How Working Less = Better Work, More Success, and a Better Life

The hustle is not the answer

“There’s this new-age obsession with squeezing every ounce out of your day. I’ve tried both hyper-productivity and being incredibly lazy. What I’ve found that works is a mixture of both.” -Tim Denning
“Hustle, hustle, hustle” has come to be widely recognized as the fundamental ingredient of success.

Many swear by the fact that the quality of your life, and what you achieve is directly determined by how much time you give to your work.

But the truth is, you can produce better work, achieve more success and live a better life by working less.

Here’s How.

Your Best Ideas Will Not Come to You at Work
“Your best work will generally happen while you’re away from work. As research has shown, only 16% of creative ideas happen while you’re sitting at work. Most will happen while you’re relaxing, commuting, traveling, spending time present with loved ones, etc.” -Benjamin P. Hardy
These days we are constantly hearing quotes like, “You don’t wait for inspiration; you command it to appear.” Or “Inspiration is for amateurs; the rest of us just show up and get to work.”

While these sound very nice and motivational, rarely is the best work actually created in this way.

The inspiration for George Orwell’s classic book, Animal Farm came when he was watching a young boy steer a massive carthorse along a narrow path, and had the thought: “What if animals realized their own strength?” This question evolved into his metaphorical novella about animals taking over a farm.
When you read the stories of how other famous authors, inventors, and entrepreneurs got their great ideas, you’ll often find they appeared in a similar manner and weren't generated while they were working.

In his book, Incognito, David Eagleman explains this is because the subconscious mind is always running in the background, and silently affecting the outcome of our thoughts. As he put it,

“When an idea is served up from behind the scenes, your neural circuitry has been working on it for hours or days or years, consolidating information and trying out new combinations…
The brain works its machinations in secret, conjuring ideas like tremendous magic. It does not allow its colossal operating system to be probed by conscious cognition. The brain runs its show incognito.”
In this way, you simply cannot just “command” your best ideas to appear. Rather it is spontaneous, with only 16% of your creative ideas likely to happen at work.

Thus, purposefully and deliberately working less can be more beneficial for generating ideas, solving problems, producing better work and ultimately achieving more success.

Photo by Cristofer Jeschke on Unsplash
A Good Life is to Be Experienced, Not Worked Away
“Wherever you are, be there. Lifestyle is not something we do; it is something we experience. And until we learn to be there, we will never master the art of living well.” -Jim Rohn
Again, we are constantly hearing things like, “Close your eyes until your 29,” and a bunch other things that say you need to just put your head down and work non-stop.

But I’ll tell you, I spent 1.5 years of my life living in this way — I sat in my room studying, reading, and writing at any moment I could, I cut off all my friends and focused solely on the pursuit of my own growth.

While I made a lot of progress, I never experienced any great experiences, because the truth is, any success — no matter how big, is momentary and unsatisfying. Experiencing situations with all of your senses, however, provides lasting satisfaction.

As Steve Sims wrote in his book, Bluefishing,

“You can go bankrupt, you can lose your income, you can lose your business, but you can’t lose experiences. You can’t lose what you learn from experiencing situations with all of your senses.”
I expect that on our deathbed we’ll regret not fully experiencing the things around us on this planet, more than we will regret not having made more money or achieved more success.

In this way, I believe the delicate balance between the pursuit of success, and experiences is the key to having a good life in this place.

As Tim Denning wrote,

“Balance is how you win.”
In Conclusion
Working more is not always better.

Your best ideas will not come to you at work, but rather spontaneously when you’re spending time with your family, commuting, or simply relaxing.

A good life is to be experienced, not worked away. There’s a great deal of focus put on doing more work without once considering the opportunity costs, and they might be valuable than any success you achieve.