You Can Take it One Step at a Time
For years I was a zealous follower of Leo Babauta and his Zen Habits blog. At that point in my life, new to college and all of its associated chaos, I was in desperate need of his message — young man, do you want to control your mind? Simplify. Simplify. Simplify!
And then, In 2013, he surprised me. Babauta was a master of goals and planning, and I followed him in part because I wanted to learn better planning, myself. But one day Babauta suggested that goals, too, could be simplified — and should!
He believed that anything unnecessary should be pruned. Since goals were not strictly necessary for productivity, he decided to experiment with pruning his goals to a minimum. His experiment freed up an enormous well of energy — suddenly he was free to work more, and better, separated from the looming specter of his plans and ambitions.
I had trouble understanding it. At that time I needed goals, because they provided me with direction, and I could not imagine being productive without direction. So I stopped reading Babauta. He was heading off on an odd tangent and so I found other voices that, at the time, I needed more.
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