Before school gets too intense, holidays sneak up, and the busy-ness of Q4 and EOY take hold, these are three ways to dramatically simplify your life ahead of all the commotion. The benefit? Improved productivity and mood. Feel better by doing less. Tell me that’s not awesome.

Practice saying no.

Your time is valuable and, frankly, there are limits to how much you can do in a given period, especially if you’re juggling priorities. So practice declining. Or, as a people-pleasing slow-processor, my favorite: “I’ll get back to you.” I need some time to truly determine if I want to and if I can comfortably participate, but in the moment it’s easy for me to cave and say ‘yes’ just to avoid an awkward moment. Getting back to invitations feels true to me and my needs, and it’s easier for me to make a decision with some time and introspection.

I emphasize practice because it might feel unnatural or uncomfortable – that’s ok. Practice saying no and then change your mind, just to get some rounds in. Notice how you feel. Notice how you spend your time. Will you break some hearts in the process? Maybe (doubtful, really). But you’ll also practice honesty and integrity, which bolsters confidence and builds reserves for you to share with the people and activities that are meaningful to you.

Remove rather than add.

What in your life could be removed with little-to-no consequence? Something undoubtedly. Not everything you do is so impactful. We have a cultural tendency to keep adding – things and stuff and activities, for sure, but also duration, intensity, and quantity to the things we already do. Especially when we’re trying to produce a certain outcome. Do try harder, practice more, and be better sound familiar? I like this one from James Clear: “Before you try to increase your willpower, try to decrease the friction in your environment.” Before wondering what you could add to improve your performance or productivity, it’s worth exploring and removing anything getting in the way of those achievements.

Find one thing per week over the next four weeks and see how your energy shifts. Perhaps its absence opens the space for more attention to your priorities, clarity of mind through rest, less distractions or obligations that cause stress.

Rest.

This one separates the toddlers from the big kids. Rest feels counterintuitive, it’s not valued in society, we’re not trained to do this. Similar to our tendency to add and increase, we’re also encouraged to go go go. Rest is not necessarily comfortable. If it were comfy and easy, we wouldn’t have to remind people to do it. An important distinction to make here is that rest does not equal screen time. Your body might be still, but the activity in your brain is still firing, chemicals are being released, you’re actually working quite hard to keep up with all the stimulation.

So what does rest look like? Drink something hot and chat with a friend, take a walk, play or listen to music, read something not on a screen, meditate, exercise. And if those activities sound awful and lame, I get it. My way around those thoughts is to reframe them: This is my body and mind resting. This is so that I can be more effective in my job or relationship. So I can be less tired and anxious. So I can sleep better at night and find pleasurable activities more pleasurable.

Some of my clients have come to me with certain goals to start or complete a thing, only to find out later that they really don’t want that at all. They just need rest or a reframe about why it’s ok not to be doing – or even wanting to do – the thing. I won’t cosign bullshit, laziness, or stagnancy from fear, but I’m happy to present some evidence of what genuinely detracts from your energy, mood, and living your life.

This is a topic I often help my 1:1 coaching clients tackle. If you think you could use a push in a restful direction or need to kick the tires on a new idea or next step, go ahead and schedule a free, 30-minute consultation with me here. Or, if you’re just curious about coaching and how I help my clients, keep learning about it on my site.

Go get ‘em this week.