Minimalism at Work: Efficiency Through Simplification

At work, it’s not about doing but about getting things done. Entrepreneurs and leaders have a tight daily schedule and a series of various tasks. Some succeed, while others are trapped in the quagmire of multitasking. My colleague Andrew planned five things for yesterday and completed all of them, whereas my colleague Dick had five different tasks and only managed one. Each of them had 24 hours.

Minimalism doesn’t mean you do less

Minimalism and the slow life movement might be associated with doing less and slower. Don’t let that deceive you. A slow life doesn’t mean you will be lying on the couch, and minimalism won’t make you do five times less and earn five times less.

Or maybe minimalism does mean that you do less?

If we think about it more deeply, hmm? Alright, I’ll write to you about how I understand the idea of minimalism in the context of work. For me, minimalism means that you do:

• Fewer things at one time mean you can focus on something.
• You only do what is essential – this means you only do things that bring you closer to achieving your goals.

What goals might solopreneurs and leaders have?

I wrote above that you only do what brings you closer to achieving your goals. This might be associated only with hustling to do essential things and depriving yourself of time for pleasure. Dear, this is not the way. What’s important here is what is significant for you in life because the goals you might have can be as follows:

• I want to write a book
• I want to earn something
• I want to be a good speaker

But they can also be:

• I want to work less than 6 hours a day
• I want to spend an hour every day mindfully playing with my child
• I want to play FIFA every day because I enjoy it

Minimalism will help you achieve all these goals because you will be more focused on what you want to do, less overwhelmed by duties, and feel greater satisfaction from your work.

How minimalism helped me reverse the effects of burnout

The wise Pole learns after the damage is a trendy saying (in Poland) and how true it is. When I started my adventure with programming, it was my great passion, and I was ready to work for several hours a day, during which I was also constantly learning and developing.

Over time, this enthusiasm faded, even though I was still developing and increasing my income. This was important to me because I come from a not-very-wealthy family. I dreamed of a BMW. I bought a BMW. And what next? What else can you buy with those lines of code written? When you reach a certain skill level as a programmer, architect, or manager, there’s a trap waiting for you where you can do more and earn more.

And here is the thin line where professional burnout begins. I crossed it and lost the balance between work and the rest of my life. Motivation dropped to complete reluctance and a state where everything seemed pointless.

I tried taking vacation breaks from work, after which I returned to rest, but within a month, the same feelings returned—lack of motivation, discouragement, and senselessness.

After several attempts, I started using minimalism techniques and reduced by about 80% what I can give of myself and how many goals I can achieve. Instead of doing more and more, I started doing less but more intelligent. Instead of writing code and revising it ten times, I began to analyze why I wanted to write this code and what problem I wanted to solve, and as a result, I wrote less code, but when I did write something, that code did the job.

As a team leader, I created an environment where everyone can develop and work based on respect and mutual trust. Instead of pursuing incomprehensible goals, we started doing what is essential and contributing an increment to the product each sprint. The Product Owner was not upset that we were doing less but was happy with the predictability.

Minimalism techniques you can implement now

I would like to show you the techniques that I have introduced in my work and have given me great results, and what is essential is that you can also implement them.

Daily to-do list

I already described the Ivy Lee Method in one of my earlier newsletters. Here’s a reminder of it:

1. At the end of the day, you make a list of six tasks for the next day
2. The most important tasks are at the top of the list, and the least important ones are at the bottom
3. You start the day with the first task and go one by one
4. You reward yourself for completing all tasks
5. You repeat this every day

Regular breaks

To effectively use your time, you need to ensure that you can focus. Once you eliminate distractions, you can work with concentration for longer. But this is also dangerous. You’re not a robot and can’t work with non-stop focus. Your brain will rebel when it’s overworked.

Therefore, take regular breaks. The Pomodoro Technique may help you. I worked in cycles of 25 minutes of focus/5 minutes of break and, after every four cycles, a longer 30-minute break, like going for a walk. Currently, I don’t use a timer and take breaks ‘by feel’ because I’ve learned to understand my body. Nonetheless, Pomodoro helped develop the habit of taking breaks.

Repetitive tasks === habits

Some tasks can be overwhelming. For example, you can’t dedicate a week to refactoring or paying off technical debt. But one small PR (Pull Request) daily, dedicating 30 minutes to it, is a cool option.

Want to learn something new but claim you need more time? Develop a daily learning habit for 30 minutes, and you will master it.

Want to write a blog, and you feel exhausted or lose interest after a few posts? Well, buddy, that’s how I felt, but then I started dedicating 30 minutes daily to it, and here I am creating.

These 30 minutes are magical, believe me.

Using a garbage can

Garbage, whether real or virtual, is fantastic. Regularly throw away things you don’t use or lose their value and importance. In the context of work, you need to learn how to use the trash can primarily when you work with people who are not minimalists and have many ambitions to do everything (preferably at once and preferably for free). Do you have a backlog with 300 tasks in it? Delete those that are older than three months and they will thank you.

Summary

Minimalism at work allows you to work less but still do more because you work smarter. You can focus more and don’t feel overwhelmed. Minimalism is an effective method for overcoming burnout (it worked for me) and is probably also a good method for preventing inflammation.

I showed you three minimalism techniques that I use in my work:

• Daily to-do list
• Regular breaks
• Repetitive tasks, whose habits
• Using a garbage can

Homework for you: introduce one of these techniques into your work. 🙂