Doing Less to Do What Matters

When staying busy is just a way to stay invisible

“True direction requires letting go of all others.”
-The ENOUGH Principle: One Focus

During my recent sabbatical, I made mugs.

Not because I’d always dreamed of making mugs. Because Etsy seemed like a reasonable way to make money while I “figured things out.”

I spent a month teaching myself product design, setting up a storefront, creating inventory, and learning the algorithm. I launched. I felt a small victory. And then I felt nothing.

So I moved on to YouTube.

This time, I told myself, it would be different. I’d make short videos about philosophy and wisdom. Bite-sized ideas to make big concepts more accessible. I studied what worked, taught myself the tools, and posted my first video.

The format was simple: AI-generated stop-motion animations. I even experimented with an AI voiceover, trying to remove myself entirely from the equation. But something felt hollow. Missing. I finally used my own voice for the first video. And realized that was the problem all along. The format had no soul because I’d designed it that way.

After another month, I couldn’t ignore the disconnect anymore. My shoulders carried a constant weight. My chest felt heavy. The work was real, but none of it felt like mine.

I was doing everything except the one thing that actually mattered.

The Real Work

The mugs weren’t the problem. The faceless videos weren’t the problem. They were symbols of the same avoidance: working hard on the wrong things felt safer than showing up unpolished on the right ones.

Etsy let me hide behind products. YouTube let me hide behind animation. Both kept me busy enough to feel productive and safe enough to feel invisible. But the weight wouldn’t lift.

I finally told myself: it doesn’t have to be perfect. You just have to start.

So I sat down to write. Writing has always been my creative spine. Even during my years of doing stand-up, what I loved most wasn’t the performance. It was the magic of creating something out of nothing. During the pandemic, I couldn’t perform and couldn't visit my family. Writing became my outlet when the world felt chaotic and uncertain. That’s when I wrote my first children’s book.

The mugs and YouTube videos weren’t random experiments. They were ways of staying creative without feeling vulnerable. Writing asks more of me. It’s where I can’t hide.

At first, I wasn’t building a framework. I was just trying to make sense of what I was thinking. But the more I wrote, the more the ideas began to organize themselves. What eventually became the ENOUGH Principle started there. Not as a system, but as an attempt to understand my own mind.

I closed the Etsy Shop. I deleted the YouTube channel. And I finally chose myself.

The Coordinate: One Focus

In the ENOUGH Compass, One Focus means choose what actually matters. Not five priorities or three backup plans. One thing that deserves your full presence.

This is harder than it sounds. Because choosing one thing means releasing the others. And releasing feels like a loss, even when you’re only losing distractions.

Ask yourself:

• What am I doing to stay busy instead of doing what matters?

• What deserves my full presence right now?

• What would I choose if I trusted that one thing could be enough?

What the Culture of More Gets Wrong

We treat busyness as proof of seriousness. If you’re not juggling, you must not care enough.

This is scarcity versus sufficiency with focus.

Scarcity says: hedge your bets. Try everything. The more you do, the more likely something will work.

Sufficiency says: choose the thing that’s actually yours. One authentic focus will take you further than ten safe directions.

The mugs and the faceless videos weren’t failures. They were lessons in what it costs to hide from yourself.

A Small Practice

This week, notice where you’re scattering instead of choosing.

Not the obvious distractions, but the productive-looking ones. The projects that keep you busy without asking anything real of you. The work that lets you stay invisible.

Ask: What would I do if I stopped hiding?
You don’t have to act on it yet.
Just notice the weight lift when you finally name it.

See you next week.

P.S. I’d love to know: what’s the one thing you’ve been avoiding by staying busy with everything else?