I believe in eliminating everything from our lives that is unnecessary, unhelpful, and unnoticed. Senseless routines. Needless steps. Meaningless tasks.
Get rid of them all.
I am well known for my willingness to pilot the “I’m not going to do this seemingly senseless task. Let’s see what happens!” plan.
Oftentimes, the answer is nothing. Nothing happens. No one ever cares. The world is built upon pointless tasks, needless bureaucracy, and time-sucking nonsense.
Case in point:
I received a note from a friend who read my book, Someday Is Today, in which I expound and expand upon this strategy in great detail.
He wrote:
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Hi Matt,
I have been meaning to write you to thank you. Each week I provide a vendor of one of my customers with a manual report. There is a column that I was populating each week that I knew the vendor did not need. After reading your book, I decided to delete the column from the spreadsheet and not include it in my weekly report.
This saves me at least five minutes a week, but more importantly, it gives me so much satisfaction! Of course, the vendor has not ever noticed the missing field.
I think of you and appreciate you each Friday when I delete that column. It’s a wonderful feeling. Please keep doing what you are doing, as you help people tremendously!
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Not only is he saving five minutes every week (more than four hours every year), but doing so makes him happy.
I love this! And I get it. I feel the same way when I remove a bit of stupidity from my life and find myself with a little extra time.
Avoiding stupid, needless stuff makes you feel good.
See if you can eliminate something from your life this week. Not turn signals or vitamin C or showering, but the dumb stuff.
The self-imposed tasks that are utterly unnecessary.
The longstanding routines that have stopped being relevant,
The longstanding routines that have stopped being relevant,
The needless requirements imposed by others.
Eliminate one and see what happens. And let me know how it goes.
