What beat it out? Improving my spirituality, my relationships with family and friends, my work performance, a book I’m writing, an app I’m building, and my personal finance goals.

Frankly, it’s too much. So I decided to start trimming from the bottom of the list. I won’t stop creating blog posts, but I won’t be posting weekly. I haven’t decided on any frequency yet. I’m hoping that the quality will improve since I’ll be able to focus on longer, less-frequent posts. At the same time, I’m nervous that my writing may decline because I’m putting in fewer reps. 

Ultimately, I believe that slowing down is a great way to prioritize the other important things I’m working on. I can’t wait to show them to you! I hope you consider doing the same thing in your life.

If you want to set a unique, impactful, and ultimately keepable goal: try picking a few outcomes to ignore this year. 

I’m not arguing that you stop checking things that matter. Good goals require good measurement. However, so much of what we are trying to do depends on adopting specific patterns of behavior; creating and sustaining new processes in our life rather than watching the scoreboard. And measuring too frequently may make some things worse. 

For example, saving for retirement is important, and so setting aside some small amount of your paycheck is an important start. But checking the balance of your 401k more than once or twice a year won’t make a difference, and might even lead you to trade stocks and funds more actively—a practice statistically associated with lower investment returns.

Checking your weight can help you track goals, and yet daily weight checks show too many fluctuations to be useful. Obsessing about your weight may lead to more shame about your body. And when you don’t feel good about yourself, there is a temptation to soothe your feelings with food or maladaptive eating behaviors. The number on the scale may not be your goal anyways. Health and confidence are much easier to change than your weight.

So by all means, choose new goals. Focus first on developing processes. Determine how often you need to make corrections to progress. Then get to work, adjust only as needed, and be patient. Do more of what matters, and less of what doesn’t help.

A good break re-energizes us to the task at hand. It helps our mind process information and return with new solutions. It gives us a chance to engage with the good things we have that aren’t work.

Even if you’re passionate about what you do, stepping back from time to time is critical. And if you can’t step back, that’s a sign that something is wrong with the system. If you’ve set it up, find a way to fix it. If you report to someone else, consider all your options for change. “I want to do X so that I’m better at Y” is always a good argument. It may fall on deaf ears–and it may still be worth saying. 

Breaks don’t need to be long, but they’re best when they are deliberate. And when you’re done, return and do what you said you would do. 

You may be stretched too thin to reach all your goals. 

Try doing less. You can choose to be just “good enough” at most tasks so that you can be exceptional at the one or two things that really matter. 

There’s no honor in busyness. Choose to be great instead.