Do Less - Kate Northrup
The ultimate advice for how to PRUNE…
This book from 2019 has been suggested to me on lots of occasions - dedicated to busy mothers, and refreshing in its ideas about how busy we are made systemically, rather than the result of some flaw that means we are unable to say ‘no’.
All too often women I meet are highly self-critical of their ability to manage all the things they want to achieve in life; let’s look instead at all the ways that life creates a busy-ness that is hard to escape from.
Below is a half-hour introduction to the ideas from the author. She explores the cycles and the forces that work with and against us, and helps us see that trying to do everything means that everything is often not done well. In doing less, we find we are more successful at what we attend to.
So what needs to give?
This interview is brilliantly American in style and tone, but below is a summary of some of the key suggestions Kate shares in her book - for which, incidentally, there is a link to the whole audiobook below!
‘Do Less’ Experiments
Track your cycle - ‘There’s no time management system on earth that’s actually based on the lived experience of being female, of being cyclical in a 28-day cycle instead of a 24-hour cycle.’
This, I found useful. The more I learn about the significant shifts in energy and emotional perspective that are natural and (broadly) predictable for each of us, the more sense it makes to start understanding the pattern and shape of our cycles to ensure we work with it - rather than in spite of it.
Discover what really matters to you - ‘The whole purpose of ‘do less’ is to have the experience of having more. Not more stuff, but more meaning in our lives.’
And this is the core questions I encourage you to engage with as you explore what to PRUNE this month: what are the things that give me the most meaning, and what can I happily afford to let go of, reduce, or cut out completely? (Read more on this in the references to Oliver Burkeman’s ‘Four Thousand Weeks’, and the Values exercises will also help here.)
Listen to your body - ‘We have a choice: listen when we get the signal the first time or ignore it until it gets louder, usually in the form of an illness we can no longer ignore because its completely knocked us out'.’
We are busy people, considering the needs of others often before our own. And it can feel selfish to take proper time to rest and tune into the physical signals you are being offered. But as Northrup suggests - to do so means the potential for greater difficulty than if we’d taken that time in the first place.
What will you need (to do, to ask, to arrange), next time you need to respond to your body’s messages?
Check your vitals (the 80/20 rule) - ‘The 80/20m rules says that 80m percent of your results will come from 20 percent of your actions … Your vital few are the few things (we’re talking about three things here) that you and only you can do in your work life that mobe the needle forward the most in terms of getting closer to your … measure of success.’
An established tool for time management, it also helps to recognise which choices and actions give little back - and to identify what you can afford to let go of or cut out. Its not a law - more a reliable observation from lots of different worlds. I wonder how ti applies to you?
Receive help - ‘I want my daughters to know that it takes a strong women to know when its time to ask for help. And it takes a strong woman to be open to receiving it.’
This one needs little explanation - but it might be worth exploring how often, or how recently, do/did you willingly receive help? What were the circumstances? What was the impact?
Ask for help - ‘Back in the day, children were rasied in communities … There were hands. Always an extra set of hands. Always an extra lap. Always someone who hadn’t been up all night who was able to be really present because their reserve tanks weren’t empty. The work of raising children and keeping the home going was shared.’
Again, one that doesn’t need much explanation - but the quote above is a good reminder that never has there been a time in history where so much was expected from individuals; the work of society - of raising families and living in community, was previously a shared and collaborative endeavour. Less so these days; to our great deficit.
Simplify - ‘Despite what our commercial culture would have us believe, the answer to this feeling of tired emptiness is not to add more to our lives … The answer is to strip back whats not adding to our satisfaction and joy so we’re left with the simple basics of what really matters.’
We can only simplify when we know what is most important to us. It requires clarity, a clear sense of value, and some discipline and decisive action to put ‘simplify’ as an idea into action. But it rests on what we can PRUNE away, so that we can thrive. (‘I’m talking about [avoiding] things like packing up all of your stuff without going through it first and putting it in storage…’)
Manage your energy - ‘Since becoming a mother, I’ve learned to really shift my expectations and focus from checking items off my to-do list to having enough energy to be present for the things that really matter to me.’
This is an important shift: deciding to spend the energy resources we do have, on a life of greater meaning and fulfilment. How are you going to spend those four thousand weeks? It may feel like an indulgent attitude, a Western luxury, that we are privileged to afford - but maybe a simpler life, one that focuses on what is most fundamental, as all anyone is really after. Lets make sure we have the energy to enjoy it.
Make sleep a spiritual practice - ‘When we sleep, there are so many crucial processes going on that cannot happen when we are awake. It is the ultimate practice in doing less to have more.’
It can be so very hard to achieve, but in connection with listening to our body, and managing our energy - there may be times (especially as we head towards winter) that ensuring sleep is prioritised is more important than anything else. Doing less, to have the reserves to do more.
Become a time bender - ‘The only true way to slow down time is to fully inhabit the present moment. And our kids are born knowing how to do it. (So were we, by the way…)’
The trick here, is to do less of the scheduled, time bound, rushing to get through the to-do list - less of the ‘time management’ that so many people suggest and advise. Instead, we can experience time as elastic, unhurried, in us rather than outside of us - a moment of presence that lets us feel that ‘there is nothing else in the world to worry about and we have everything we need.’ Let’s have more of that kind of time.
Streamline your to-do list - ‘Instead of digging my claws into what I would get done in a day, I decided to get really realistic and graceful about what I would get done in a week.’
This is not so much about changing your expectations of what you can cram in to a week - more that you get more realistic about what needs to give, how much space there is for ‘extras’ and choosing to go without rather than to burn out.
In addition, I recommend organising any list into ‘finite’ tasks (one with a beginning, middle and end) and ‘infinite’ tasks (ones that will continue to roll around, every week, until we shake off this mortal coil. The washing is an example.)
The infinite tasks will roll around how ever much you plan - so you might as well choose what of the finite tasks to complete, to give you a sense of progress and completion.
Make the to-do list for the week on a Sunday evening, bearing in mind the forthcoming point in your cycle, and how you will manage both sleep and energy across the week as well.
Open the lines of communication - ‘Lack of communication is the cause of so much unnecessary drama and angst in our lives. If you want to do less rushing, do less stressing, and do less resenting of your spouse or other key people, I recommend getting proactive.’
Understanding your needs, and being able to communicate how others might best be able to meet them, is something we need to learn to do, to be able to share our spaces (our beds!) with significant others. How is it that we are expected to get on, often without question, whilst living in each other’s spaces and with ever increasing dependency on each other thanks to the demands of family life? The world expects a lot, and knowing how to communicate effectively can save a lot of distress and misplaced energy.
Surrender - ‘There is no one set of rules that will work for every person in every situation … Trying to control everyone and everything around us is not only impossible, its exhausting.’
Connected to both being able to ask for and receive help (above) is the concept that you may have to surrender to someone else’s way.
It’s amazing what we learn about ourselves - let alone someone else’s capacity to step up - when we do so.
Let it be enough - ‘We’ve been brainwashed into thinking that the way to be valuable is to always go the extra mile, to always put in more hours, to always put in more effort, to always do more at work. But hopefully by now you’re seeing why more isn’t always better and how deliberately using breaks, cycles and pulling back can actually lead to the same, if not better, results (not to mention preserving your well being)’.
Preach.