Before You Add Another Habit, Remove Something

(Transcript edited for clarity.)

Hi, I'm Wes. Welcome to Before You Add Another Habit, Remove Something.

And the main idea for today's video or episode is so often, especially if you're entrepreneurial, you end up adding more and more and more.

That's what I do. I keep trying to find the next thing, improve this, improve that, and continue to add and add until there's so much that I feel like I need to get done on every day or any particular day that so often the quality of the results goes down because there's too much going on.

And what I learned was so often I need to eliminate something before I add things to what I'm doing.

So here's the question that you need to keep in mind as we're going through this today: What can you remove before you ask yourself to do more?

Now, if you're not working at capacity, you can look to add things. But if you're having any level of success or you're working towards more success, whether it's in business or in life, but usually I think about this in terms of business.

But it also works if you're working on success or systems for your life, things like that.

But what happens is if you're already at capacity and you add something else, then you're going to pay somewhere else for adding too much. Now, you should be busy.

And this goes a lot to how you're scheduling your time or allotting your time or, as I call it, how I do time blocking.

And the issue is this: We only have so much maximum effective brainpower every day or every week.

We have 24 hours a day, just like everyone else. But you need some rest. You need sleep for your body and your mind.

But even in your waking hours, it's very difficult, if not impossible, for most of us to work at that peak mental efficiency every waking hour. We need to let our minds recover or recharge.

Now, on the other side of that, we need to figure out when your best peak efficiency of your mind is so you can make sure to use that time effectively on the most important things that you're working on.

I've, over the years, learned when my most effective mental times are, and I try to always time block those times for my most important goals or projects.

Whatever's most important, I time block the times where I'm going to be at peak mental capacity. And then if I need to do more the same day, I will place my second most important or third top priorities in the times around that.

So the number one priority, I focus on the most important thing in the time when my peak mental capacity is.

And then right after that, or giving my mind a short time to recoup after that, then the second most important priority and then the third, things like that.

The key is that you want to perform the most important things when you're at peak mental capacity.

Now, if you've been doing this as long as I have, you always have too much stuff. You have too many things you're trying to get done for the peak mental capacity time that you have.

Now, the first thing is recognizing that, that you only have so much peak mental capacity.

And there's a lot that goes into that. And some people have more peak mental capacity each day than others, but you really got to learn what's at peak.

And then you've got to learn what you can achieve effectively off-peak to schedule your other things.

Now, this is what I'm talking about when I say before you add another habit or another goal or another system or another step in your system, you might need to remove something.

So now, every time I take a look at a new project or a new system or a new goal or adding new priorities, I intentionally take a look at what I'm currently doing, look at my time blocking to see what I have time for. And often I find that I have to make a choice.

Instead of adding something new, first I need to look at: Can I simplify something else? Can I remove something else?

And if I'm thinking of removing something else, is the new priority or the new system or the new goal more important or more valuable than what I'm considering removing?

Again, if you're not working at peak capacity now, then you can probably add more things, but you're going to reach a point where you're going to have to start making choices.

And here's the truth: Your mind and your body will start making choices for you, whether you intentionally think about it or not.

And that's why it's so important that you intentionally think about this and intentionally choose which options are most valuable to you and intentionally compare what you might have to give up in order to do something else.

That's what it really comes down to, is you recognizing that you do have peak mental capacity hours and then off-peak mental capacity hours.

And then choosing intentionally how you fill your peak capacity and then learning what you can still do when you're not at peak mental capacity and still do it well enough.

Because some things, you can still work towards your goals, even in your off-peak times, but you need to schedule or time block things that you can do effectively in those times and not your high-level work.

So again, what can you remove before you ask yourself to do more?

You identify what you might be able to remove or simplify. You don't always have to remove something. For example, if you've created a system that's working well, maybe it's a complicated system.

Is there a way to reduce the complexity of that system and maintain the efficiency or most of the efficiency of that system to give you more time to add something else?

You don't always have to remove something, even though sometimes you do.

But remember back to what I said. Your mind and your body are going to make these decisions for you.

And here's what it looks like. If you don't intentionally choose and you just keep adding more things, what's going to happen is the quality of the work that you're trying to accomplish is going to go down in some areas.

That's what I say when your mind's going to choose for you.

You can work at peak capacity for however long you can, but if you keep adding more stuff, eventually you're not working at peak capacity.

And the other things that you're adding aren't going to work as well, or if they do, then some of the stuff you were doing previously that worked well is going to suffer.

And you've really got to watch out for that so that you can intentionally choose which is going to suffer or which needs to be replaced.

Every new habit or system competes with the life or the systems that you already have. And that's okay.

If you watch me, a lot of the times I talk about being intentional or intentionally doing things.

It's okay. Everybody has to deal with this. It's better, though, if you can intentionally choose how to deal with these things.

Adding without removing can create complexity, friction, and overloaded routines. And that's what I was talking about. When you add too much, some things start to suffer.

So take a look at that. You choose what you want to remove, replace, or you can even choose what to keep, but that you would rather suffer than something else.

Look for commitments, steps, and habits that no longer serve an important purpose.

We all work with systems, whether we intentionally create them and put them in place or not. We're all working on systems. We could call them frameworks.

You don't have to call them systems. I like the word systems. It means a lot of things to me.

But when I say systems, I understand what I mean. You might not view it as a system. You might view it as habits or frameworks.

But everyone has systems or habits or frameworks that they operate on, whether they intentionally put them in place or not.

And when you add more, if you reach beyond your peak capacity, some of them start to suffer.

Simplify the environment before adding another layer of discipline.

So often we think, I can add this if I just stay more disciplined, or if I just do a better job, if I just work harder.

Now, as you're creating systems and frameworks and habits, sometimes that's true, but you reach a maximum capacity where discipline and hard work isn't going to make it all work well.

You reach an area or a level where you can't add more without something suffering.

Create capacity first, then decide what deserves the newly available space.

So even before you're thinking about adding something else, or making a system or a framework more complicated, even before you think about that, start identifying some things that you might be able to eliminate now.

You don't have to wait until you get a new idea or a new opportunity.

Be prepared ahead of time so that you're ready if you do get a new opportunity with something that you can replace quickly and easily.

Doing less can make the important things easier to repeat. You've got to focus on finding the most important things to work on to give your attention to.

Again, you only have a certain amount of mental capacity to work at peak levels. It's not a shame thing, it's not a guilt thing, it's not a try harder thing, it's not anything like that. It's a fact.

Everyone has a level. Find your level and make sure your level is completely filled with the most important things that you're working on. It's a mental game.

Figure out what your peak is. Try to fill that with the most important things, and then anytime you think of something else or a new opportunity, compare it to what you're doing now.

Is it going to replace something that's going to help or hurt? This is Wes.

I'd really appreciate it if you'd subscribe to the channel. Welcome to Your Life Systems. I'll see you soon.

What's Next?

·        Identify when your mental energy is strongest during a normal day.

·        Protect that time for the one or two priorities that deserve your best thinking.

·        List the habits, commitments, systems, or steps that are currently consuming capacity.

·        Before adding something new, ask what could be removed, simplified, delayed, or replaced.

·        Compare the new opportunity against what it would displace instead of comparing it against empty space.

·        Create capacity first, then decide whether the new addition deserves the space.

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