5 Ways to Do Less, Better

Is it bad that I hadn’t heard of Marcus Aurelius before 2020?

I mean, I hadn’t heard of the coronavirus either but look how much that’s taken off. However, in Marcus’ case, this is a trend I am happy to hop on to because boy that bloke was wise.

But no, I’m not going to list five of his best quotes or “5 Autumnal Outfits as Inspired by Aurelius” because that’s nothing Google and seventeen thousand other writers (and TikTokers) haven’t already done. Instead, I’m going to focus on one sentiment of his that stuck out to me — and possibly for the wrong reason.

My main man Marc had said:

“Do less, better. Because most of what we do or say is not essential. If you can eliminate it, you’ll have more tranquillity.”

Sounds pretty simple, right? If we want to have a more productive, stress-free day, we need to actually do less. Because doing less enables us to focus our time on the minimal tasks we have set ourselves and dedicate all our energy to them. We’re not bogged down by the thoughts of the half a dozen menial other things we need to do next. Not distracted by the Fear of Starting™, for the eighth time that day.

By selecting only the things that are of the highest priority, we’ll end up actually getting them done. And done well.

What a concept.

The thing is, I suck at this. Or, to re-frame this in a more self-affirming manner: I am so good at not doing this. I hear ya, Marc, I really do. And maybe it’s because my dad’s name is also Mark because, somehow, I keep on finding a way to avoid doing as I am told.

So I haven’t. I thought I’d do something different here. Instead of using my personal experience and firsthand experimentation to inspire you into action, I’ve decided to become the Antithesis of Advice™.

I took one for the team and learned the hard way. I did more, worse. And now I present you with the 5 things I did — so that you can do the opposite.

1. I used vague, over-scheduled, bulky to-do lists

“List” is probably too generous considering it was lengthy enough to be considered a religious scripture — with equal amounts of unintelligible and nonsensical crap scrawled onto it. I didn’t distil any of the activities I needed to do. I didn’t detail the steps involved. I didn’t break it down into specific, easy-to-begin segments so that I felt way less overwhelmed. My list often looked like this:

1. Medium

2. Exercise (who are we kidding?)

3. Notion

4. Job hunt

5. Shower (because being not-gross is a chore)

6. Journal

7. Walk

8. Book write

But that was totally unachievable. Too vague. Not necessarily tackled in that order.

I didn’t use timings or markers, block out a set duration, give myself any breaks. I knew I needed to do some writing for Medium but how much? For how long? At what time? I wanted to walk, but I didn’t factor in the time I’d spend getting dressed beforehand and baby-wiping off my sweat upon return. I wanted to job hunt but then glancing at that task on the page left me with little to go on: where do I begin? What do I search? Do I know what I’m hunting for? Will they let me bring in biscuits?

I never did shower in the end.

Because I was exhausted. Overwhelmed by my own supposedly “useful” list. I’d crammed way too much into one day (book writing, journaling, Medium writing and I’m supposed to be clean all in the span of 24 hours? Not even Stan Lee would expect his heroes to complete this amount of crap) and I didn’t even organise it sufficiently.

I mean look. Here’s an actual page of my so-called schedule (schedHELL, am I right?):

It’s a state. No coherent structure, no actual explanation of what it is I expect myself to complete (tabs? What the crap are tabs? Those ones on my laptop? Or drugs? Or that shade of cat?). This clearly isn’t going to work (and spoiler alert: I was right. It didn’t. Notice all the unchecked boxes?).

So here’s how you can do the opposite:

• Block time (for the Good Stuff™ too). And remember, you always need a little more time than you think you do. Nothing can be completed in five minutes, not even five lots of one minute.
• Reduce the amount of tasks you set yourself. Your list might at first seem too bare, too minimal, too barren when you note down only two things to do that day (which, by the way, is perfectly fine. You are allowed to do nothing but exist. Your existence is actually my favourite thing about you) but you’ll soon realise that, when you do get started on them, there’s more to it than you realise. They take up a lot of time and require conscious effort, often needing even a couple minutes just to think. Which leads me to my next point.
• Break your tasks into individual points. Doing so actually allows you to see what this task entails, gives you change to prep, enables you to conjure a plan of action.

