2020: My Year Of Less And Better

We're 1/20 of the way through the year already. How has it been going for you?

Mine has been fantastic. I'm moving forward at a faster speed than usual to my goals and I'm feeling a hunger to achieve them that I didn't have in 2019. This wasn't something I consciously focused on. It just...happened.

To be honest, I surprised myself in a moment of passion yesterday that caused me to step back and ponder a question. "What is so different about me right now compared to last year?"

I unplugged for about 30 minutes and really meditated on this. Then it hit me like a clacking seagull that flew straight into my face. My goals this year had a theme that were opposite of my 2018 and 2019 years. I reviewed my VisionBoards from the past 2 years to see if it matched up with my epiphany. Turns out it did.

2018 and 2019 were focused on 'more'. During those two years, I had created goals that caused me to be increasingly involved in multiple different things. Then, as a new year would roll around, I never took anything off. Instead I just added more.

Now, most of those things I added were essential to the goals I had set. They weren't bad things, but that didn't make them helpful either. This continued to give me the excuse of additional activities since they were aligned to things I had said I wanted to do.

Here was the big difference. In 2020, my goals had become more focused and required me to take on less in order to achieve them. Once I started eliminating some of the other things I was involved in, I found myself with more energy, passion and excitement about the everyday than before! Quite the fantastic side-effect.

I was reading Essentialism by Greg McKeown at a coffee shop in a book store one night last December (this was very rare for me and extremely enjoyable). He goes over an idea about how to focus on making one decision that eliminates a hundred other decisions.

Now, I'm not necessarily talking about the Mark Zuckerberg mentality of wearing the same kind of clothes everyday to eliminate decision-making. While that may help a little, in my opinion, that's not what this is about (and given Zuckerberg's history, I'd say that's just a rich, nerd power move to dress comfortably which I totally get).

The heart of this comment is to focus on whatever major problem or objective you are focused on. Think about where you are on the decision tree of that line of thought. Then work your way back up the tree to the root question and make a decision there. You might end up back where you were on some things, but in others you may make a different decision with this new perspective that eliminates the rest of the decision tree altogether!

For me, I went back and started asking a very basic question to everything I was involved in. Before, I tried to find ways to optimize my time with everything I was doing. I'd ask questions like:

• Can I do this at a more optimal time to get it done faster?
• Is there someone I could pay to do this for me?
• How else could I do this in a way that works better for me?

This pursuit of efficiency ironically became inefficient as there was only one me to accomplish these things and I was just stealing from Paul to pay Peter. For those of you that are unaware of this fact, there are still only 24 hours in a day. Despite my requests, they've yet to add anymore time to them.

My denial of the earth's natural-rotating timeline and what I can do within that period became embarrassingly clear as I started to run on auto-pilot without any space in my daily calendar.

So, I went back to the root of my activities and asked two easy questions that saved me a lot of time, money and trouble. "Does this align to my top 5 priorities? If not, should I be doing this at all?"

Usually, if it wasn't in the top 5 or even the top 6, the answer was a heavy-handed "no". Saying that out loud tended to help me. It's not difficult to come to that answer, but to actually go and quit something, especially if it involves letting others down can be very difficult. Now, instead of optimizing that activity that was essentially leading me nowhere fruitful, I gave myself back hours each day with ONE decision.

This simple process requires some thoughtfulness but is incredibly beneficial. I'd be willing to put money down that the majority of people aren't struggling with having "too little" going on. By focusing on categorically and completely removing things from our daily lives, we give ourselves space.

Did you know that pediatricians are recommending for parents to let their kids be bored? No directive whatsoever on what to do. Why? Because parents are imposing their lifestyle of "always busy" on their kids and its hurting them. Anxiety amongst teenagers is skyrocketing.

A survey done every year by Higher Education Research asks incoming college freshmen if they feel overwhelmed by all they have to do. In 2016, 41% of students said "yes" compared with 28% in 2000 and 18% in 1985.

I've seen this in my own life. Not only were my wife and I constantly busy, but I want to keep my two-year old son constantly busy as well. I'd recommend one activity as soon as he finished one. The other day I made a conscious decision not to recommend anything and see what happened.

He whined at first. Asked for a cookie. Asked for Paw Patrol. Whined some more. Then I fake-ignored him and went back to my book (even though I was really waiting to see what he'd do). The little guy sat there for a bit. Laid on the ground. Played with the ruffles in a blanket. Started running laps in the house. Laid on the ground again and just stared at the ceiling fan for like five minutes. Then settled on a puzzle in his room.

With just a little bit of space, he had the ability to be curious, exercise and play. All things that are crucial for development at his age but equally important for adults as well!

We need to seek out less in our lives. Only when we have created barriers for ourselves that allow us space can we truly start to focus on better.

We start to believe lies such as "everything I am currently doing is important" and "I can handle all of this." Just because you can handle something doesn't mean you should.

The time to start is now. Seek out 'less' like it was a buried treasure. Then turn your focus to better, not more, and reap what you sow.

My plan is that 2020 won't be the last year, but the first of many years in my search for less to allow space for better.