Powerful ideas from top nonfiction
Try Blinkist to get the key ideas from 5,500+ bestselling nonfiction titles and podcasts. Listen or read in just 15 minutes.
Start your free trial
Blink 3 of 8 - The 5 AM Club
by Robin Sharma
Listen to the Intro
Less Doing, More Living summary
Ari Meisel
Make Everything in Life Easier
21 mins
What is Less Doing, More Living about?
Less Doing, More Living (2014) guides you through nine fundamental steps on your journey toward becoming more effective. In these blinks, the author shares his favorite tools and techniques for optimizing, automating, and outsourcing everything on that pesky to-do list, thus giving you time for the things that are most important in your life.
Table of Contents
Less Doing, More Living
summarized in 9 key ideas
Audio & text in the Blinkist app
Key idea 1 of 9
Track your life to learn where you can start saving time.
Do you know about the 80-20 rule? If you don’t, here’s a recap. The 80/20 rule states that 80 percent of what you accomplish results from just 20 percent of all your time and energy. And this rule is the case for pretty much everything you do – this includes your studies, your work, and your exercise routines.
As the rule suggests, you should spend most of your focus on this vital 20 percent. But how do you figure out what 20 percent of time and tasks you need to focus on?
You need to start tracking. By tracking your work and your time, you’ll get a good idea of where it’s being spent well and where it isn’t.
Now, this sounds great! But who’s got time to live their busy schedule and observe it at the same time? Luckily, there are a few resources which can make tracking your time much easier.
First, there’s RescueTime. It’s a program that monitors what you’re actually doing on your computer all day. If you use it, you’ll be able to spot which websites or applications are stealing your day away. RescueTime will then help you block access to them. Problem solved!
RescueTime is a great way to track your productivity. But, what if you want to track your health as well?
One great way to track your health is to go back to basics with an old-school paper journal. In your journal, record everything you eat during the day. As well as this, you could get your hands on a pedometer or smartwatch to count all the steps you take and you should also make an effort to weigh yourself each day. It might seem like a lot, but the more you know about your health each day, the sooner you’ll be able to improve it.
When you’ve tracked your life, and gained an idea of where you’re spending your time wisely and where you’re wasting it, it’s time to optimize it. But how do you do this? How do you craft a daily routine that works? Well, you should think of it as optimizing your processes. For a role model, look to IKEA. Each IKEA product comes with highly optimized instruction manuals for assembling each product, whether it’s a coffee table or geometric lamp. These instructions have been boiled down to their very essence – a few language-independent, easy-to-follow steps.
Approach your life like IKEA approaches its manuals. Whatever the task, whether it’s writing emails or organizing meetings, you should minimize the fuss and get it done in as few steps as possible.
Want to see all full key ideas from Less Doing, More Living?
Key ideas in Less Doing, More Living
More knowledge in less time
Read or listen
Get the key ideas from nonfiction bestsellers in minutes, not hours.
Find your next read
Get book lists curated by experts and personalized recommendations.
Shortcasts New
We’ve teamed up with podcast creators to bring you key insights from podcasts.
Who should read Less Doing, More Living?
- Anyone who feels like they’re losing time
- Personal trainers
- People who want to lead a happier lifestyle
Categories with Less Doing, More Living
Books like Less Doing, More Living
People ❤️ Blinkist
Sven O.
It's highly addictive to get core insights on personally relevant topics without repetition or triviality. Added to that the apps ability to suggest kindred interests opens up a foundation of knowledge.
Thi Viet Quynh N.
Great app. Good selection of book summaries you can read or listen to while commuting. Instead of scrolling through your social media news feed, this is a much better way to spend your spare time in my opinion.
Jonathan A.
Life changing. The concept of being able to grasp a book's main point in such a short time truly opens multiple opportunities to grow every area of your life at a faster rate.
Renee D.
Great app. Addicting. Perfect for wait times, morning coffee, evening before bed. Extremely well written, thorough, easy to use.
People also liked
Start growing with Blinkist now
26 Million
Downloads on all platforms
4.7 Stars
Average ratings on iOS and Google Play
91%
Of Blinkist members create a better reading habit*
*Based on survey data from Blinkist customers