📖 Current Read; 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living — Ryan Holiday
Corralling The Unnecessary
The Daily Stoic Meditation for April 19 outlines that less is more.
You need to ruthlessly eliminate the unnecessary and only focus on what matters!
“It is said that if you would have peace of mind, busy yourself with little. But wouldn’t a better saying be do what you must and as required of a rational being created for public life? For this brings not only the peace of mind of doing few things, but the greater peace of doing them well. Since the vast majority of our words and actions are unnecessary, corralling them will create an abundance of leisure and tranquility. As a result, we shouldn’t forget at each moment to ask, is this one of the unnecessary things? But we must corral not only unnecessary actions but unnecessary thoughts, too, so needless acts don’t tag along after them.”
— MARCUS AURELIUS, MEDITATIONS, 4.24
Ruthlessly Eliminate The Unnecessary
In order to have true peace of mind, you need to cut, eliminate & delete all the unnecessary aspects.
You cannot live your life sweating the small stuff or allowing your tranquility to be disturbed by minor distractions and events.
You need to corral the unnecessary, so as to live peacefully.
What?
Ruthlessly eliminating the unnecessary is the act of removing all of the unnecessary aspects of your life, so that you can restore and achieve true peace and tranquility.
It regards removing distractions, people and time wasters — anything that takes away your peace.
Why?
The better question is, why not?
Why not eliminate the unnecessary?
It aids you in achieving true peace and tranquility; who wouldn’t want that?
How?
Theres many ways you can corral and eliminate the unnecessary!
Ways such as;
- Delete social media
- Go out into nature
- Spend more time with friends and family
- List your goals
- Look at your screen time and figure out what wastes time!
- Delete apps
Less Is More
The Wrong Notion
As a whole, we have a completely inaccurate idea about what it means to be truly successful and happy.
We are always looking for more.
We chase the things we do not have, we desire the things that are not ours, all so that we can have more. We work longer hours, take on more projects, and do more things.
This is due to the fact that, wrongfully, we equate doing more work with more success.
It makes sense, right? If you work for more hours, surely you’ll get more done and be successful?
Unfortunately, that isn’t the case. Always doing, wanting, and trying to have, more, is in fact incredibly counterintuitive.
Negative Impacts
It seems as if doing, having and being more, etc, is the most efficient way to go about things.
However, in reality, things are the exact opposite; always striving for more harms your productivity.
A few examples of the negative consequences;
- You have less energy for the things that matter (family, friends, exercise etc)
- You’re constantly fatigued, and maybe even sometimes angry and frustrated
- You’re likely to become overwhelmed with the sheer amount of work
- You’ll be more inclined to procrastinate
- Having and doing more serves to keep your environment constantly cluttered.
In short, there’s a great bunch of negative impacts when it comes to wanting and doing more.
The most significant consequence is the fact that **doing more leaves you with incredibly high chances of burn out,**which is a state of intense physical and mental exhaustion.
In regards to being burnt out, you simply lack the energy for any type of work, even if it is meaningful and deadlined.
Your chances of reaching burn out are much higher when you push yourself to work more than needed.
Less Is More
It’s clear that doing, trying and having more has negative impacts, ones that serve to harm your productivity more than help it.
And so, what’s the solution?
It’s not quick magic, but it’s a pretty good solution nonetheless; do less.
In this case, less is always more.
Rather than trying to do every job in the office, or help out all your friends, condense it down, try and do just a few things.
Why?
As seen with the negative impacts of doing more, there’s positive impacts of doing less;
- You can focus on those few, meaningful projects
- You have much more energy, ambition and motivation
- You’ll have time for other activities (gatherings, exercise etc)
- Your focus, when working, will be much more enhanced
- A general increase in productivity overall
- Much less risk of burnout
The most significant reason to do less is that, however paradoxically, it actually helps with your productivity! It can increase it significantly.
When you’re working on a million projects, your time is split haphazardly, and it’s unlikely that you can ever get any real work done, for you always have another thing to do.
If you focus on just one or two meaningful things, however, you can devote lots of time and energy there, ensuring that the work is of a much higher quality.
How?
There are plenty of ways to do this, ranging from Warren Buffets 5/25 strategy, to simply picking 1 thing to focus on.
For Warren Buffet (even though we’re not entirely sure if it’s his strategy), he uses the 5/25 rule.
Step 1. Write down your 25 most important goals
Step 2. Draw a circle around your top 5 goals.
Step 3. Focus on Your Top 5 Goals and Say No to the Rest
This strategy enables you to eliminate any other distraction, any other thing that could potentially harm your productivity! You can just focus solely on those 5 things.
However you do it, the message is clear; pick only a few (maybe 1, maybe 5) key things to work on, and don’t divide your attention elsewhere.
Less is always more.
Idea of the Week. 💭
Anything Can Be An Advantage
Anything can be an advantage.
Absolutely anything.
You can turn the most difficult obstacle or issue into a way forward.
You have the power to advance no matter what is in front of you.
You can go around the obstacle, above it, through it — the choice is yours.
What matters is that you simply take action and go for it, for anything can be used as an advantage.
Quote of the Week. 🗣
Descartes on using what you know for good.
It is not enough to gain knowledge — you must apply what you know.
It is not enough to have a good mind; the main thing is to use it well.
To end, here’s a question from me! ⚡️
How can you prioritise self love and compassion?
Thanks for reading!
Until next week,
Sam. 😆
