The Art of Doing Less
Last evening, I learnt something amazing. For some time now, I've been intrigued by one of the guys in my bowling group. Peter. He always seems to have time. He is relaxed. He is rarely in a hurry. He talks slowly. He is always on time. And yet, when you look at his life, there is no obvious reason why he should be. He is a very successful real estate broker. He has three children. His life is hardly short of things that need his attention. So last evening, when I happened to arrive early and found him there, I finally asked him the question I'd been carrying around for quite some time. “Peter, how do you have so much time?” He smiled. Then he told me something his father had told him many years ago. “Don't do anything you don't have to do.” That's it. No elaborate time-management system. No productivity app. No complicated morning routine. Just that. His father had taught him to spend his time on the things that mattered to him and let the rest go. Peter doesn't argue just because he can. He doesn't pick every fight. He doesn't complain about every little inconvenience. He doesn't feel compelled to respond to every irritation. And he doesn't spend much time doing things simply because everyone else seems to be doing them. As I walked home, something occurred to me. Perhaps most of us don't have a shortage of time. Perhaps we have a shortage of attention. We give our attention to so many things that don't really matter. A disagreement we will forget tomorrow. A stranger's opinion. Something someone said three hours ago. A little irritation that somehow becomes a twenty-minute conversation. And then, when the day is almost over, we discover that we didn't have time to call someone we miss. Or sit with our children. Or ask our partner how their day really was. Or call an old friend. Or simply sit beside someone we love and do absolutely nothing. That struck me. Maybe time isn't always something we need to find. Maybe sometimes it is something we need to stop giving away. There is something else I like about Peter's father's advice. It doesn't say: “Do more.” It says: “Do less.” And perhaps that is a rather beautiful idea. Because every minute we stop spending on something meaningless becomes available for something meaningful. I don't know what Peter's father intended when he gave his son that advice. But I suspect he understood something many of us learn only much later: We don't get to choose how many hours we have. But we get to choose, at least to some extent, how we spend it. What is taking up space in your life that doesn't really deserve it? So, I ask you : If you suddenly had one extra hour…who or what would get it ? Until tomorrow, Bob.
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