Fellow Dads,
I don’t remember when I fully realized it, but at a certain point, I became aware of a pressing need that seemed to pop up in most areas of my life: cutting waste, increasing efficiency, doing more with less.
Maybe it was my time in commodities trading. In a very ‘what have you done for me lately?’ world, you are constantly refining processes, automating whatever you can get your hands on, and collaborating with different groups to make things run more smoothly.
For one, less problems means less time spent in meetings or on conference calls rectifying the issues. Second, if you could cut the amount of time it took to do Daily Task A by even 30%, those types of improvements could add up quickly to make a big impact on the sustained growth of your trading group.
I can even recall a season at work there where I spent hundreds of hours (until 11PM at night sometimes) with the team I was on doing the same monotonous and tedious fact checking work, all to simply one day have that process completely automated through a fancy excel if:then logic code, written specifically for that part of the natural gas trading portion of the company.
It was a breath of fresh air. More importantly, however, it was a great reminder of what growth can bring: automating our lives with habits, and cutting the unnecessary things that clutter our minds and relationships and lives, can bring that same breath of fresh air as well as sustain our adult development and growth.
That’s what this new book I’m reading, The Power of Less, is all about.
An interesting guy named Leo Babuata wrote the book about what he had discovered to be a set of principles whereby when applied, we can achieve more while doing less. He recognized that a lot of people struggle with doing everything and nothing at the same time.
I want to I ask you, though: Do you ever feel like you’re spending all your time putting out fires, moving from one to the next, but never really moving towards your long term goals?
This could be financially, health, strength, & fitness, career, or familial goals.
In a similar fashion, though, I can remember being Sales Manager at a big box retail store and asking this exact question.
I spent 85% of my time responding to questions and concerns my employees had on the sales floor. Whether a customer was upset or they had a question they didn’t know the answer to, it felt as though I were running around and doing a LOT of work.
But then my managerial work would come due. I would jump on KPI (Key Performance Indicators) calls without having had the time to sincerely review the numbers from the previous week. My performance reviews would be sloppy or short. I wouldn’t get my proposed schedule in on time.
The point is that I was completely reactive.
And how many of us live our lives that way?
Waking up in a state of alarm (that loud noise from your phone or the radio), rushing through preparing your kids for school (getting dressed, breakfast, ensure they bring their homework), getting out the door, arriving at work on time and ready to go for work, rushing through your tasks and responsibilities so you can get off work on time to see your child’s extracurricular sporting event, etc. etc. etc.
Moving from hurried state to hurried state and at some point… it can’t go on like this.
There’s got to be a better way.
Over the next few days or weeks (depending on how long it takes for me to read the book), I’ll be providing a commentary on his thoughts and principles. Since you don’t have time to read it, I’ll do my best to distill what he’s really trying to say and what that truly means for your life as an overly busy Dad just trying to commit yourself to a healthier life.
Hopefully we can both takeaway what it means to tap into the Power of Less.
Signing off,
Simple Health Dad