Trying to Do Less

I recently watched a video by Matt D’Avella that has me reconsidering my approach to productivity. 

Responding to this influx of hustle culture ideology, Matt suggests that there’s an increasing movement to slow down. He connects this with Cal Newport and his book Slow Productivity.

I haven’t read Cal’s book, but the idea aligns with how I’ve been reconsidering my own systems and habits. This video hit me at a perfect time. The question had been percolating with my subconscious, and the video made me address it.

I’m someone who likes to measure things. I believe there’s truth in the saying, “what gets measured gets managed.”

I have an Apple Watch that I frequently wear to track health-related metrics and workouts. I keep an Excel spreadsheet tracking different goals I’m working through.

If I’m not careful, a lot of this can be taken to an extreme. Not everything needs to be calculated, tabulated, tracked over time. Some things can just happen.

Hustle culture is alluring because of how flashy it can be. Doing an ice bath every morning looks great on social media, but there’s power in slowing down and being more intentional.

Apple Watch and Health Metrics

For years, I’ve been wearing my Apple Watch to bed every night.

I have an app that calculates my sleep score, but I’ve found that I don’t actually ever use this score. Sometimes I check it, but it’s not like I decide whether or not to work out that day based on my sleep score.

It’s a measurement without purpose.

However, I do like using the Apple Watch for its silent alarm feature. If I’m going to wake up before my girlfriend, I like that I can do so quietly. 

This reframing of productivity has led me to a new action. If I’m going to get up before my girlfriend, I’ll wear the Apple Watch for it silent alarm. If I’m going to sleep in, though, I’ve started leaving my Apple Watch on its charger.

It feels productive to track something like sleep, but not if I’m never going to use the data for anything. Tracking for the sake of tracking just adds admin to my personal life.

The Kindle Streak

Another area where I’ve been reconsidering my effort is with reading.

I love my Kindle reading streak. I love watching the days tick up. At the time of writing, my Kindle streak is at 1,029 days of reading in a row. The streak is fun, but is it actually doing anything for me? Not really.

It’s easy for me to conflate “keeping the streak going” with actual reading. It’s simple to open up a Kindle book and flip a couple pages to keep the streak alive, but that’s not quality reading.

Additionally, I’m led to purchase books on Kindle instead of trying to get them from the library or other sources.

The streak isn’t for me. It’s for Amazon to keep me on the hook.

I haven’t broken my streak yet (there’s still this mental friction…I want to keep this number going higher!), but I’m not going to try so hard to keep it as I continue finding new books to read. 

The reading streak is another datapoint without a purpose. The real measurable outcome here is quality time spent engaging with new ideas (more on that in the next section).

Yearly Reading Challenges

The same thing could be said for reading challenges.

Websites like Goodreads and Storygraph offer these challenges to see how many books you can read in a year. There’s some benefit to these, but also the quantity of books shouldn’t necessarily be the primary goal when reading.

There are different types of books, different types of reading.

When I read a lot of modern fantasy, I read them for fun and for pleasure. Fantasy is a nice way to unwind. It’s somewhat easy to read a lot of those for my reading goal, but is that quality reading if it’s just one genre? Am I growing if I stay in one literary lane? I’d argue that I’m not.

I’m also working my way through Anna Karenina, and that’s a book where you don’t want to rush through it. It feels absurd to speed read most of the classics.

“Reading is a pleasurable activity… You would never hear someone be like, ‘dude, I have the fastest sex.’ … [when I’m reading] I’m having a conversation with Ernest Hemingway or Marcus Aurelius or Doris Kearns Goodwin… I want to enjoy that. I’m going to take my time doing it.” – Ryan Holiday

The metric runs the risk of encouraging speed when it’s not always a good thing. Sometimes, it’s better to slow down and enjoy the material with which I’m grappling.

Reading challenges are fun, but they’re more of a means than an end. Reading, like all art, should be first and foremost about broadening my horizons to better consider the world around me.

Obstacles to Writing

A final area where I’ve seen this emphasis on productivity actually hurt me is with writing this blog. 

I’ve been maintaining an Excel spreadsheet tracking the following information for each writing session: date, time, minutes spent writing, and word count.

One problem with this is that there’s only one line per date. I discourage myself from writing multiple times in a day.

Word count, another of my metrics, seems like a good thing to track too, except I’ve come to realize it isn’t helpful for blog posts. It might be helpful when working on a longer piece like a novel, but it’s harder to track effectively with blog posts where I find myself switching between writing and editing frequently.

These metrics made it harder for me to sit down and just write. I thought I was being “productive” by tracking this information, but it just made the task harder (and less enjoyable) to do.

Keep Some, Cut Some

Productivity is an area in which I’m interested. There are some great ideas that help reframe my approach to daily life, but (like with anything) productivity can be taken to an extreme.

“Everything in moderation, including moderation.” – Oscar Wilde

Systems can help you accomplish more unless you’re spending more time on said system. My tracking system for writing deterred me from writing. My interest in my Kindle streak made me forget why I enjoy reading. 

The end of the year feels like a perfect time to reflect. That’s what I find myself doing on some of my habits this year. I’ve added a lot of things that I enjoy to my routine, but not everything is worth keeping. 

Productivity (and habits/systems) should work for you, not the other way around. It’s important to take the time to pause, reflect, and consider what you should keep and what you should cut. The end of the year might just be the perfect time to do so.

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