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The Quiet Case for Fewer Commitments
Every yes is a promise about your future time. Most of us make those promises at a rate no human can keep.
The most common cause of a life that feels heavy is not difficulty. It is volume.
Yes is not a moment, it is a contract
When you agree to something in September, you have just spent an evening in November. The person agreeing is not the person who has to show up, and that mismatch is where the exhaustion comes from.
A full calendar is not evidence of an important life. It is often evidence of an unguarded one.
The test that changed my own week
Before adding anything, I now ask whether I would trade one of the commitments already on the calendar for it. If the answer is no, the answer is no — and it is a no about the trade, not about the person asking.
Fewer commitments, kept properly, will do more for the people around you than many commitments kept badly. That is not a productivity argument. It is the whole point of the exercise.