The pace and intensity of our lives, both at work and at home, leave several of us feeling like a person riding a frantically galloping horse. Our day-to-day incessant busyness — too much to do and not enough time; the pressure to produce and check off items on our to-do list by each day’s end — seems to decide the direction and quality of our existence for us. However, if we approach our days in another way, we can consciously change this out-of-control pattern. It only requires the courage to do less. This may sound simple, but doing less can actually be very difficult. Too often, we mistakenly believe that doing less makes us lazy and results in a lack of productivity. Rather than, doing less helps us enjoy what we do achieve. We learn to do less of what is extraneous, and engage in fewer self-defeating behaviors, so we create a rich life that we truly feel great about.
Just doing less for its own sake can be easy, startling, and transformative. Imagine having a real and unhurried conversation in the middle of an unforgiving workday with somebody you care about. Imagine completing one discrete task at a time and feeling calm and happy about it. In this book, you will see a new approach. The approach is equally useful for our personal life and our work life. In fact, the two hemispheres of our work and personal lives constantly reflect on and affect one another, each changing and/or reinforcing the other.
