The Pile We Build on Top of Ourselves

Most creators I talk to are not failing because they are doing too little. They are struggling because they are doing too much. They have a newsletter and a podcast and a community and three social platforms and a course and a coaching offer, and they are running all of it at half power because there is only one of them and the days are only so long. They feel perpetually behind, perpetually scattered, and quietly convinced that the answer is to somehow do even more.

I want to make the opposite case. For most creators, the single most powerful move available is not addition but subtraction. Doing less, and doing it dramatically better, is the most underrated growth strategy in this entire field, and almost nobody talks about it because it feels like giving up. It is not giving up. It is focus, and focus is where all the leverage lives.

Why We Keep Adding

It helps to understand why we pile so much on ourselves in the first place, because the impulse is sneaky and it dresses up as virtue.

Part of it is fear. Every new platform or offer feels like a hedge, another lottery ticket, another chance that this will be the thing that takes off. Saying no to an opportunity feels like leaving money on the table, so we say yes to everything and spread ourselves paper thin across all of it.

Part of it is comparison. We see other creators doing things and feel we should be doing them too. They started a podcast, so we should have a podcast. They are on that new platform, so we should be on it. We accumulate activities not because they fit our actual strategy but because everyone else seems to be doing them.

And part of it is simply that adding is easy and subtracting is hard. Starting a new thing is exciting. Killing an existing thing means admitting it was not working, disappointing the few people who liked it, and confronting the sunk cost of all the effort we poured in. So the pile only ever grows.

What the Pile Costs You

The trouble is that every thing you do has a cost far beyond the time it takes. It takes up mental space. It fragments your attention. It dilutes your message. And it lowers the quality of everything else, because excellence requires concentration and you have spread yours across a dozen mediocre efforts.

Think about what your best work requires. It requires depth, care, iteration, and the kind of sustained attention that only comes when you are not constantly switching between tasks. Now think about how little of that any single one of your dozen activities is getting. The reason none of your things are truly excellent is not that you lack the ability. It is that no single one of them is getting enough of you to become excellent.

There is also a real cost to your audience. When you are everywhere doing everything, your message becomes muddy and your identity becomes hard to grasp. People cannot quite say what you are about, because you are about ten things at once. Clarity is magnetic, and clarity is the first casualty of doing too much.

The Liberating Math of Focus

Here is the math that changed how I think about my own work. One thing done excellently almost always outperforms five things done adequately, and not by a little. Excellence compounds in ways that adequacy never does. An excellent newsletter gets shared, builds reputation, and attracts the right people. Five mediocre channels just keep you busy.

So the question to ask is not what could I add to grow, but what could I cut so that the things that remain become great. When you cut the bottom half of your activities, you do not lose half your results. You often gain, because all the energy that was being wasted on the mediocre efforts flows into the few that actually matter, and those few get good enough to break through.

This is counterintuitive, which is exactly why it is such an edge. Everyone else is busy adding. The creator who has the discipline to subtract ends up with a sharper message, higher quality work, and far more energy, while their scattered peers run themselves ragged.

How to Actually Subtract

Subtraction is simple to describe and hard to do, so here is a practical way through it.

Start by listing everything you currently do as a creator. Every channel, every offer, every recurring commitment. Then, for each one, ask two honest questions. Does this actually move my business or my mission forward in a meaningful way? And does this energize me or drain me? Be ruthlessly honest, because we all keep things going out of habit, guilt, or fear long after they have stopped earning their place.

The things that fail both tests are your candidates for the chopping block. Cutting them will feel uncomfortable, and you will invent reasons to keep them. Cut them anyway, or at least pause them and see if anyone even notices. Usually almost nobody does, which tells you everything about how much they were really contributing.

Then take the energy you just freed up and pour it into the one or two things that passed both tests with flying colors. Make them better than they have ever been. Go deeper than your scattered competitors ever can, because you have the focus they lack.

The Courage It Takes

I will not pretend this is easy. Subtraction requires a kind of courage that addition never does. It means trusting that going deep on a few things will beat being present on many, even when every instinct and every comparison screams at you to do more. It means being willing to be the creator who is not on the newest platform, not running the trendy new format, not chasing every opportunity, because you have decided that your focus is worth more than your coverage.

But the creators I most admire, the ones who have built things that last and who do not seem perpetually frazzled, almost all share this trait. They do a small number of things, and they do them remarkably well. They have made peace with the opportunities they are letting pass, because they understand that saying no to good things is the price of saying yes fully to the great ones.

So if you feel buried under your own ambition, scattered and behind and somehow still convinced you need to do more, consider that the answer might be the opposite. Pick your few. Cut the rest. Go deep. Doing less, and doing it better, is not a retreat. It is the most direct path to work you are proud of and a business that does not slowly grind you down.

Let me give you a small thought experiment that makes the choice vivid. Imagine you had to cut everything you do down to a single activity for the next year. Just one. Which would you keep? Most creators answer that question almost instantly, because deep down they already know which one thing is the heart of their work and which ones are noise they have been carrying out of habit. That instant answer is incredibly useful information. It does not mean you must literally drop to one activity, but it tells you where your real center of gravity is, and it reveals how much of the rest has been quietly riding along without justifying its weight.

There is also a quieter benefit to doing less that nobody mentions, and it is the effect on your own enjoyment of the work. When you are stretched across too many things, the work stops being fun. It becomes a series of obligations you are perpetually behind on, and the joy that drew you to creating in the first place gets buried under maintenance. When you cut back to a focused few, that joy tends to come back. You have room to be curious again, to go deep, to make something you are genuinely proud of rather than just keeping all the plates spinning. A creator who enjoys the work makes better work and lasts far longer, and longevity in this field beats almost everything.

So this week, do not look for something new to start. Look for something to stop. Find the activity that drains you and contributes little, and let it go, even if letting go feels strange. Then watch what happens to the things that remain when they finally get your full attention. I think you will be surprised at how much lighter the work feels and how much better it gets. The path to growth is not always paved with more. More often than we admit, it is paved with less, chosen carefully and pursued with everything you have got. Pick your few, protect them fiercely, and let the rest fall away.

The Case for Doing Less and Doing It Better

Ready to start your community journey?

Discover Communities

Create a Community