How to Achieve More by Doing Less

How many times have you heard that hard work is the only path to success? Or that if you’re not grinding every second of the day, then you’re falling behind? It’s everywhere. This idea that working harder, longer, and faster is the key to getting ahead. But what if that’s not true? If you’re someone who’s constantly pushing yourself to the edge, sacrificing sleep, downtime, and even your health, you might feel like that’s the price that you have to pay for success.

But what if you could achieve more by doing less? What if working smarter, not harder is the real secret. In today’s episode, we’re going to break down the myth of overwork and explore how slowing down might actually be the key to getting ahead.

Welcome to Calmly Coping. I’m Tati Garcia, a licensed therapist and coach here to help high achievers stop overthinking and finally feel calm and confident. If that’s what you need, then hit subscribe. Let’s dive into the episode. Let’s start with a question. Why do so many of us believe that working harder and pushing ourselves to the limit is the only path to success?

We live in a culture that constantly tells us that if we’re not hustling or constantly productive, then that means that we’re failing. That if you wanna be successful, you need to wake up earlier, stay up later, and push yourself harder than everyone else around you. This message of hustle culture is everywhere.

Always be working. Sleep is for the week. You get the idea, and it’s easy to internalize this belief that your worth is directly tied to how much you can do. How many tasks you check off your to-do list, how long your workday is, and how exhausted you feel by the end of the week. These are sometimes seen as a badge of honor.

It’s something to be proud of, but here’s the truth. Constantly working at this level drains your energy, depletes your creativity, and it can erode your motivation over time and ultimately negatively impact your mental health and wellbeing. Think of it like trying to run a marathon at a sprinter’s pace.

You might get ahead for the first mile or two, but eventually you’re going to lose energy. You’re gonna crash and you’re not gonna be able to sustain that pace for the entire distance, and that’s where so many high achievers end up stuck in this place of burnout. Feeling overwhelmed, exhausted and depleted.

Drowning in endless to-do lists and back-to-back meetings. And what often fuels this is that the fear that if you stop even for a moment, you’re gonna fall behind and things are gonna fall apart. So this episode is your invitation to step off of that treadmill. And start achieving success or maintaining success in a more sustainable and intentional way.

And I wanna clarify when I say success, that is something that is entirely personal to you. Success is not necessarily how much you’re making financially or what degree you hold, or what position you have. Success can be feeling fulfilled in your role. It can be having balance between your personal and professional lives.

And enjoying your time off from work. Success can have so many different meanings, and I think we often conflate success in our capitalist society with financial means, how much money you’re making, what status you have, et cetera. There are so many more ways to define success and. I encourage you to reflect on what success means to you personally.

So now let’s talk about some tips to help you achieve more by doing less. Tip number one is to shift your mindset from quantity. To quality. Really being productive isn’t necessarily about how many hours you’re working, but it’s about the impact of what you are accomplishing. And in fact, research shows that after a certain point, the longer you work, the less productive you become, becomes a point of diminishing returns.

Your focused decision making and creativity all suffer. One example that I love is the UK’s four day work week trial. Dozens of companies shifted to a shorter week, and not only did productivity not decrease, it actually improved. Employees were more focused, more engaged, and less burned out because they were prioritizing their time more effectively and then getting time to recover in between.

So here’s the question that I want you to ask yourself. What’s really moving the needle in your day? Not necessarily what’s keeping you busy, not what’s making you feel productive by checking things off your list, but what is actually creating results towards whatever goal you are working towards? When you shift your focus to quality work over quantity, that is when you start working smarter and not harder.

Tip two is to focus on high impact tasks, and this kind of goes hand in hand with tip one. You might have heard of the 80 20 rule, otherwise known as the Pareto principle. It’s the idea that 20% of your efforts lead to 80% of your results. And that means that a lot of what you’re doing might not actually be getting you significant results or getting you closer to your goals.

How do you apply this practically? Let’s say you are a business owner who is spending hours tweaking your website or responding to emails, but the real growth in your business comes from sales calls or networking, or maybe you’re spending your evenings stuck in your inbox as an employee. When, what really improves your performance is disconnecting and taking time for sleep and rest.

Take time to identify your 20%. What are the core activities that generate the biggest results for you? Focus there and eliminate the busy work that’s just filling your time. I mentioned email. I’m sure that’s a big one for a lot of us. Feeling like everything that comes into our inbox is a request or a demand even that needs to be responded to.

And maybe we can shift our relationship with email so that we’re not constantly living in our inbox, but so that maybe we’re intentionally checking a couple, a few times a day. And then spending the rest of the time on more impactful tasks. Tip three is to set boundaries and prioritize rest. This is something I’ve talked about in many of my podcast episodes before, but high level performance requires rest.

