What’s something you stopped doing that actually made you better at your work?
We usually talk about what to add.
More tools.
More meetings.
More planning.
More content.
More features.
More hours.
But some of the biggest improvements come from removing things.
For me, one of them has been trying to solve every problem immediately.
Sometimes I used to see something broken and jump straight into fixing it.
Now I try to ask first:
Is this actually the real problem?
Does it need to be solved now?
Will fixing it change anything meaningful?
A lot of work can feel productive while not moving anything forward.
I’m curious about the opposite side of productivity.
What did you stop doing that made you better at your job, business, or craft?
I stopped trusting my own memory of why I decided things. Not a productivity habit exactly, but it changed more than any tool has. Every decision that took more than a few minutes now gets one line: what I chose, the reason, and the date. What it removed was re-litigating. I used to revisit the same choice every few weeks because the reasoning had faded and only the doubt was left, and each revisit cost an afternoon and usually landed in the same place. Now I read the line and either the reason still holds or something has genuinely changed, which is a much shorter argument to have with myself.