Trying To Do Too Much

November 26th, 2011

If you’re a freelancer who’s taking on too much work, then I highly recommend you read this book; “So Few Of Me” by Peter H. Reynolds.

OK, so it’s a children’s book. I just read it to Finley at bedtime and it really struct a chord with me. I think Finley enjoyed it too, but for different reasons. It’s about a boy called Leo who has far too much to do and not enough time in the day to complete his list of jobs, so he creates another Leo, and another, and another, until there are 10 of him beavering away. Every time Leo created another one of himself, the new Leo would find more jobs to do – so Leo’s list was never getting completed, it was just being added to with every new, extra pair of hands. Finally Leo gives up on the cloning — or just wakes up from his dream world — makes all his duplicates disappear and realises he needs a fresh approach to his work load.

The last line in the book reads “What if I do less, but do my best.”

I’ve already started planning the type of work I’ll be doing — or at least trying to do — in 2012, and that quote pretty much sums it all up. More on that in about 5 weeks time.

Tags: book, busy, freelance, organising, todo lists, work load