“By doing nothing, everything is accomplished.”
— Lao Tzu
2024 is over. Take a breath. Sit with it.
Think about all the things you did last year.
All the emails you sent, meetings you attended, plans you made, problems you tackled. Think about how much energy you poured into your work and life.
Now, ask yourself this:
How much of it actually mattered?
If you’re like most of us, a lot of it didn’t. A lot of it amounted to nothing.
Homelessness increased 18% over 2024 despite enormous effort, resources, and initiatives aimed at reducing it. That’s a sobering example of how doing more doesn’t necessarily lead to meaningful progress.
Sit with your own disappointments for a moment.
Don’t try to make them go away.
Don’t explain them away with excuses about how busy the year was or how much was outside your control. Just feel it. It’s painful, I know. But that pain is pointing you toward something important.
2025 doesn’t have to be more of the same. And the way forward isn’t about doing more.
It’s about doing less.
The Art of Nondoing
In the Tao Te Ching, Lao Tzu speaks of Wu Wei—“effortless action” or “the art of nondoing.”
It’s not laziness or passivity.
It’s the wisdom to stop doing what’s unnecessary so you can focus on what truly matters.
As a culture, we celebrate doing. We write resolutions about what we’ll start doing this year.
But what if your resolution was about what you’ll stop doing?
What if you stopped trying to fix every small problem before understanding the bigger system? What if you stopped covering for other people’s mistakes—or your own? What if you stopped pretending everything was fine when it wasn’t?
A Real-World Example of Doing Less, Better
Take a nonprofit executive I worked with last year. He was stuck in the cycle so many leaders find themselves in:
- Hours of meetings that didn’t need to happen.
- Endless reports to appease funders rather than clarify impact.
- Saying “everything’s great” to staff and board members when it wasn’t.
- Quietly fixing mistakes instead of owning up to them.
He decided to do something radical.
He stopped.
He cut 40% of his meetings.
He told his funders, “We need to focus more on impact, so we’re simplifying our reports.”
He admitted to his team when things weren’t going well and invited them to help solve the real problems. He owned his mistakes and stopped cleaning up after others.
Here’s what happened:
- The organization became more aligned and effective because everyone was working on real problems, not just appearances.
- Funders appreciated the honesty and stuck around. Some even increased their support.
- His team felt more trust and stepped up in ways they hadn’t before.
By doing less, he achieved more.
2025: The Year of Doing Less
Before you dive into 2025 with a long list of goals, pause.
Ask yourself:
- What am I doing out of habit, fear, or obligation?
- What am I doing to look good rather than do good?
- What would happen if I just stopped?
Doing less doesn’t mean standing still. It means focusing your energy on what truly matters.
Instead of piling on new initiatives, try investing your time in the building blocks of meaningful progress:
- Research your problem’s causal factors. Here’s how to move beyond the root cause fallacy and figure out what’s really driving the issue you’re working on.
- Create a problem map. Understand how the elements of your problem interact to reveal leverage points.
- Map and engage stakeholders. Build relationships with the people who have the most influence and interest in solving the problem.
- Develop a clear, effective strategy. Use the insights from your research and mapping to prioritize what’s important and let go of what isn’t.
These steps might feel small or even like a lack of progress, but they’re the foundation for success.
By doing less, you free up the time and space to gain clarity, align efforts, and act with greater intention.
It won’t be easy—letting go never is.
But as Lao Tzu reminds us, the way forward isn’t about striving. It’s about letting go of what doesn’t matter so you can make room for what does.
Here’s to a lighter, clearer, and more impactful 2025.
See you in two weeks.