- What Is Stress?
- Take our Burnout Test
- Find counselling to overcome stress
Key points
- As fall approaches, many of us feel we need to set new goals and be more productive.
- There is a limit to how long we can keep adding to our schedules before we are overwhelmed.
- Focusing on subtracting activities and streamlining our lives can improve well-being.
For many of us, Labor Day traditionally signaled the start of the new school year. It meant that summer was over, and it was time to focus on filling our backpacks with the right school supplies and deciding what to wear on the first day of school. Even when we no longer go to school, the start of the new school year and the transition to fall weather make many of us feel we should be thinking about setting new goals and increasing our productivity
But does simply trying to do more in less time improve our lives? To a point, we may get more things done, but it can also leave us feeling overwhelmed, exhausted, and chronically short of time. In some ways, this is a uniquely modern problem. In the past, people’s lives were often slow-paced and routine. The activities of daily life, such as obtaining food, cleaning the house, and walking from one place to another, took significant amounts of time, and opportunities for entertainment were limited.
Productivity and the Endless Options of Modern Life
Today we have labor-saving devices that make many routine activities easier, and access to an endless stream of music, movies, games, and ways to distract ourselves. But the variety of options available to us can feel daunting. Should we listen to classical or rock music, play an audiobook or a podcast, catch up on the news, watch a movie or streaming show, or learn a new language through an app? The sense that we can never sample all the options available to us leaves us feeling there isn’t enough time to do anything.
Does this mean we simply have to resign ourselves to always feeling harried and stressed? Or should we consider adjusting our assumptions and our behaviors? Economist Leidy Klotz, author of the book Subtract, makes a compelling argument for a change in the way we think. He suggests that we need to switch our focus from adding more things to our lives to figuring out how to remove things. In a country built on growth and expansion, it takes a minute to let this idea sink in. Does failing to strive to do as much as possible mean we are lazy? Will our kids miss out on key opportunities if we leave time in their schedules for playing and dreaming? Do banks, insurance companies, educational institutions, and other organizations benefit from adding more processes and paperwork, or does it end up contributing to confusion and errors?
The answers to these questions aren’t easy. While productivity often pays off, it can also feel like we are on a never-ending treadmill. To get off, Klotz argues that we need to focus less on adding to our schedules and more on subtracting things, large and small, to simplify our lives. To do this, we need to think more about what we are doing, how we do it, and why we are doing it the way we are. This can allow us to recognize processes that are more habitual than logical, and to think about what aspects of our lives really matter to us. It may also inspire us to think about what we expect from ourselves, and whether we need to ask others for help. Dividing tasks into smaller pieces can reduce stress levels, provide more opportunities to feel a sense of accomplishment, and make it easier to get others engaged in the process.
In the popular press, simplifying our lives is often portrayed as a draconian process. We see people moving large families into tiny homes, trying to limit their belongings to only 100 items, or giving up an established career to work remotely on an island somewhere. While these changes may work for some people, we know from research on behavioral change that large dramatic changes are rarely sustainable. Fad diets and rigorous exercise programs sound enticing, but when the goal is too large, we end up backsliding or giving up altogether.
Small Changes Can Create Lasting Impact
So maybe the first thing we need to do is to avoid the urge to add more stress to our lives by trying to make massive changes. But what if we tried some small, simple things? Is there one activity a week that you could eliminate, outsource, or do less frequently? Is there one process you do around the house, or at work, that you could simplify by removing a single step or organizing things differently? Would your kids actually like to take one extracurricular activity out of their schedule? Could you divide tasks into smaller pieces and delegate parts of them to other people? Even if the changes you make only save you 15 minutes a day, it can make things feel less rushed. The feeling that we have enough time to get things done is sometimes referred to as time affluence and is associated with happiness and well-being.
- What Is Stress?
- Take our Burnout Test
- Find counselling to overcome stress
While making small, undramatic changes might not be Instagram-worthy, it can really matter. In an era when rates of stress, depression, and anxiety are on the rise, we need to think about doing things differently. That doesn’t mean it is easy to change our attitudes or our behavior. Initially focusing on doing less may feel unproductive, or even lazy. But making and testing small changes can be surprisingly rewarding. It gives you a chance to see what works, and to adjust your choices based on real-world feedback.
Clearly, staying busy and constantly striving to do, earn, or acquire more isn’t a sure recipe for happiness. As you look at your to-do lists and schedules this fall, it might be worth thinking about how to simplify or streamline things, so you have more time to enjoy what you do choose to do. Ironically, subtracting things from your life might be the way to multiply your well-being
Klotz, L. (2022). Subtract. The Untapped Science of Less.Flatiron Books
Ogden, R., Schoetensack, C., Klegr, T., Pestana, J.V., Valenzuela, R., Goncikowska, K., Giner-DomÃnguez, G., Papastamatelou, J., Chappuis, S., Boente, M.F., Meteier, Q., ÄŒernohorská, V., Codina, N., Martin-Söelch, C., Wittmann, M., &Witowska J. (2025). Chronic time pressure as a predictor of symptoms of depression, anxiety and stress. BMC Psychol. 2025 Nov 24;13(1):1407. doi: 10.1186/s40359-025-03654-4
https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2020/10/7/whillans-book-talk/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ilRNAQ76Vsg
