time with your family
• More work-life balance - stronger boundaries
• A balanced health and wellness regime
• More time spent with loved ones, and
• A life with qualitative time over quantitative time.

Maybe by doing less we can actually do more by connecting to and with the things that matter most. 

By doing more by doing less we can plug into humanity and do better at understanding where we are at collectively. Taking the time to look after yourself, build stronger relationships and having more balance will help us all connect to the greater good of society.

A checklist

Consider doing the following in doing less to do more: 

• Schedule time for you - contemplation
• Journalling - getting out the stuff that sits in you
• Meditation daily 
• Sleep routines - early to bed early to rise 
• Learn to say "no" - fewer items on the calendar 
• Schedule time for connections - family and chosen family 
• Listing your priorities for changes and include an accountability mechanism

We have a window of opportunity as we continue in this pandemic to consider doing more by doing less. It can and will benefit you and society.