Log in or become a subscriber

When people start "editing" their commitments, responsibilities and inputs, "not out of guilt but out of focus", they become more effective, respected and fulfilled, a productivity expert says.

When author and coach Donna McGeorge asks her "Red Brick Thinking" workshop participants to fix a lopsided LEGO bridge, most even it up by adding more bricks – even though removing just one red brick would achieve the same result.

The workshops, and McGeorge's subsequent book Red Brick Thinking, are based on research that demonstrates a common tendency to overlook the value-adding power of subtraction.

Whether it's a new tool, feature, process, person or policy, adding without subtracting is unsustainable and creates workloads and mental loads that lead to burnout, McGeorge writes. Creating "the space to move again" requires willingness to choose "deliberately and unapologetically, to leave behind the things that no longer serve us"...