The art of doing less

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The art of doing less

Dear Journaling Community

I made a list this morning not on purpose. I was lying in bed, not yet awake but no longer asleep and my brain started its thing. You know the thing it does every morning before your eyes are fully open. It began stacking all my tasks. If you’re like me I even started writing down a list the previous evening just in case I forget something. By the time I get up I already feel behind in everything.

I have not done a single thing yet and I already feel behind.

Does that sound familiar?

I think there is a particular kind of exhaustion that belongs to women who care. Women who notice. Women who carry the invisible labour of holding the world together for everyone around them while slowly, quietly coming undone themselves.

We do not collapse loudly; we collapse in the shower in the car. It’s those three seconds between putting the children to bed and realising we have not taken a full breath since we had our first cup of tea in the morning.

And when someone says “you should rest,” we add it to the list.

Rest. Item number forty-seven. Right after “reply to that email” and “were out of tomato sauce” and “call the doctor about that thing you’ve been ignoring for three months.”

We have turned rest into another task. Self-care into another obligation. Everything is but a tick box.

I wonder if God looks at us and shakes His head. Not in disappointment but in tenderness. You know the way a parent watches a child who insists on carrying every single grocery bag in one trip, they only want to help.

Sometimes, we tell our kids,

Put them down, love. I will help you carry them. But first, you have to let go.

I realised this speaks to me as well. I have to put some things down first and let it go.

The Psalm That Changed My Mornings

I have read Psalm 23 a hundred times. A thousand times. I can recite it from memory. But it was not until this winter that one word stopped me.

“He makes me lie down in green pastures, He leads me beside quiet waters, He refreshes my soul.” Psalm 23:2-3

Makes.

Not invites. Not suggests. Not sends a polite reminder with a follow-up email.

He makes me lie down.

I sat with that word for three days. I wrote it in my journal. I circled it. I came back to it in the dark at 2am when you can’t switch off when my brain was doing its stacking thing again.

Makes.

Because left to my own devices, I will not lie down. I will keep going. I will keep pushing. I will keep saying “I’m fine” while my body screams otherwise. I will keep adding to the list because stopping feels like failing and failing feels like the one thing I cannot afford.

So He makes me.

Sometimes the making looks like illness. Sometimes it looks like a cancelled plan that was actually a rescue. Sometimes it looks like a Sunday afternoon where you sit on the couch and cannot move and you think something is wrong with you but actually everything is perfectly right. Your body is finally doing what it has been begging to do for weeks.

He is not punishing you. He is parenting you.

Lie down, love. This is a green pasture. I promise.

We Add. God Subtracts.

Our instinct when life feels hard is to add. Add a new system, add a new routine, add a course, a book, a habit, a plan. We believe that the answer to overwhelm is better organisation. That if we could just find the right planner, the right morning routine, the right five-step framework, we would finally feel in control.

But what if the answer to overwhelm is not more?

What if it is less?

God has always been a God of subtraction. He stripped Gideon’s army from 32,000 to 300. He told Martha that only one thing was needed and Mary had already chosen it by sitting still. He spent 40 days in the desert with nothing before He began His ministry.

He does not add to prepare us. He strips away.

And maybe that is what this coastal winter is asking of us. Not to add another devotional, another challenge, another accountability system. But to take something off the pile. To subtract. To do the unthinkable, counter-cultural act of doing less.

The Subtraction List

We always write to-do lists. They grow like weeds. You cross off three things and four more appear. They are relentless and they are lying to you. They are telling you that your worth is measured by how many lines you can cross through before your head hits the pillow.

It is a lie. A very convincing lie. But a lie.

This week, I want to invite you to try something different.

Write a to-stop list.

Not goals you are quitting. Not commitments you are breaking. Burdens you are setting down. Even temporarily. Even just for the rest of June. Small, honest, brave subtractions.

Open your journal to a blank page. At the top, write: “This month, I am choosing to stop…”

Then finish the sentence. As many times as you need to.

Here are mine. I will go first because someone has to.

  • This month, I am choosing to stop saying yes when my body says no.
  • This month, I am choosing to stop checking my phone before I check in with myself.
  • This month, I am choosing to stop performing wellness and actually resting.
  • This month, I am choosing to stop apologising for needing quiet.
  • This month, I am choosing to stop believing that my productivity is my worth.

Write your own. Some will come easily. Some will make you cry. That is how you know they needed to be written.

You are not abandoning anything. You are creating space. And space is where God does His best work.

The 6pm Experiment

I want to suggest something that might feel uncomfortable. Maybe even impossible. But try it once. Just once. This week. Choose one evening. Any evening. And cancel everything after 6pm.

Not reschedule. Cancel.

No screens. No cleaning. No productive rest. No “just quickly checking” anything. No meal prep for tomorrow. No reply to that text. No folding the laundry because it is staring at you.

Nothing.

Sit with a blanket. Make something warm to drink, allowing the time it takes the water to boil to be your Kettle Pause. Let the house be imperfect. Let the inbox scream into the void. Let the laundry judge you from the basket. You do not answer to the laundry.

If you have children, I know. I hear you. The 6pm experiment might look like 8:30pm after bedtime. It might look like 20 minutes instead of a full evening. It might look like locking the bathroom door and sitting on the floor. Whatever version of “nothing” you can manage, that is the right version.

And when guilt shows up, because guilt will absolutely show up right on time, write this in your journal:

“The guilt is here. I see it. I am choosing rest anyway.”

You do not have to fight the guilt. You do not have to argue with it or analyse it or understand where it came from. You just have to name it and choose differently. That is what bravery looks like in a world that worships busy.

Your strength is not in the doing. Your strength is in the stopping.

A Journaling Prompt for This Week

If the subtraction list felt like a lot, try this instead. Or try both. Or try neither and just breathe. There are no rules here.

The One-Line Exhale:

Every evening this week, before bed, write one sentence in your journal. Just one.

“Today, I wish I had given myself permission to…”

Do not overthink it. Do not turn it into a paragraph. One line. Close the journal. Sleep.

At the end of the week, read all seven lines together. They will draw a map of what your soul is asking for. I suspect the map will not point toward more. It will point toward less.

A Closing Thought

You were not made to run at full speed in every season.

Winter exists for a reason. No apology needed. I don’t know why in the back of our minds that we feel that rest needs to be earned.

It does not.

Your rest is not a reward for finishing the list. It is a gift from a God who already finished it for you.

So put the list down. Just for tonight. Just for this week.

Do less. Be more. And let the Shepherd make you lie down.

He knows what He is doing.

This is Week 3 of The Long Exhale, our June journey. Next week is The Winter Table. We will be setting a table in your journal for the things that sustain you.

Missed the earlier weeks?

With grace, Debbera