Mike Michalowicz argues that deliberately limiting work time forces you to focus on what matters. By stopping work at set times and replacing it with exercise or meditation, you eliminate busywork and let your business run itself.
Hi there, this is Mike Michalowicz, the author of Clockwork. I just got an email in today, which I gotta move my light so you can see it. It came in from Bobby Jo and it's just a fascinating email. She's reading Clockwork and said her epiphany was the commitment not to work. And I want to share this with you as perhaps the most impactful thing you can do in your business starting today if you want your business to run on its own, and it's your commitment just to not work. Which sounds crazy, but this is part of Parkinson's Law, the theory that as a resource expands its availability, we consume more of it. The more time we make to work, the more we work and the more we fill it. Therefore, if we restrict the time amount that we work, it forces us to work within the confines of what's available and forces us to focus on what really matters. You see, when we expand our work, it just fills with that superfluous busywork constantly. And we keep spinning and spinning and spinning but not making progress. So make the big commitment not to work. When you come home, say, "Not gonna work." When you get up in the morning, maybe the first thing you do is not work anymore, and it's do something alternatively. Exercise, meditate, read. Just enjoy yourself. Just relax. That will take a discipline, but if you pull it off and you stick with it, naturally You'll find the work that's important to do, and that's the work you'll do when you have time that you made available to work. So commit to working less. Actually work less, and you'll get more results.
