How do you fix overwhelm?
How do you make better decisions at work and in life? How do you come up with original work, better ideas, even solve some of the world’s biggest problems? Or simply become a better parent or partner, better human, better leader?
No Rush Rule
Wherever I live, wherever I travel, I carry with me a simple list. It's taped above my desk.
The “Good Day List.”
Just a few ingredients. But all of my days have these.
Item #1?
No Rush
None of my best ideas, meaningful work, fulfilling relationships, or life’s most joyful moments came when I was rushed.
Not one.
But almost every bad decision I've made?
Done in a rush.
So I made a decision.
I will not rush.
One practical way I do it: No meetings on Mondays.
It's not that my Monday are off - urgent things pop up all the time. But because I’ve made space for it, my week doesn’t derail. And there's no rush.
It’s like having a time emergency fund.
When life happens, it doesn’t blow up the whole system.
It’s the same principle as saving money for dental work or a broken laptop - so these "small things" don't add stress.
Scarcity makes us stupid.In the book Scarcity: Why Having Too Little Means So Much, Mullainathan and Shafir explain how lack of time, money, energy shrinks our brainpower:
“Scarcity affects both cognitive capacity and executive control… When we are short on time, money, or other resources, we become myopically focused on the near future. Our ability to reason abstractly, plan ahead, retain information, even control impulses get worse.”
Rushing doesn’t just feel bad it literally makes us worse at thinking, working, parenting, partnering… everything.
There was an experiment done, when they asked people to rush to some lecture about helping others, they put a person asking for help in the way - people rushing almost never helped.
Slack isn’t laziness. It’s leverage.When I read something powerful, I immediately ask:
How can I apply this to my work, to my clients, to my week?
For me, that became No Meetings Mondays.
For teams and companies I consult with, it becomes unscheduled hours, a weekly window for deep focus or handling unexpected fires without chaos.
Google’s 20% time? Not just a perk. It’s a design for brilliance.
They don’t just hire smart people.
They create conditions for them to stay smart.
And that means: they don’t rush.
Your Illusion of ProductivityHighly productive people often shoot themselves in the foot. They fill every minute to feel efficient.
But in truth, objective, science-backed truth, they’re making themselves worse at delivering outcomes.
"...our computational capacity, our ability to pay attention, to make good decisions, to stick with our plans, and to resist temptations. Bandwidth correlates with everything from intelligence and SAT performance to impulse control and success on diets. This chapter makes a bold claim. By constantly drawing us back into the tunnel, scarcity [time, money etc] taxes our bandwidth and, as a result, inhibits our most fundamental capacities.
Mullainathan, Sendhil; Shafir, Eldar. Scarcity: Why having too little means so much."
When I look at my calendar and feel rushed, that’s my signal.
Time to pause.
Time to zoom out and ask:
What’s this week really about?
Or as Tim Ferriss puts it:
“What’s one thing, if done, will make the rest easier or unnecessary?”
That’s leverage.
And it makes you smarter, better, more human.
Good day?
No rush.
PS What percentage of your days feel rushed?
Where can you build in more slack - or leverage - to reclaim your capacity to be your best?
