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How to Cut Back

By Leo Babauta

1. Step back. In order to make the decisions necessary for cutting back, you need to take a few minutes to clear your head and think. Stop whatever you’re doing (or if you can’t, then schedule 30 minutes for sometime today), and take some time to consider everything you have going on. Take a walk to clear your head if necessary. Get some fresh air.

2. List everything. Make a list of all your tasks and projects (or one list for each if you like). Put everything on there, including personal stuff, civic commitments, everything. In order to make good decisions, you’ll have to see everything at once.

3. Set limits. It may seem impossible, but if you set limits for yourself, you will be forced to choose only the essential. The actual limits aren’t as important as the act of setting them at this point — you can adjust the limits later depending on what works for you. I recommend you choose just 3 important tasks to accomplish today, and limit yourself to only 3 projects.

4. Prioritize. Once you’ve set the limits, you can take a look at your long list of tasks and projects, and choose which ones you’re going to focus on. Which tasks and projects are the most essential? NOT the most urgent, but the ones that will get you the most long-term benefit. Which ones will have the most impact? Often some tasks and projects will seem urgent, but it’s only in our head. If you ignore them, they often lose their urgency (not always, but many times).

5. Eliminate. Of the tasks and projects you didn’t choose as your top priorities … are there any that can be just eliminated? Any that you can put on a someday list? Any that can be delegated or automated? You don’t need to do everything on your list — slash it mercilessly.

6. Renegotiate commitments. Of the stuff you decide not to do now, but can’t just eliminate or delegate … you’ll need to renegotiate them. Go to the person or people you’ve committed yourself to, whether that be a boss or a client or a team or a spouse or friend, and tell them honestly that you just cannot do everything on your plate right now, and ask for a different deadline or timeline. Can they wait a week? A month? Set a new date, and try to stick to it.

7. Take time off. This step is optional, of course, but if you can possibly take a day or half a day or even several days to relax and recuperate, that’s the best possible scenario. That will mean renegotiating everything on your list, probably, so that you don’t feel stressed while taking time out or overwhelmed when you get back. Push everything back a week, two weeks, or a month, depending on the commitment, so that you don’t have anything urgent when you get back. Then take time off, and don’t do any work. Don’t even think about work. Do that when you get back — upon returning to work, take at least 30-60 minutes to prioritize and plan so that you can focus on your most important projects and not be overwhelmed (see next step).

8. Create the ideal workday. What would your ideal workday be? When would you work on your most important tasks? When would you start and end? When would you take breaks, hold meetings, have lunch? I suggest mapping out your ideal workday, with blocks of time for certain types of tasks. For example, I might choose 2 hours in the morning to write, another hour for communication (email, etc), 2 more hours to work on my most important project, an hour to exercise, an hour for smaller tasks, etc. By creating this map (and sticking to it as much as possible), you create a structure that will prevent you from becoming overwhelmed, and that will have you at your most effective.