I own three kinds of socks. That's a lie. I own one kind of sock in three colors: black, gray, and dark gray. I've been buying the same sock since 2018, my go-to, and for eight years I paired them, black to black, gray to gray, dark gray to dark gray, as if a wrong match would trip an alarm somewhere.
One day, mid-fold, I asked myself: why am I doing this? Eight years in, and it had never once occurred to me to ask. There's no answer. There was never an answer. So I stopped. The socks go in the drawer loose, and every morning I grab two of the same color. Two seconds. I got a little piece of my life back, and I hadn't even noticed it was gone. I was so thrilled about this, I called my best friend with my silly story of years worth of wasted minutes.
Here's the part that actually got me, though. The pairing had quietly become my excuse. As long as the socks weren't matched, the laundry "wasn't done," so the whole basket could sit there another day, undone. The pointless task wasn't just wasting time, it was giving me a reason to avoid the bigger one.
Doing less is not doing worse. It's noticing the things you do only because you've always done them, and quietly letting them go. I've gotten weirdly good at this, at home and at work, and it comes down to three moves.
Cut the things that don't earn their place
The sock thing is small, but it scales. So much of what clutters a day isn't important work. It's rituals that may have outlived their reason. At home it's pairing socks. At work it's the status meeting nobody remembers starting, the report three people skim, the process that made sense two reorgs ago and now just adds a step.
No matter where, it's the same concept: look at the thing and ask what actually happens if it just doesn't get done. Who notices, when, and does it matter. About half the time the honest answer is nothing, or a small awkwardness I'd happily trade for the hour. At work, I think similarly. Map the process, find the friction, ask if it still serves its purpose. The steps that can't answer that question get cut. Nobody will miss them.
Guard how the world gets to you
Related, I think, are the inputs we allow to bombard us every day. We have never been more notified, more informed, more aware, and almost none of it showed up because we asked for it. So I decide when the world gets to interrupt me, instead of letting the world decide for me.
I check email a few times a day instead of all day. Notifications arrive in batches, not as a live feed of tiny emergencies. Do Not Disturb is on more than it's off. When I'm job searching, I check for new roles twice a day, morning and evening, and close the tab the rest of the time. (I wrote about why that twice-a-day rhythm keeps me sane over here.)
None of this is discipline. It's just not marinating in cortisol all day for no reason. You can be reachable without being interruptible, and most people won't notice the difference except that you seem calmer.
When you do act, pick the thing that unlocks the most
My third trick is one of my favorites: given equal weight, pick the choice that unlocks the most downstream.
When you actually choose what to work on, don't look only at scope, or how long it takes, or even revenue. Say two projects are equal on all of that. The one I want is the one that unlocks more downstream. The one that opens three doors instead of one and makes the next five things easier. Same effort, wildly different dividends.
This is the product manager's version of laziness, and it's the good kind. I ask it about favors too. All else equal, which thing I could do for a teammate, or for my future self, pays the biggest interest? That's not slacking. That's picking the single smartest move and letting it do the work of ten.
A favor to your future self
Some might call all of this being strategically lazy. I call it doing my future self a favor. Every ritual I cut, every notification I mute, every high-leverage thing I pick over three low-leverage ones, is a small gift to the version of me who has to live next week. He's busy. He would appreciate the saved minutes, and the three unlocked doors, and the afternoon I didn't spend refreshing an inbox.
So here's the question I'd leave you with, and it works on socks and roadmaps equally: what's something you do only because you've always done it? Find one this week. Ask it what breaks if you stop. Then enjoy the quiet.