Doing Less, Better

A packed calendar has become a status symbol in many organizations. Writer Tim Kreider called this out over a decade ago in an essay that's aged uncomfortably well, writing, "It's become the default response when you ask anyone how they're doing: 'Busy!' 'So busy.' 'Crazy busy.' It is, pretty obviously, a boast disguised as a complaint." His sharper point is that busyness is often "existential reassurance, a hedge against emptiness." It's proof your work matters, offered in place of evidence that it does.

Complexity doesn't need a complicated response

There's a real temptation, especially under pressure, to answer a hard problem with an elaborate plan (more frameworks, more inputs, more meetings). Behavioural scientist Michael Hallsworth spent a career watching that instinct play out, and argues the opposite is usually true, writing, "As intuitive as it seems, creating a complicated approach may not be the best response to complexity." His case study is EAST, a four-word behavioural framework (easy, attractive, social, timely) that's outlasted dozens of more sophisticated competitors because people can actually remember and use it under pressure. "A main advantage of EAST is that it is easy, attractive, social, and timely — it lives its principles really well." The framework survives by practising what it preaches.

Fewer things, done well, beats more things done fast

Productivity researcher Cal Newport makes the same argument from a different angle, writing, "Doing fewer things, but doing them well has to be the recipe for a deeper life." His alternative to the packed to-do list means doing fewer things, working at a natural pace, and obsessing over quality instead of volume. None of it is about working less. It's about accepting that a shorter list, actually finished, beats a long one perpetually in progress.

What this means for how teams actually work

We see this constantly in workshops and planning sessions. Teams that walk in with twelve priorities walk out having accomplished less than teams that walked in with three. Alignment on what matters most isn't a soft outcome. It's the entire mechanism by which a strategy turns into results. A team that knows exactly what it's not doing this quarter moves faster than one still deciding, in every meeting, what deserves attention. The skill worth building isn't cramming more into the calendar. It's getting good at deciding, in advance and out loud, what doesn't belong there.

Sources

• The 'Busy' Trap, Tim Kreider, Behavioral Scientist, 19 April 2026

• Why Simplicity Can Be Strength in a Complex World, Michael Hallsworth, Behavioral Scientist, 4 May 2025

• Redefining Productivity — When and How Less Is More, Alicia Guerrero, B.BIAS, 2 April 2026