My Word for 2023: Less

Happy New Year!

It’s the time of year when many people resolve to implement new habits to improve themselves. We resolve to lose weight, exercise more, eat better. If we’re Christians, we resolve to read the Bible more or pray more or be more involved in church.

More, more, more.

We live in a society that always wants us to earn more, do more, be more.

It’s a never-ending treadmill that’s hard to escape. Yet decades of experience has taught me two things:

• Most of us will fail to meet our New Year’s resolutions.
• “More” will never be enough.

And that’s setting ourselves up for failure, because there is always more.

January is also the time of year when we read motivational emails and blog posts encouraging people to set goals for the coming year.

I’ve read several such newsletters recently, and received some helpful advice that doesn’t follow the norm:

• James Clear recommends choosing habits rather than setting goals. If we can choose and keep a small habit, we can then scale the habit until we reach the goal. For example, if we want to lose weight, we could walk more, which starts with the small habit of putting on walking shoes. Clear even has a free 30-day email course on building better habits.
• Michael Hague suggests not setting goals at all. Instead, make a list of all your achievements for the past year (big and small, from finishing a book to making that much-needed dental appointment) and celebrating that.

“When you’re done, read back over your list and realise that if you were able to do all of that, you can happily look forward to just as much or more in 2023.”

• Joanna Penn points out that we can’t do everything:

If you want to achieve your creative goals in the year ahead, you might need to quit some things to make room.

All that leads to my word of the year for 2023:

Less.

The main inspiration for Less came from reading Present over Perfect by Shauna Niequist, which I bought a couple of years ago on the recommendation of (I think) Elaine Fraser. Shauna says:

Something inside me said ‘no more’. Only less. Less of everything. Less stress. Less crying. Less noise. Less TV. Less wine. Less online shopping. Less ‘one more thing one more thing one more thing’. Less cramming 36 hours into a day that only has 24 … Less stuff. Less rushing. Less proving and pushing. Less hustle. Less consumption.

Shauna also says:

You can’t have yes without no. Another way to say it: if you’re not careful with your yeses, you start to say no to some very important things without even realizing it.

I can’t do more in some areas of my life without doing less in others.

There are some areas where we can’t do less.

If we have a paying job, we’re expected to work X hours a week to earn our wage or salary. We can’t cut that without permission (and a cut in hours will no doubt lead to a cut in pay), but we can make sure we’re doing our best to work efficiently and minimise unpaid overtime.

If we have family or caregiving responsibilities (and we all do), then we have to feed our family (human, feline, canine, or whatever).

If we have a home, we have to maintain reasonable standards of hygiene in that home.

What can we do less of while still meeting our obligations?

The big “less” for me is spending less time on social media (and less time on my phone in general).

I’ve installed the Freedom app on my phone. Freedom cuts off social media, games, and internet for the hours I set, which (I hope) will wean me from the habit of mindless doomscrolling. If I can’t read any posts, it should be easier to put the phone down.

I get too many emails (I’m sure I’m not alone in feeling that) to the point where my inbox can feel overwhelming. I then feel guilty when I don’t respond in a timely manner.

So another “less” is unsubscribing from emails I rarely or never read.

The same goes for podcasts I don’t listen to, and blogs I no longer want to follow. I definitely don’t need to receive an email telling me about a podcast that’s already sitting in the app, or an email about what’s on sale at a shop I never visit.

Another “less” is online classes.

I have a bad habit of signing up for any number of free and paid online classes. I then miss the live presentation (because it’s at 4am), and let the replays languish in my inbox while feeling guilty about not having had/made time to watch them. I can solve that problem by not signing up in the first place.

(I’m not saying online classes are bad. They’re great … which is why I’m tempted to sign up for too many. But I’m at the stage of writing where my time would be better spent putting into practice all the things I have learned and actually writing.)

I need less busy-ness in my day and my week.

I wrote my first fiction manuscript when I had a job in another city that required a three-hour commute each way and a night in a motel each week. The commute and the alone time gave me plenty of time to think about my plot and characters and deliver a story that worked. While the commuting was exhausting, it did give me a degree of downtime.

My final “less” is possessions.

If there is less junk and clutter in the house, there is less to tidy and clean, and it’s easier to store and see what I do have. So I plan to declutter one cupboard or drawer a week (then actually take the resulting donations to the charity shop).

Less is more, as the saying goes.

Spending less time and energy in some areas of my life will, in theory, give me more time and energy for the things—and people—that are important.

What suggestions do you have for less in life?