Hello 2026!

I’m writing this post from the train where I can focus on more things that matter and for which I didn’t have the margin to work with in recent years. It’s been rather refreshing and given me a bit more space to think about things.

In particular, I’ve noticed how much I’ve been doing “the grind” for months, years, [gasp, decades?] now and to some extent the results have not been what I fully expected. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a big fan of focus, hard work, and showing up consistently day over day (the compound effect) in order to be successful. At the same time, how much have I gotten out of the 2 dozen podcasts I balance, the lengthy stack books I smush in between those, and oh, the nuggests of social media posts that are scattered in through it all. It gets pretty overwhelming!

Starting to feel that more acutely the last few weeks, I stumbled upon a great article that came to the jist of…

You’ve tried harder, and that hasn’t worked. Did you ever thing about trying easier?

The point there wasn’t to give up, but more to the effect that we can over-index on the effort and in the process not give ourselves the time to reflect and adjust our approach. Maybe put in a simpler fashion, “Yes there is too much of a good thing.”

Around this time I was listening to the Daily Stoic morning podcast and learned an interesting fact. Originally, the term “well read” was to indicate somebody who read deeply from a handful of authors, not widely. Read beyond pure knowledge and dig deeper into wisdom.

This one-two punch has knocked around my mindset a bit for this year. It’s time to “try easier”. That podcast list will drop down to 3 or 4 of my favorites that I want to really dive into. I’ll pick one or two authors and read multiple books from them. I already made a plan to go back to my favorite/most influential books (Les Miserables, Lord of the Rings) and see what I can glean from them as I’m reading them with more perspective and knowledge on life.

As I write this, the FOMO in me is already trying to keep that list super long and scold myself for daring to miss a nook or cranny that may be overlooked this year. But alas, if I encourage myself and others to work smarter and not harder, why not apply it in the quantity space as well.

I’ll keep you posted. Let me know if you’ve had any experience in this realm.