Example:

10am to lunch: finish the article about indoor tomato plant growth hacks.

Lunchtime: eat seven lunches. They don’t even have to be your own. Lily owes you for “accidentally” finishing your quiche.

2pm to 3pm: draft a post about John Travolta.

3:30pm: read until dinner. Make notes on the chapters. Follow up on any external references. And just have an all round good time.

8pm: big scream.

2. I set myself entirely unrealistic, self-imposed standards

“If you haven’t written your book by February, you’re a loser.”

Well kids, it’s April. I haven’t written my book. And I am a loser, but for different reasons.

If you apply too much pressure to a balloon, it pops. We humans are much like balloons — cute, full of air, love a kids party — and when we apply too much pressure to ourselves, we pop too. I know I sure did.

So here’s how you can do the opposite:

3. I worked in a crappy environment

No offence to my own bedroom because that bad boy is ace. But it’s not always a suitable space to work. Because of this friggin’ apocalypse the other rooms in my home are occupied, so I spend most of my days hunched over my laptop in bed, my spine like a strawberry lace twisting up and into my skull until it’s constricting my brain. Distractions are littered all around me (my phone, books, a tiny planet squishy, a ginger cat, eighteen variations of snack, my in-house demons, etc). It’s emvironmental.

And thus, I get no work done in these paw (see what I did there?) conditions.

So here’s how you can do the opposite:

4. I did the same things and expected different results

That’s right, I became insane. That’s the definition of insanity, right? Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. I know that, you know that, and yet here I am sticking to my same old shoddy routine in the hopes that today, today I will finally stick to it, see it through, complete the entire thing. But I never do. And I never will. Not until I fix it.

So here’s how you can do the opposite:

5. I chose not to learn from my mistakes.

I suck at taking feedback. No matter how constructive it might be; you can hand me a foolproof blueprint of exactly what I need in order to mend and expand my em-pire and instead I’ll ball it up and stick my strawberry flavoured chewing gum inside of it. Probably lob it at my cat. It’ll only end up under the sofa.

I’m stubborn. I know what I need to do to alleviate these mistakes but because I’m not instantly Super Good™ at them, I refuse to see them through. So I keep making these mistakes in the hopes that eventually one of them will just take pity on me, gather his mistaken friends round and say listen lads, it’s embarrassing now. Shall we just give her this one? I’m getting bored. But that’s not how it works. This isn’t cold-calling in which I’m just waiting for that one person to hear me out. Because not learning from your mistakes is like cold-calling the same person, over and over and over again. Take a hint. They just don’t want to listen.

So here’s how you can do the opposite:

Do less and do it better by not doing more, worse

These five things that I do often don’t actually lead to a high quantity of low quality things being achieved. I’m not getting more done but at a crappy level. I’m getting nothing done. Nada. Not a crumb. Just an abundance of f all. And you can’t get a worse quality than “N/A” null and void, right?

Because I’m overloaded, over pressured, under prepared and insanely unable to do anything about it. But you can.

Just don’t do what I do. What a lot of us do, a lot of the time. Give yourself a day or two to evaluate what works and what doesn’t. Plan things properly. Focus on the details. Let time work in your favour. Accept that you’re not perfect. Remember that actually, you are.

A little recap on how to do less, better, because Marc loves the essentials:

1. Plan your to-do lists using timings, details and one or two things, max.
2. Lower your expectations of yourself, my friend. You’re already top quality enough as it is.
3. Tidy your space. Make it pretty. Spruce it up and strip it back and don’t work inside it — let it work around you.
4. Try different methods. If it isn’t working, scrap it. If it is, fifty clap it.
5. Learn from your mistakes. Look forward to making them, because you know how much you’ll grow as a result.

So there you have it. Marc and me, sharing wisdom and big-dumb. I hope it helps because if it does, I might need to come to you for advice.

As you can see: I need it.

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Oh hey, whilst you’re here: why not put the “em” into your “emails” and lob your name onto my mailing list for weekly em-bellishments on my rose-tinted, crumb-coated lens of life. It’s the equivalent of the reduced section in the supermarket (low value Weird Crap™ that you didn’t know you needed).