The DO LESS Revolution: Choosing the Essential

Hello Comrades!

Have you been writing down your M.I.T.s (most important tasks) most days? Did you create your list of Guiding Values? Oh, Leo would be so proud!

Today in The DO LESS Revolution we are going to experiment with “Choosing the Essentials”. Like Leo says, when you choose the essentials you do less but accomplish more because you are doing what matters to you.  I call this Concentrated Living, where every hour is full and rich – not because it’s jammed packed with activity-but because each activity is deliberately chosen and done with intention. As I’ve said before, all of us have a finite number of hours in day. Don’t you want to be present to them?

The concept of Choosing the Essentials is all about picking the thing you must do and wantto do in a way that reflects your values. If your daily to-do’s are all things that are valuable to you, your life is more satisfying and you live with less regret. Now, that’s not to say that everything you do is something enjoyable. Changing the diapers may never be fun, but raising healthy kids is worth its weight in gold, right? So a-diaper changing we go.

But there are plenty of things in our day that we can enjoy, and IF you identify your Guiding Values and use them to Choose the Essentials, more of your hours can and will be spent doing things you enjoy – things that nourish you, inspire you,  and leave you feeling satisfied at the end of the day. (Rather than regretting what you didn’t do, or trying to go to sleep while you race over all the Most Important Tasks that didn’t get done in the flail of urgent-but-unimportant stuff you did do.)

The Shorthand Version
The way you Choose the Essentials is basically three steps:

1. Take your to-do list (make sure you’ve done your bulk reduction program on it found here.)
2. Put it next to your Guiding Values list.
3. Find the ones that match, and make them your Most Important Task for the day.  

The Storied Version
(You knew that was waaaay to few words for me right?) The best way I can think of illustrating this for you is to tell you a story.

 Today, after weeks of my Most Important Tasks involving only feeding the children, writing my for-pay articles, and packing for our island Summer, I finally had a day that felt like the cream of the DO LESS crop.  I knew when I woke up my MITs had to be the following:

• pace yourself to keep pain at a dull roar
• write for your DO LESS comrades
• kayak

I also knew that a lot of other stuff would have to be done. There are 5 cousins here, and no grown-up gets to do exactly what they want in a situation like that. But with my values list in one hand and my MIT’s in the other. My day shaped up to look like this:

• Sleep until my body asked me to wake up. (Truth: My health requires me to have a real, full night’s sleep. I am no longer 20. To help yourself figure out truths like this try this exercise or this one.)
• Spend some quality time with my hubby. (Connection)
• Eat a simple, healthy breakfast with the 5 cousins. (Truth: I need protein. Connection: listening to the kids’ stories.)
• Let the 3 year old try on all my jewelry while I got dressed for the day. Answer numerous questions about sparkly things. (Generosity, Whimsy)
• Spend an hour paddling with Paul in the kayak, saying hello to the seals. (Beauty. Freedom. Attentiveness.)
• Come in from the beach before the others to make lunch with no other sound but Paolo’s voice. (Truth: I’d get sick if I rushed around the kitchen with noisy crabby kids. Attentiveness: I value being present to food. Beauty: Paolo sounds like this. Need I say more?)
• Take a 20 min rest in the sun. (Truth: I must rest/nap every day or my migraines flair. Also Vitamin D is key for me.)
• Come downstairs to my quiet bedroom and write the next installment of Do Less. (Connection. Creativity. Generosity.)

Everything I’ve done today has been something I’ve valued. So right now-right now this very minute-even though I am not walking down the beach with the crew, fishing pools in hand, I am living without regret. Why?  Because I know that while fishing in the sun with adorable cousins is lovely, it is not my Most Important Task, and it’s not Essential for right now. Right now what is essential is that I write this post. How do I know that this is what is essential? Two ways: 1) it fits my values list (connection, generosity, sharing) and 2) it fits what Leo calls my “One Goal” which is all about contributing to the Giant Pool of Wisdom. (More on the One Goal concept in an upcoming DO LESS post.)

 In contrast, this is what my day would have looked like before I committed to the DO LESS principal and to Concentrated Living:

• Set the alarm and force myself to wake up too early in order to write.
• Eat whatever starch-based sugar-infused breakfast was easily available.
• Get crabby that the kids were talking while I was answering email and eating at the same time.
• Feel pissy that I rushed around to a million fun-fun-super-fun activities with the family instead of choosing just one or two that we could enjoy the most.
• Do too many fun-fun-super-fun things and get the children to lunch table too late, resulting in whimper and whine fests from the severe drop in blood sugar.
• Keep going after lunch without a rest in spite of the building pain in my head, be in tears, throw up, and have to miss the evening activities in order to wrap my head.
• Finally get to sleep with a long list of things I wished I’d done running through my dreams.
• Wake up tired and start all over again.

Isn’t the first way better? Know what? You can live like that too. You really, really can.

Assignment
So here’s your home work for the next week (or two) until the next DO LESS post gets born.

• What can you do this week to carve out some space to compare your Guiding Values to your To Do List?
• How can you change your routine just enough to make time to write your MIT’s each (most) days?
• And of course, where are you having success, or conversely, getting stuck in the DO LESS Revolution?

Put your ideas, comments and questions in the comments below, because “there ain’t nowhere to go but together.”

 See you in a Friday or two, (the fast and dirty production method continues to saves the DO LESS day!) May your week be one of doing less and living more.

Viva la revolution!

Rachelle

The Do Less Revolution is an on-going, start-any-time project of Magpie Girl. Click here to join or find all the DO LESS posts here. Recieve an update on new Do Less items by following us on Twitter. Thanks for being here!

Posted in Magpie Girl, Soulcare
Tags: do less |