Do LESS.
Why sometimes it’s better not to do anything
You know the advice.
“Feeling anxious? Just do the next small thing.”
Just start somewhere. Do something. So ANYTHING.
And as someone is a chronically Type A, overachieving, rather anxious individual… I of course tried this.
Numerous times. If there is a productivity book out there I haven’t read, I’d like to see it.
However, I have come to see the truth behind this common adage. And if you’re someone who is also still under the impression that the secret to achieving your dreams is simply taking action… then hold onto your pants. We’re in for quite a ride.
I used to be that girl. The vision board queen.
I had a five-year plan, broken down into quarters, with colour-coded Post-it notes and motivational quotes from Pinterest.
And don’t get me wrong: there were moments of magic. I ticked off a lot of boxes.
Which gave me temporary relief, a sense that I was more in control than I really was. A mini boost to self esteem based on my perceived achievement.
But it didn’t fix the underlying problem: immense existential dread.
I started to notice this was a cycle:
→ Feel anxious
→ Make a plan
→ Take lots of action
→ Burn out
→ Feel anxious again
→ Repeat
Doing something - anything - felt soothing in the moment. Like scratching an itch… that always comes back.
Enter my “Tower Moment.” My mix was a few different life disasters, as well as the lingering obsession I had with the concept of the daimon, of fate, free will, destiny, what is really up to us…
The result was I tried something I’d never tried before. Because I’d simply tried everything else. Every action I could have taken… I’d taken.
So what was left?
Nothing.
I started doing nothing at all.
I know. Yawn. Anti-productivity advice is the new hustle culture.
But honestly, I did it because I was exhausted, overcommitted, and honestly ready to throw in the towel on a fight I wasn’t even sure I had willingly entered.
Fun fact: Our nervous systems are not built for this.
Neuroscientist Daniel Levitin reminds us that too much information literally depletes our brain’s decision-making energy. That’s why you can meal prep for the week and still have a meltdown over whether to watch Netflix or read.
I used to think “doing less” meant being lazy.
Or giving up. Or giving in. Or just not trying hard enough.
In truth, “doing less” actually looks like:
Doing one thing a day that matters, and not apologising for it.
Not filling every gap in the calendar.
Choosing trash TV over a dense philosophy book, if that’s what I need.
Saying “no” more often, so I can say “hell yes” when I actually want to.
“Less” is not a moral failure. It’s a survival skill.
“Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes. Including you.”
~ Anne Lammott
What happened when I started doing less
I became so familiar with the Kardashians I started buying beige clothes.
I completed several puzzles. I stared into space.
Now all of this is technically something, not nothing. But to me it was a massive departure from my usual routine: get the 5 year plan out, work backwards from there, create micro steps, make some checklists…
None of this was planned. None of this was ‘productive’.
And yes I still showed up to work and was plenty productive there. But that was really just following someone else’s plan.
For the first time in god knows how long I let myself be carried by the waves of fate.
Did my life fall apart?
No. Well, no more than it already had.
What actually happened is I initially felt incredibly bored. Depressed.
Then I started feeling… Relaxed. I was still grieving my dreams, but it was such a bloody relief to not feel beholden to this plan I had trapped myself in.
Then… something very cool started happening.
I started feeling inspired. OK that’s too strong. I got inklings. Cravings for a walk. A hankering to go on a dating app. Nothing planned. Just responding to reaonable urges.
The call of the daimon? Possibly.
The more I paid attention to what I actually wanted to do, the more I did, of course. Right up until recently where I started making Youtube videos again.
So I’m not just an inert sponge. I am doing things again. But I’m doing things very differently.
This is what doing ‘less’ looks like to me now:
1. I check in with myself daily.
This doesn’t have to be writing an essay. It’s just a moment in the day when I ask:
“Is this still what I want?”
“Is this mine, or is this a hand-me-down goal I picked up from a podcast?”
Most days, I write to the daimon to ask these questions. You can call it your intuition. Your gut. Your real voice under the static.
This check in is how I calibrate myself - remind myself of what’s actually important that day, not what I told future Cat had to be important to her to achieve her 5-year goal.
2. I stopped locking myself into long-term plans.
Once upon a time, I’d spend days crafting content calendars, scheduling workouts, planning meals with military precision…
And then, two weeks in, I’d hate it all.
These days, I still plan. But it’s loosey-goosey. Things are allowed to change.
I follow intentions instead of deadlines. And I let better ideas arrive and overtake the old, stale ones that worked for past Cat.
This is what the late great David Lynch called “catching the big fish.” You wait. You listen. The ideas come when they’re ready, not when you demand them.
3. I follow my values, not just goals.
Hot take: A lot of goals are just masks for our wounds.
I wanted 10k Youtube followers. Why? So I’d feel seen (maybe something I didn’t feel as a child… oh wait, I’m meant to be saving that for therapy.)
Underneath the wound is a true desire: the desire to feel safe.
So now I flip the question:
→ How can I feel safe now?
→ What small thing honours what I care about today?
These are things that are in my control. What’s not in my control is whether you, dear reader, are going to subscribe to my Substack or Youtube channel. So it’s not a great way for me to find my feelings of safety.
But connecting with a loved one, totally is. So I choose that instead.
4. I’m learning to live with uncertainty.
Uncertainty used to be my kryptonite.
I’d try to eliminate it with 5-year plans and vision boards and control disguised as ambition. Unsurprisingly, that didn’t work. The anxiety always found a way back.
Now, I do something a bit odd but surprisingly helpful:
Sunday Night Spiral Time.
I set a timer for 15 minutes.
Then? I let myself spiral.
“By scheduling time to worry, we can stop worrying all the time. Instead of stewing in anxiety throughout the day, we train ourselves to say, ‘I’ll worry about that later.’”
— Gretchen Rubin, The Happiness Project
She advocates for a structured “worry period” as a way to contain anxious thoughts, rather than letting them hijack your day. It’s a strategy backed by cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), too. The idea is setting a specific “worry time” helps reduce overall rumination by giving your brain boundaries.
I get it all out. I write it all down. Then the timer goes off and I’m done.
This isn’t about bypassing emotion. It’s about containing it.
So I let the feelings have their way with me. Then I close the book and carry on with my day.
In conclusion…
Doing less gave me more.
More clarity. More energy. More joy. More me!?
As for my anxiety?
It hasn’t disappeared. And yes, there are still days I forget all of this and find my way back into planner mode.
But I’m learning to trust myself. I’m learning to make decisions in real-time, not based on a blueprint I wrote three months ago when Mercury was in a different sign and I was ovulating and craving novelty.
It’s like building muscle. The more I don’t act immediately to fix the feeling, the more capacity I have to feel the feeling and not panic.
If you’re into astrology like I am, this just makes sense.
You can’t control the planets.
You don’t get to reschedule your Saturn Return because it’s inconvenient.
So why do we think we can perfectly engineer our lives? There’s a kind of freedom in surrendering to that.
It doesn’t mean doing nothing—it means doing what matters, when it matters, not out of panic, but from a place of peace.
Till next time, here’s to loving our fate (or at least, learning how to.)