Richard Carlson’s great book, Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff , taught me not to make a crisis out of the little things in life. But what about the big things? How do we handle them?

I thought of that this morning when I had to finish a big article that I was frightened to do. I thought of Carlson’s words not to sweat the small stuff. But this was big stuff! What was I supposed to do? How was I going to get everything done? I tried to multi-task — something I’m good at — but I was so bound up in all the things I was doing halfway that I ended up getting overwhelmed and not doing a thing.

I turned to Carlson who reminded me (I’m paraphrasing here) that the way to do more is to do less. Focus on the task at hand. I focused completely on the article and followed his suggestion. I cleared my desk of everything except all my notes. I gave my full attention to the one task at hand. I wrote and wrote and wrote, not worrying about the outcome and concentrating only on the output.

And it got done!

The way to do more is to do less.

What do you do when faced with the big stuff?

Dedicated to Richard Carlson, May 16, 1961 to December 13, 2006