It is a non-negotiable. I mean, being a human requires rest, but especially when you want to perform at a higher level and work smarter. Think about elite athletes. They don’t train 24 7. They have recovery built into their routine because their bodies need it to function at their peak. And your brain and nervous system are no different.

Rest is not a luxury. It is a necessity. So this can look like. Setting boundaries around your workday. Maybe that looks like turning off emails after 6:00 PM or blocking time for an actual lunch, not just one eaten in front of your computer at your desk. You can also schedule regular breaks so that you’re getting up and stepping away, and this helps you to be more productive in the long run.

Create things like wind down rituals at the end of your day. And most importantly, treating your mind and body as the most valuable tools you have because they ultimately are, they’re the only ones that we have forever, and that includes nervous system regulation, so things like breath work. Grounding and movement, which can keep you calm, centered and present.

I will link to my episode that I have on regulating and calming your nervous system and the description as well as in the corner. If you’re watching on YouTube, when you do these things, you’re not only going to get more done, but you’re also going to feel better. Doing them. Tip number four is to learn to say no, and this one can be especially hard for high achievers.

There’s often this fear that if you say no to a project or request, or even a social event that you’re letting someone down or missing an opportunity. But every time you say yes to something that either doesn’t align with your values or your priorities, or you don’t have time for, you’re often saying no to something else, and this often is your own needs.

Learning to say no with confidence is a skill that comes with practice. So it’s something that might feel uncomfortable in the beginning, but over time it can be one of the most powerful ways to create space for what truly matters to you, so you can be more effective with your time. Because remember, your time and your energy are finite, so it’s important to spend them wisely and be intentional and make choices.

If you’re constantly reacting to other people’s requests and the things that other people put on your calendar, then oftentimes the things you actually want for yourself, never. There’s never time for them and they continually go to the back burner, but these are oftentimes the most important things to help us to be more present for the things that we have to do.

When you are taking time for things that might seem frivolous, like hobbies or rest, these are actually the things that give you the focus and the energy to be more effective and productive with your time. Tip five is to embrace the power of delegation. Delegation is not something that is a weakness, but it is a sign of smart leadership, and I have worked with so many high achievers who struggle with this.

Because they’ll say things like, it’s just faster if I do it myself or no one else will do it as well as I can. Other people are always making mistakes or they’re not as detail oriented as me, and that may be true, but ultimately this mindset keeps you trapped in a cycle of overwork, micromanagement, and ultimately.

Burnout. Somebody else may not be able to do something exactly how you can do it, but you can train them and give them feedback and create this iterative process that helps you to get them to that point where it is a good enough. And I do have a podcast episode on delegation as well that I will link in the description delegating tasks that don’t require your unique expertise.

Free up your time for the work that only you can do, and it helps to build trust, collaboration, and ultimately sustainability in your life and in your career. So let go of the need to control every detail that often creates more stress than it helps, and remind yourself that you do not have to do everything alone.

It is okay to ask for help, and it is actually going to help you in the long run. I had a client who will call Sarah, who came to me completely burned out. She was working 10 to 12 hour days saying yes to everything and constantly feeling like she was behind despite checking off tons of tasks each day.

We started by identifying her high impact work. What actually moved her forward in her role. Then we built in boundaries. She stopped answering emails after 7:00 PM and scheduled actual downtime fully disconnected from work into her weekends. And she focused on things like rest, not just sleep, but intentional nervous system regulation.

And what ultimately ended up happening is that once she was caring for herself, once she was maintaining these boundaries, her productivity and her performance at work. Improved. She had more energy, she felt more clarity, and she felt more in control of her workday for the first time in years because she was taking control over what she could control.

So I’ll leave you with this question. What could you achieve if you stopped grinding and constantly hustling and started focusing on what truly matters? If you’re ready to be more productive without burning out, I have created a free guide just for you. It is called, you Guessed It, how to Be More Productive Without Burning Out.

You can learn more and get that for free at calmlycoping.com/productive. There’s also a link in the description for this, and if you wanna go deeper with resources on calming your nervous system, breaking the overworking cycle, and finding mindful meaningful productivity. Then I encourage you to join the calm and ambitious Vault.

You can learn more and get access by going to calmlycoping.com/vault or clicking on the link in the description. Here’s the truth. Success isn’t about how much you work. It’s about how you work that helps you to achieve the things that are personally important to you. So it’s okay to give yourself permission to slow down, to rest and to let go of the grind.

If you found this episode helpful, I’d love if you can share it with someone you know who is stuck in the hustle because they might just need this message today. While you wait for the next episode, I have other episodes about calming your mind, improving work-life balance, and feeling more confident from within.

So be sure to check out these episodes here. Thanks so much for tuning in today, and until next time, be calm.