Each year, I choose a simple theme to guide how I manage my days.
No goals or New Year’s resolutions. Just one idea to practice.
Last year, my theme was Slow Down. It wasn’t about becoming less productive. It was about becoming less hurried.
Books like In Praise of Idleness by Bertrand Russell, Rest by Alex Soojung-Kim Pang, Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver Burkeman and Full Catastrophe Living by Jon Kabat-Zinn all pointed towards a similar truth: rushing through life isn’t the same as living it well.
So I practiced.
I tried to pause before responding. To make decisions a little more slowly. To notice more. To be more present in conversations rather than mentally jumping ahead to solutions.
I didn’t always succeed, but I became much more aware of how often the feeling of urgency wasn’t coming from the world around me. It was coming from me.
I learned to recognise what my anxious inner critic sounded like, what the niggling push to hurry felt like in my body. And that helped me shift back a few gears and notice how often the choice was mine to make – to give myself space, to take my time, to take a breath, to relax.
It was wonderful.
And it led me to this year’s theme: Simplify – Do Less, Good Enough.
The inspiration came from different places.
Oliver Burkeman’s Meditations for Mortals challenged the fantasy that one day I’ll finally “catch up” and get on top of everything. Herbert Simon’s concept of satisficing – choosing an option that is good enough rather than endlessly searching for the optimal one – offered a practical alternative to perfectionism. And The Score by C. Thi Nguyen reinforced the importance of focusing attention on the handful of things that genuinely matter.
Interestingly, this wasn’t my original theme. I started the year with Simplify – Do Less, Better.
It sounded sensible.
Until I noticed what my mind did with the word “better”.
Rather than encouraging simplicity, it sneakily reignited an old habit. “Better” became “higher quality”. Then “higher quality” became “more refinement”. Then “more refinement” became “more effort”. And that turned into a new rationale for pointless polishing and perfectionism.
Without realising it, I’d created a theme that encouraged me to do less… by working harder.
Oh, the irony. And the power of those sneaky subconscious beliefs that keep resurfacing to hold us back when we least expect.
That small moment reminded me how much our behaviour is shaped by the meanings our minds habitually attach to things. Awareness begins when we start to notice those hidden assumptions. (Side note: Muriel Wilkins’ book Leadership Unblocked is full of simple tips to uncover and dismantle these mental saboteurs).
So I tweaked my theme. Better became Good Enough.
That tiny change has made a surprisingly large difference.
“Good enough” doesn’t mean lowering standards or becoming careless. It means recognising that not everything deserves our best.
Some emails need to be deeply thoughtful. Many don’t. Some presentations deserve meticulous preparation. Others simply need to communicate clearly. Some decisions benefit from extensive analysis. But not as many as we think.
Some projects deserve extraordinary care. Many tasks simply need to be finished.
One of the most useful questions we can ask isn’t: “How can I do this better?”
It’s: “How much effort does this actually deserve?”
Because everything deserves only an appropriate amount of effort.
As knowledge workers and leaders, we often overestimate the value of optimisation and underestimate the value of completion. We polish slides no one will remember. Rewrite emails that were already clear. Spend hours making small improvements that add little value.
Meanwhile, the work – and the people – that matter most wait for our attention.
I’ve also noticed something else.
“Good enough” isn’t only about productivity. It’s about accepting our humanity.
We will never finish everything. We’ll never become the perfectly organised, infinitely capable version of ourselves that occasionally appears in our imagination.
So the goal isn’t to optimise every moment. It’s to choose more deliberately where our attention, effort and care are genuinely worthwhile.
I’m still practicing. And the year isn’t over yet.
Some days I simplify well. Other days I catch myself making something far more complicated than it needs to be.
That’s the point of the yearly theme. It reminds me what to notice. What to practice.
It’s a simple way to make a little more space for what matters, and a little less for everything else.