Doing More with Less

When you approach planning, do you find yourself trying to cram in as much as possible?

Squeezing every single bit out of each day?

I used to do this too.

I'd plan the fullest days and then rush around from one thing to the next, with barely time to breathe.

It was exhausting and unfulfilling.

It wasn't sustainable and led to me becoming completely burned out.

Recently, I found myself starting to do this again while planning our holiday to the Orkney Islands.

Creating an itinerary packed with ALL the sights. The "must"-sees and "must"-dos.

But then I caught myself.

What would this create? A holiday probably so exhausting that I'd need a holiday from my holiday...

And so instead we kept asking - what can we cut out?

How can we do less and create more space?⁠⁠⁠⁠

Answering this question resulted in the most rewarding and nourishing holiday I've ever had.⁠⁠

⁠Our days were (mostly) unhurried (except when a little too unhurried-ness resulted in a lung bursting cycle across the Mainland to make a ferry by 8 minutes!).⁠⁠

⁠⁠We left days unplanned, or loosely planned.

With gaps of space that we could fill depending on how we felt. ⁠⁠

Depending on what the weather was doing.

Or on what we saw. Or where local knowledge suggested we see things we'd never have known about.⁠⁠

⁠⁠And instead of "doing Orkney" or "ticking it off", we created a deeper connection with wherever we travelled.

We spent hours paddling along the white sandy beaches in bare feet, scanning the sand for shells or artefacts as the tide slowly crept in.⁠⁠

⁠⁠We sat on the cliff tops sipping freshly brewed mugs of coffee from the stove, watching the dark and imposing great skuas circling and diving overhead. ⁠⁠

⁠⁠We meandered the cobbled streets of Stromness, imagining the great explorers here, filling their ships up with water and final supplies before heading off in search of the Northwest Passage.⁠⁠

⁠⁠We cycled our bikes on the wet Cata Sand with the tide out, to a remote spit of land where we watched archaeologists uncover a neolithic tomb, built by our ancestors over 5000 years ago.⁠⁠

⁠⁠We swam in a turquoise sea, with wrecks from World War II standing out of water, a constant reminder of the history of the Islands.⁠⁠

⁠⁠We absorbed and soaked Orkney in.⁠⁠

⁠⁠We did less, but chose to go deeper, and immerse ourselves wherever we went and in whatever we did.

⁠⁠We connected more fully.⁠⁠

⁠⁠Doing less truly meant experiencing more.⁠⁠

⁠⁠I've been thinking about this a lot with my day-to-day and with our business.

In society we're programmed to believe that more is more.

Busyness is normalised. It's often a badge of honour.

Do, do, do. Consume, consume, consume. More, more, more. 

Always onto the next thing.

Connection becomes an afterthought.

Connection is something we "don't have time" for.

And yet connection is what we crave as humans.

So how do we make time for connecting?

By doing less.

Think about your day to day:

How can you do less to experience more?⁠⁠ 

To connect more? 

And what can you create more of by letting go?

Less truly is more.

Have a beautiful day filled with connection and presence!