How to Commit Harder to Fewer Commitments
Empty your diary then fill it back up in a different way
Simple + Straightforward is a weekly letter filled with essays, tips, and ideas to live life more simply and intentionally. If you find value in it, feel free to share with the friends and family you think might enjoy a dose of simplicity every Friday.
One of the great things about writing on Medium is that I can see which passages were highlighted the most by my readers in any given story. It gives me great insight into what is particularly resonating with people.
In my story A Simple Life Doesn’t Have to Mean a Boring Life, the top highlight was:
Commit harder to fewer commitments.
Because that’s the dream, isn’t it? Being able to stare into an uncluttered diary with vast swathes of space and time open for you to commit to activities that mean something to you.
The problem is that crafting an uncluttered diary in the first place is super difficult. And in our busy, commitment-filled world, keeping that diary empty is even harder. Especially if you’re anything like me and you are terrified of boredom.
Here are my two cents on this sticky subject.
Problem no. 1 - uncluttering the diary in the first place
Reducing commitments is essentially a tug of war between prioritization, a sense of duty (both to yourself and to people who depend on you for their own commitments like kids), and a concern about what other people may think of you.
But you’re exhausted and something has to give, amirite?
Here are some ways to tackle an overstuffed diary:
Cancel the next social engagement you hate the sound of. Easy win.
Look at your standing appointments, say a weekly dinner with your parents. Can you reduce any of these without canceling completely, thus keeping friends and family happy and you less frazzled?
Which commitments will you not feel bad about canceling because you don’t even like the people you’re about to see? They’re easy ones to jettison.
Figure out the difference between real and junk commitments. Which ones are genuinely important and which ones are just keeping you busy?
Tell people why you’re cutting down on commitments. You’ll be surprised how many friends and family members will think it’s a great idea. Feeling overwhelmed by busyness is something everyone can relate to, after all.
Decluttering a diary is the hardest bit of all this because it’s breaking habits with people who have come to rely on you for say, regular Friday night drinks, or your kids who rely on you to take them to every single thing they want to go to. If you’re anything like me then you’ll worry you’re letting people down.
But - and not to sound too cheesy here - overcommitting and stretching yourself too thin is just letting yourself down. Then you’re no use to anyone, not least yourself.
It takes time. Months, usually. But slowly, it is possible to undo all those commitments. It just takes some...commitment.
Problem no. 2 - keeping that diary empty
So you’ve spent a few months canceling left, right, and center, and you’re looking at an appointment book that is far less overwhelming.
Congrats.
Then someone invites you to a bar tonight. There will be lots of people you kind of know - it’s going to be a big one (OK, for an introvert this may not be a problem, but for us extraverted lot, it’s hard to say no to a bar full of people).
Then your mum invites you to coffee tomorrow. Your kids come home and ask if you can accompany them to *insert kid activity here* this weekend.
Between the FOMO you’d feel if you miss the bar and the sense of duty you feel towards your family, you start to fill that diary back up.
Before you know it, you’ve undone all your hard work and you’re back to square one, stressed and overwhelmed.
Rats.
Our world loves to fill up our time with stuff and most of it is bullshit.
Are you really going to miss the night of the century if you don’t go to that bar, or are you more likely just going to swerve a hangover you could do without?
Is that kid’s activity going to be better for your child than spending family time together instead?
Keeping a clear diary in a world that thinks you’re kinda strange for doing such things is hard. It takes practice.
I’m definitely not there myself yet.
But the longer I commit to an empty diary, the easier I find it is to say no to future junk commitments.
Problem no. 3 - rebuilding your diary with fewer but stronger commitments
Of course, this is a wonderful problem to have.
But it’s still a problem because without knowing what you’re going to re-fill your spare time with, you could easily fall foul of filling that diary back up with unimportant tasks.
I’ve found that the best solution comes from defining your goals.
If you’re like me and you have thousands of things you’d like to achieve in life, there’s a neat little trick I read about recently to help you prioritize.
Write 100 goals you’d like to achieve in your life. Identify the top 5. Delete the rest.
Grace your diary with activities that further those goals. Be careful about saying yes to the rest.
Go deep. Focus. Commit hard to less.
It’s a lifelong practice and one I definitely am still learning. But slowly, I’m becoming that person who gets to answer the question, “so, are you busy?” with:
Not really.
And I’m proud of it.
Something to read this weekend
3 articles from my collection
Similar to last week, I’ve taken down the paywall for the above articles, so you can read them with or without a Medium subscription (if you want to subscribe, however, you can do so here).
3 of the best articles I’ve read this week
3 Unconventional Ways to Simplify Your Entire Life - Stephan Joppich
My 9 Best and Easiest Travel Tips After 5 Years of Living Abroad - Anthony J. Yeung
My Baby Almost Died Because I Thought Bottle-Feeding Would Harm Her - Jenny Mundy-Castle