New Year, Less Urgency

I’ve been thinking about how to do less in 2025. To prioritize so I can bring creativity and energy to my work. Less to do, more to be. Less hustle, more intention. Less urgency, more curating.

I spent several of the days in recent months driving up and down California along Highway 101, and also across California, for college drop offs and pick ups and holidays with family.

For one of these trips, I traveled up the California coast almost to the Oregon border to celebrate my dad’s 80th birthday. We took him to dinner, and stopped to hug redwoods, and snapped a photo of the Don’t Forget the Magic barn that we pass along the way and I am always compelled to photograph.

I was (and am) deeply grateful to be there, that my parents are in good health, and that I have work flexibility in my current role to take a trip like this.

At the same time, thoughts of work intruded. Rumination about hotel contracts and brief banks templates. My to do list taunted me, reflecting a habit of adding work until I’ve reached that familiar state of being extended to maximum capacity, then pushing further. These habits that I refined in decades of trial practice are hard to shift. I can too easily recall other vacations similarly interrupted with work preoccupation, or cancelled altogether by work demands.

I’ve been thinking a lot about overworking and urgency culture, unhelpful habits that are hard to shake. I eschew resolutions but I am easing into 2025 intentions and commitments: to pause often, to prioritize ruthlessly, and then to focus on each project in front of me with new energy, curiosity and creativity.

Here are some prompts I’ve been using to try to reduce the unnecessary urgency:

(1) Is the urgency real or habit? Is this task time sensitive, or might it benefit from pausing, re-examination, a fresh look tomorrow?

(2) Is my nervous system activated and interfering with my approach to this task? Can I go for a 5-10 minute walk to interrupt this habitual response?

(3) Have I paused notifications and created a window of time to focus for deep work? Can I close some windows to focus for 1-2 hours?

What do you think?