John Maxwell once wrote in his book “Developing the Leader Within You”: “You cannot overestimate the unimportance of practically everything”. He might have exaggerated a bit, but he certainly highlighted that instead of “spreading ourselves too thin” and rushing madly towards exhaustion, discouragement, burnout, or even depression, instead of trying to do everything and please everyone, it is worth pausing for a moment.
Pause and conduct an honest assessment of what can be subjected to creative elimination and moved without guilt from the “to do” list to the “not to do” list (the latter is even more important than the former). This kind of decluttering, I feel, allows us to work smarter, not harder, and finally do what truly matters in life.
In my opinion, to distinguish truly important things from the insignificant ones, we need to create space for thinking, give ourselves time to observe and listen, and allow ourselves to play and experiment with different possibilities.
Time for thinking is not an unnecessary luxury. It is a necessity, like daily hygiene. A necessity that grows the faster life moves and the more we are entangled in handling daily “busywork”.
Only conscious self-reflection allows us to see value in everything that happens to us. It prevents a senseless chase to nowhere because life cannot be just hard work—it must include play, fulfillment, relaxation, regeneration, and growth. Play and rest are today – I am convinced – as important as work. We have play in our genes, and we should not forget that. As for regeneration, when we happen to pull an all-nighter for “urgent” tasks, let’s remind ourselves that sleep is not a privilege of the lazy—it is a source of creativity because it enables us to achieve a higher level of mental efficiency.
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