The Case for Doing Less, Beautifully
In praise of the quiet weekend, the unfilled evening and the diary with room in it.
We have all got very good at being busy. We fill our calendars, our weekends, our evenings, and then wonder why we are exhausted. The remedy is not a better planner. It is a smaller plan.
Doing less does not mean doing nothing. It means choosing what you do, and doing it with attention. One good dinner with friends rather than three half-hearted ones. A Saturday with nothing in it. A single, proper conversation instead of a hundred messages.
A full diary is not proof of a full life.
The trick is to protect the empty space. Block it out the way you would a meeting: Sunday afternoon, Wednesday evening. When someone asks, you are busy. You are not lying; you are busy doing nothing, which is a very difficult job.
The reward is not rest, exactly. It is a sense of having been present in your own life, and that is worth far more than a full calendar.
Written by
Priya Nandakumar
Beauty and wellness editor. Sceptical of miracle claims, devoted to a good moisturiser and a long walk.
More in Wellness
