Amid all this talk about resolutions and making changes, I’ve been thinking about an article I read on Wondermind on doing less in 2024. The Washington Post had a similar article about giving your brain a rest. I tend to push myself daily and I work hard, but I’ve been trying to give myself a break lately. I’ve read/listened to a couple of books which have helped with that, Four Thousand Weeks, Time Management for Mortals, which I highly recommend, and How to Keep House While Drowning, for which I’m not the target market (it’s more for people who are struggling) but it helped me go easier on myself with daily tasks. Author KC Davis makes the point that care tasks, like doing laundry and the dishes, are morally neutral and that we can do what we can without guilt or shame. I’m including excerpts from the two articles I mentioned below as they both contain good tips.

Audit how you spend your time
Basically, before you can figure out where to cut back, you have to know what your current time and energy output is, says clinical psychologist Ryan Howes, PhD. Logging a typical week in a journal or time-tracking app would give you a very detailed report, but even a day or two could give you some valuable insight. Be sure to keep an eye on everything from meetings and dates to doomscrolling and Tinder-swiping, but don’t stress about getting literally everything unless that’s really important to you. Getting a sense of the big picture is enough here.

From there, assess whether the things you put your time into are doing much for you… Then, see if there are opps to make easy cuts.

Do less
According to Dr. Howes, many people are “over-functioning” at work in ways that go unnoticed and unrewarded, so maybe doing less is just the work perk you need in your life…

Outside of work, we can quiet quit our relationships, domestic responsibilities, heck, even our hobbies by just lowering our expectations and easing up a little.

Say no
Protecting your time by setting boundaries or limiting your availability, whether that’s turning off notifications or blocking off windows of time to dedicate to specific responsibilities or people can help you do less too. But all of that requires using the word No.

Stop multitasking
when we evoke multitasking in the name of productivity, we’re usually talking about what experts call task-switching, or going back and forth between multiple things, which our brains are way less good at. – From Wondermind

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Track where your time goes.
Headlee noted that many people don’t really know where their time goes. She advises clients to take notes every half-hour jotting down what they’ve been doing. After a week or two, clear patterns will emerge. “It’s one of the most powerful exercises because when people realize where their time is really going, it can completely change their priorities,”

Take tech breaks.
Shut down laptops and phones to give yourself a tech break.

Practice “micro” pauses:
Microbreaks have been shown to boost vigor and reduce fatigue. Take three deep breaths before you start a Zoom meeting. Do a breathing exercise at stoplights.

Rethink long workdays.
Research suggests that we get less productive and creative when we work long hours. Research from Iceland found that workers who clocked 35 to 36 hours a week were equally or more productive and had improved well-being compared with working more than 40 hours per week. – From The Washington Post

[From Wondermind and The Washington Post]

The best thing I learned from the book Four Thousand Weeks is that doing unpleasant tasks undistracted and mindfully is actually easier. I’ve tried to lean into this and just do the thing, but it’s not a simple transition. How to Keep House recommends setting a timer and starting a task for a few minutes and stopping if it’s still too hard for you. Both of those books are about accomplishing more with less effort and not feeling guilty about it. Doing a half job is usually fine.

Last fall I uninstalled a terribly addictive match 3 game on my phone that I was playing whenever I had downtime. (Actually I uninstalled it daily, kept playing it, and then asked support to delete all my progress, which took them a week.) It is very likely that I now spend two or more hours a day on Twitter in the browser on my phone since I uninstalled the app. I would like to be able to just sit and watch a show without being distracted. I installed a blocking app on my phone, which worked somewhat but I just kept deactivating it. I’m thinking of getting a timed lockbox and using it to help curb my phone addiction. First though, as both WaPo and Wondermind recommend, I need to audit how I spend my time.

Also I wanted to mention that I’ve been using grocery pickup and occasionally delivery services instead of shopping in the store. That single change made a big difference and I’m hoping to find more shortcuts like that this year.

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