My website is very minimal. But I love it. It might be my favorite website. Why?

This website does not have a single unnecessary component. It loads in a couple of milliseconds. It can run on a web browser from 30 years ago, and it will run on a web browser 30 years from now too. It's mobile-friendly, SEO-optimized and works well on reader mode. The homepage is 21 lines of code, yet communicates everything a personal website needs to, and gets a perfect 100 in every category on Google's PageSpeed Insights (as of early 2025).

I think there's a deeper truth here, one that I've grown to appreciate: less is good.

I've found in my life so far that my default state is one of accumulation. I suspect this is true with many people like me. Constantly, I accumulate new hobbies, games, friends, investments, clothes, mailing lists, subscriptions, habits, guilty pleasures, and stuff from Amazon. I sign myself up for so many new things, yet I somehow am never satisfied. I see an Instagram ad for a new gadget; I hear about an interesting podcast from one of my coworkers; I look at homes on Zillow.

I often find myself restless, feeling like I could be doing more, eagerly chasing the next thing. Meanwhile, I have a growing pile of books I haven't read. An increasing backlog of newsletters I never open, tasks on my todo list, emails in my inbox. Without realizing it, I get more and more busy and overwhelmed, just trying to keep up with everything I've committed myself to.

"I need to do more," I've often thought to myself. I want to be someone who is physically active but also a coder, down to earth but also crazy ambitious, up to speed with the latest but also familiar with history. I want it all! Who doesn't? This is America, after all, where anything is possible if you work hard enough and if you believe in yourself. The mindset of doing more is very alluring. I have also come to believe it is incorrect.

Many people I know are already constantly engaged, nearly 100% of their waking hours. On their phones as soon as they wake up, right before bed, and in every idle moment during the day. Listening to a podcast or audiobook on the commute. After work, if not socializing or working on a personal project, then watching TV, browsing social media, playing games, etc. How can you expect to do more if you already are constantly doing things every minute of every day?

You don't need to do more, you need to do less.

When I started to shift my mindset away from adding things to removing things instead, I suddenly stopped feeling so busy and overwhelmed. For example, when I recently added strict controls to my phone to limit my time on social media, I naturally started reading more of my newsletters and going through more of my emails. My inbox now sits at zero much more often, and it was relatively effortless to achieve that.

This is not an easy mindset shift to make. Sure, social media is pretty obviously not a good use of time, but some things are less obvious, and it can be hard to say no to those things. For example, you may have ten newsletters that are all very interesting. But the new entries keep piling up, and you tell yourself you'll get to them eventually. But the truth is, they will probably just keep piling up unless you do something about it. Recognizing the limits of your time and unsubscribing from five of them may give you the mental space to actually read the most interesting five.

The benefit of deleting things also applies beyond time management. Deleting as many parts as you can from a system can make it more reliable, easier to maintain, and easier to understand. Deleting parts of your identity can free you to change who you are. Deleting parts of your writing can crystallize your message and make it more digestible. Throwing out or donating physical things that don't bring you joy anymore can make you feel less burdened by clutter.

Saying no can be hard. Deleting can be hard. But you implicitly say no every time you say yes—we all have the same 24 hours every day, and something's gotta give.

So, next time you feel that you should be doing more, I would invite you to consider: what would happen if you did less, instead?