In his excellent book, The Four-Hour Workweek, Tim Ferriss says that “being busy is a form of laziness- lazy thinking and indiscriminate action.” By this definition, I, my friends, am capital L lazy. As many of you know I’ve just launched this website as a way to provide practice building resources. I’m also in the final edits of my book on the same subject. Then there are the other small matters of developing the online learning environment for the JW Foundation, moving from Brooklyn to Connecticut, and being a mother to a two year old. No sweat.

So how have I responded to the overwhelming time demands? I’ve spread myself and my efforts thinner than ever before. It’s not that I’m dimwitted- it seemed like a good idea at the time. All the other projects and life changes aside, in the process of getting the word out about The Well Practice I’ve jumped into Twitter, Facebook, joint ventures, blogging (clearly), and writing both a brief ecourse and a very thorough (and free- you can get it here) ebook. The result? Well, the word is getting out. But many of the tools I’ve been using have nothing to do with it. I’m realizing that it’s far better to choose one or two activities that you actually enjoy doing and do them well and consistently. Trying to do everything usually leaves you with nothing but your own burnout and dread. For example, I know loads of people who consider Twitter to be their best business building tool. For me, it’s an exhausting stream of half conversations.

I finally had to ask myself the question Tim Ferriss poses in his book, “are you being productive or just active?” We live in a culture that values “active”. We think it’s synonymous with productive. It is not. I’m learning that active without limitation is the antithesis of productive.

What about you? Are you trying to fan the flames of your practice by doing a lot of stuff- some you like and some you hate- with little result? Are you thinking that adding another modality to your business card will get the clients knocking on your door? What I’d recommend is that you take the time to figure out exactly what your goals are for your practice, and then make a list of things you can do that you actually ENJOY doing to reach those goals. Now pick one or two of those activities off the list and give it your all. Life is too short to wade through tasks that burn you out. If you’re an introvert, don’t decide you’ll grow your practice through public speaking. There are plenty of ways you can connect one on one, or even one too many, without getting on stage (Yelp is one good tool for this- more in a future post).

Be true to who you are and be thoughtful about your actions. It’s not only less exhausting, it’s the way to success.

As an aside, a great book on this subject is The Power of Less by Leo Babuta, he’s the creator of ZenHabits