ON NOVEMBER 30, 2007 the Nagoya District Court in Japan accepted Hiroko Uchino’s claim that her husband, Kenichi, a third-generation Toyota employee, was a victim of karoshi when he died in 2002 at the age of 30.  He collapsed at 4am at work, having put in more than 80 hours of overtime each month for the previous six months. The week of his death, Mr Uchino told his wife, ‘The moment when I am happiest is when I can sleep’. He left two children, aged one and three.

The word ‘karoshi’ in Japanese literally means ‘death from overwork’.  While we in the West may not have a word for it, that doesn’t mean we don’t do it.

We’re all busier than ever before.  We are busy in a way that our parents or grandparents never were.  Work now intrudes into our personal lives in ways that were unimaginable just a few years ago.

If that wasn’t bad enough, most of this increased workload is not by choice.  Far from it.  These days most of this workload comes with an implied threat that if we don’t do it, then bad things – redundancy, outsourcing, downsizing, offshoring – will happen.  Work seems to be consuming our lives, so much so that we are losing sight of what life is really about, of the things that really matter to us, whatever those might be – family, children, loved ones, hobbies, ambitions, hopes, dreams.

In this situation where we have far more to do than we’ll ever have time to do it – even if we had several lifetimes – what are we to do?

‘Time management’ – does it actually help?

The first place most people turn is to time management  - courses/books/‘systems’.  Try this.  Do a search on Amazon using the term ‘time management’.  The day I did it I was gobsmacked to get 132,626 results returned.

Yet I’ve lost count of the number of people I’ve met whom, when I’ve asked them about that time management course they did or book they bought, have said, ‘I did it for a while but then I fell back into my old ways’.

‘Fell back into my old ways’?  I don’t think so.  All that happened was that after the time management course they still had far more to do than they’d ever have time to do it.

So when time management fails there appears to be only one option remaining.  People work all the hours god sends – the assumption being (presumably) that if they do enough of that they will clear the pile of stuff – in work and/or in their personal lives – that they feel has to be cleared.

Now this is just plain mad.

The notion that you will get everything done, ie clear the pile of stuff, is nuts.

Some things will never be done. Accept it.

It’s time to wise up.   It’s time to realise that you will never clear that pile of stuff.  It’s time to throw overboard, now and for all time, that notion.  Instead, get used to the idea that some things will never get done.  Not delayed.  Not rescheduled.  Not re–prioritised.  But simply dropped.  Ditched.  Jettisoned.  Never done.

Instead of trying to do everything, just figure out what the important things are and do those.  Instead of feeling guilty when you leave work because loads of things haven’t been done, just accept it – loads of things were never going to be done.  Instead of asking  ‘How can I cram this in to an already overcrowded life’ you should be asking ‘Why should I invest my precious time in this?’

And how to do you do this?

The wonderful paradox

The brilliant thing is that you already have the power.  That power is to do less.  By not trying to do everything but rather focusing on the things that really matter – whether in work or in life – you can become a productivity machine.  Think about this for a moment.  Really think about it.  Think about the wonderful paradox whereby you’re doing less but you’re getting more done.  Living much more the life you wanted to live.

And you’re not a hyperactive productivity machine.  It’s still okay – and you have the time – to switch the productivity machine off, to do nothing.  To reflect, to sit and just be, to enjoy the moment, to be creative, to see opportunities that you would certainly have missed when you were running around like a blue-arsed fly.

And the wonderful – the really, extraordinary, remarkable, quite unbelievable, beautiful thing – is that you didn’t have to do new or more or extra things.

In fact, you had to do the exact opposite.

As soon as you stop doing, the power of doing less starts to flow.

Fergus O’Connell is a novelist and writer.  His latest book, The Power of Doing Less, is out this week (read a free chapter here) or hear him speak on The Power of Doing Less by clicking here.