You can work all day, answer every message, attend every meeting – and still build nothing that matters.

You can work all day, answer every message, attend every meeting – and still build nothing that matters.

2026-01-01

You can work all day, answer every message, attend every meeting – and still build nothing that matters. What I am saying is that maybe to make more, you need to move less. This is not about laziness. It is about direction. Many people think that if they are “moving”, they are making progress: meetings, calls, travel, errands, new projects, new ideas. But most of us are not stuck because we do not move. We are stuck because we move too much without focus. Every unnecessary movement is time, energy, and money quietly leaking away. Here is how I see it now: 1) Too much movement scatters your mind. You can spend the whole day jumping between tasks, chats, and places and still end it with nothing meaningful shipped. Busyness feels productive, but it is often just noise. 2) Movement is expensive. Transport, eating out, context switching, “let me just check this quickly.” None of these look big on their own, but they pile up and drain your capacity to do deep work. 3) Availability attracts distractions. If you are always reachable, people will always find something for you to do. Your calendar fills up with other people’s priorities while your own projects stay stuck. 4) Focus multiplies results faster than stress. One hour of deep, uninterrupted work can beat ten hours of scattered effort. Learning a skill, building a system, improving a process, creating a piece of content. Quiet work pays. 5) The real leverage is digital. The goal is not to move more. It is to let systems, skills, and digital tools move for you. AI, automation, and what I call “digital co-workers” can handle repetitive steps so your attention stays on decisions and creativity. Staying still is not the problem. Lack of direction is. Reducing unnecessary movement often means saying no, closing tabs, blocking time, and letting tools handle what does not need your full attention. The hardest part is not staying indoors or being offline for a while; it is managing the guilt and the expectations of others. But if you want to grow, something has to give: the noise or the progress. Where does unnecessary movement show up most in your life right now, and what would it look like to replace it with focused work (or a digital co-worker)? BTW: I am close to releasing a book that goes deeper into this topic called Unwasting Time: Stop Being Busy. Start Being Productive! hashtag # productivity hashtag # focus hashtag # deepwork hashtag # automation hashtag # ai