“In today’s society, we are conditioned to think that we should be busier, do more and work harder. Many motivational speakers and success guru’s shout out well-meant (but plain wrong) advice that leads you to believe that you don’t do enough, and that’s why you’re not successful.

However, the notion that ‘doing more = achieving more’ is not nearly as effective as it sounds. In fact, I’ve experienced that doing less has helped me to achieve more. It took me a few years to fully realize this, as I (just like everybody else) have been conditioned to think that I should always be doing more.

Yet, by forcing yourself to go for less, you paradoxically end up with more. I know it may sound counterintuitive, but hear me out…

By setting limitations on your work and forcing yourself to do less, you need to focus on the essentials and you’re forced to drop the non-important. This is probably the biggest shift you can ever make in your productivity levels.

You need to make the most of your time by focusing on the most important things, instead of everything.

Only A Few Things Truly Matter

In reality, only just a few tasks truly matter. In any business, project or goal, there are merely a handful of tasks that significantly move the needle. All the other tasks are just ‘nice’ to do but are actually distractions for your most important tasks. ‘Nice’ isn’t worth your valuable time and energy. Only the most important tasks are worthy of that.

“My goal is no longer to get more done, but rather to have less to do.”

— Francine Jay

They key is to focus on that what’s essential and train yourself to drop everything else. That’s when you become highly productive and accelerate your path to success.

The 80/20 Rule

The phenomenon that there are merely a handful of mission-critical tasks comes from the 80/20 Rule. In short, the 80/20 rule states that 20% of inputs are responsible for roughly 80% of outcomes. In other words, about 20% of your tasks and activities are actually responsible for 80% of your desired outcomes.

This means that just a few things truly matter.

If you want to succeed, you need to focus the biggest majority (75% — 90%) of your time and energy on those tasks that are actually essential. By choosing the essentials, you make the greatest impact with just the minimal amount of resources spent.

Why Doing More Doesn’t Work

Real productivity is not about doing more, working harder or doing any task more efficiently. Rather, real productivity is about ruthlessly identifying what’s important, protecting your valuable time for those tasks and doing them as efficiently as possible.

“Productivity isn’t about being a workhorse, keeping busy or burning the midnight oil… It’s more about priorities, planning and fiercely protecting your time.”

— Margarita Tartakovsky

Unfortunately, way too many people are still focused on quantity over quality. They focus too much on the number of tasks they accomplish and the number of hours they work (quantity) instead of looking at the actual value they produce in a given day (quality).

Listen, it really doesn’t matter how much you do if you don’t create any real value with those tasks. In fact, it’s a lot more productive to work on only 1–3 important tasks that actually create a lot of value for you, your business or your customers, instead of trying to accomplish 23 mid- to low-value tasks each day.

Remember, it doesn’t really matter how many hours you work or how many things you get done. The only thing that matters is the value you create. That should become your measurement of productivity.

The truth is, when you have too many tasks to work on, you’ll take away valuable time, energy and focus from those tasks that actually move the needle. Your most important tasks don’t get the attention they deserve (and require) when you have too many other things to work on. The unimportant stuff gets in the way of the important stuff — and that’s productivity and success killer numero uno

Furthermore, spending time on the unimportant stuff will often only lead to incremental progress (or no progress at all), while the important stuff leads to significant progress. It’s obvious which of these two should deserve more of your attention.

“Things which matter most must never be at the mercy of things which matter least.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Instead of trying to do everything and not having enough time for the important things in your life, do only what’s important to you, your business or your goals.

How To Start Doing Less

Imagine you have a workday in which you actually feel relaxed and in control. You only have a few tasks to do, but they’re chosen so that they have the most impact. Instead of being stressed out, you feel focused and productive.

The question is, how can you actually make this happen? It almost sounds too good to be true.

To do so, you’ll need to (1) become ruthless about eliminating the unimportant and (2) you need to become a master at identifying the truly important stuff.

To do so, I suggest you ask yourself a few key questions such as:

• If I could do only 3 things today, what would it be?
• What tasks have an impact that lasts beyond this week or this month?
• What tasks significantly contribute to the progress of achieving my goals?
• Does this task have a higher return (in terms of value) on my time investment compared to other tasks?

These questions will determine the value of your tasks, and you can then decide which tasks are worthy of your time and which ones should be delegated or eliminated.

If you focus only on those tasks that give you the biggest return on your time investment, you’ll become a lot more productive while you’re actually doing less. This a complete paradox that requires a shift in thinking, but once you experienced the effects of it yourself, you won’t want to go back to your old way of working.

Bonus Tip: Work On Your Priorities In The Morning

I recommend that you do your most important tasks always at the start of your day. The reason why is that, early in the day, you’ll still have the resources (such as focus, willpower and energy) available to work on these tasks with the intensity they require.

Besides, by working on your most important tasks in the morning, you’ll make sure that they actually get done. When you schedule your most important tasks for later in the day, chances are that they won’t get done. Emergencies come up, other people will make certain demands and other things get in the way of your most important tasks.

Therefore, make sure you always tackle your most important tasks in the morning. The rest of the day will feel like a breeze when you’ve done this.

Now Do It

The objective is to do less, not more, but achieve more because of the choices you make. Don’t fall into the trap of keeping yourself as busy as possible in order to feel good and feel productive. Rather, always focus on simplifying, reducing and eliminating.

Keep your focus on that what’s truly important, which are often just a few tasks, activities or projects. That’s how you become highly productive and achieve better results at a faster pace.”