Subtracting and Letting Go

In these last days of the 2023 year, I have been reflecting on reviewing the past year and also gently letting it go.

To embrace the new year, I sometimes do a little clutter removal to clear the decks before the start of the new year. One year, I had a junk hauler come to take away old furniture, yard waste, old paint, rusted bicycles, and old clothes. It was liberating to see the junk truck drive away with all that junk on December 31st. That year, I was intent on physically and symbolically letting go of things I did not want to bring with me into the new year. But organizing all those things was difficult, because of all the decisions I had to make about each object. Sometimes it is easy to let go, and sometimes the things you hold onto represent unfulfilled dreams or interesting detours you have taken. In the consumer culture we live in, it is easy to keep amassing things. It is a mindset. But the lesson is that sometimes you change your mind about things and letting go of them comes naturally.

Subtraction versus Addition

I came across some interesting research in the journal, Nature, about the cognitive bias people have about adding rather than subtracting when it comes to problem solving. If you are interested, there is a handy short summary of the research on YouTube you can view and listen to here.

The mindset of adding things to solve problems is understandable, because it is fast and easy. But adding things is not always the best thing to do, especially when it comes to energy management. For example, think of filling your calendar with activities. If you keep adding and adding, you can blur your sense of priority. That was me many years ago: I was notorious among my colleagues and work friends for my “capacity optimism,” and sometimes my time management was not so great. I was late to things frequently, because I scheduled myself tightly and usually left very little travel time. What really helped me understand my less-than-ideal relationship to time management was the “time as an empty jar” analogy. You might be familiar with it. It goes like this.

Imagine the time you have each day is an empty jar.

Time as an empty jar

You can fill your jar with big rocks, and then ask yourself: is the jar full? You notice there are spaces in between the rocks, so you then add little pebbles that fill the spaces. Now the jar is full you say! No, it’s not full, because you discover you can add sand, and as you pour the sand into the jar, it fills the remaining spaces in between the pebbles and the rocks. Okay, now the jar is full, right? You then pour water into the jar, and it saturates everything. Okay, is the jar now full?

The time jar is not just full, it is heavy and messy and possibly dangerously close to bursting.

When you ask yourself the question about fullness, consider this:

It seems you can always add something more.

And also:

If you don’t put the big rocks in first, you will never get them in at all!

Hearing the story in just this way was a “game changer” for me, and it got me thinking seriously about priorities and making choices. It took a while, but I completely changed my relationship to time management. Those big rocks are the priority, and you need to figure out what your priorities are in an unhurried way. A little quiet time helps. I sometimes organize my day with a “just big rocks today” attitude in order to keep things simple and manageable.

What are your big rocks? Be sure you get them into your time jar first.

The new year awaits.

Thank you for reading.