Most people believe that in order to be more productive or efficient there's this notion of working harder and doing more.

The problem is that since people have limited capacity for focus and for performing deep work, wanting to be more efficient by doing more is actually counter-productive and that's where the notion of adding by subtraction comes into play. The main focus of this idea is:

• You do less concurrent work at the same time;

• The work you do take on can be done in-depth;

• You become more efficient by doing less:

More work means less focused work

If you are juggling several different tasks at once, chances are, you will never be at the top of your capacity on any of them. The trick is to do less work, but, to go more in-depth in it:

• if you laser focus on a single task, you can be much more productive, as you focus all your power into it;

• less context switching also makes for more deep work;

Block your availability to new work

Here's what you can do right away to improve your amount of focused work:

• own your own time: block your calendar when you need to do deep work. This signals to others (and yourself) that you are taking time to focus at a more deep level on a single task;

• limit your own WIP: sometimes, it's inevitable to take on more work than it's possible to handle. Try and enforce a hard limit on the number of WIP items on your plate;

Get better by owning your time

Do more, by doing less.

When you block your own time and commit to working on fewer items, your focus on the items that you are currently working on will naturally be higher than if you'd be taking on multiple things at once. This will enable you to do your best work!