The Power of Less: The Fine Art of Limiting Yourself to the Essential...in Business and in Life

Whether it’s needing to pay your taxes, washing the dishes, or a marriage that is on the rocks. List it all out. The list must be exhaustive. If something pops in your head, put it down. There is no filter here. Second, write at the bottom of the sheet of paper, “All of these things are important and I promise to concern, worry, and fear over them

focus on one big project at a time (or at most, one work project and one nonwork project) and see it to completion before moving on to what’s next.

as the embrace of a big new goal can be exciting in the moment. But missions, once adopted, demand effort. If your professional life is top heavy, you’ll unavoidably face an onerous workload. Any attempt to succeed with our first principle of slow productivity, therefore, must begin with the reduction of your main objectives. It’s hard to specify t

To approach your days in this fashion means, instead of clearing the decks, declining to clear the decks, focusing instead on what’s truly of greatest consequence while tolerating the discomfort of knowing that, as you do so, the decks will be filling up further, with emails and errands and other to-dos, many of which you may never get round to at