What Do I Want Less of in My Life?

There is a question we ask quite often when we’re thinking about our lives: What do I want more of?

More time. More rest. More fun. More creativity. More connection. More movement. More evenings at home. More adventures. More time with the people we love.

It’s a lovely question, and it was where we ended the first part of this collection. But I’ve been thinking that there is another question that perhaps deserves just as much attention.

What do I want less of?

Not what should I give up. Not what could I eliminate in pursuit of a perfectly streamlined life. And certainly not what else can I add to the list of things I’m apparently doing wrong.

Just: What would I genuinely like there to be a little less of in my life?

Because sometimes making life feel better isn’t about finding room to add something new. Sometimes it’s about noticing what is already taking up too much room.

Less doesn’t have to mean nothing

When we think about wanting less of something, it’s easy to jump straight to the idea of getting rid of it altogether.

But most of real life doesn’t work like that.

Perhaps you’d like less rushing, but there will still be mornings when everyone needs to get out the door. Maybe you’d like less housework, but the house will still need to be looked after. You might want less time on your phone without wanting to delete every app and disappear from the internet. You may want fewer obligations without wanting to stop showing up for the people you care about.

You might even want less of something that is, in itself, perfectly good.

Less socialising because you’re craving more time at home. Less time spent on a hobby because something else matters more at the moment. Less involvement in something you once loved because your life has changed and it no longer fits in quite the same way.

This isn’t necessarily about removing things.

Sometimes less simply means less.

And I think that makes the question much more useful.

Instead of asking ourselves to make dramatic decisions, we can begin by noticing where the balance has quietly tipped too far in one direction.

What has become too much?

Often we don’t notice that something has become too much until we’re thoroughly fed up with it.

The diary has become too full. The house feels too cluttered. Every evening seems to disappear into jobs. We’re answering messages when we’d rather be reading. We’re saying yes before we’ve even considered whether we want to. We’re spending far too much time thinking about something over which we have very little control.

None of these things necessarily arrived as a conscious choice.

They accumulated.

One extra commitment here. Another responsibility there. A habit that gradually became automatic. A favour we did once and somehow kept doing. A standard we set for ourselves years ago and never thought to reconsider. A little pocket of time that was slowly claimed by something else.

Until eventually something that occupies a fairly small space on paper can feel as though it occupies an enormous amount of our lives.

That is why I think it can be useful to ask this question before we reach the point where we want to throw everything up in the air.

What is there simply too much of at the moment?

The answer may be obvious.

Or it may take a little while to appear.

The things we want less of aren’t always things

When I first think about less, my mind naturally goes to physical things. Less clutter. Fewer clothes. Fewer things sitting on the kitchen counter. Less stuff that needs to be cleaned, organised, stored and looked after.

And sometimes that absolutely is the answer.

But some of the things taking up the most room in our lives aren’t things at all.

We might want less rushing. Less noise. Less comparison. Less worrying about what other people think. Less decision-making. Less scrolling. Less overthinking. Less guilt when we rest. Less pressure to make everything special.

Perhaps we want fewer conversations that leave us depleted. Fewer weekends that are booked before they’ve even begun. Less time spent doing something simply because we’ve always done it. Less responsibility for things other people are perfectly capable of managing themselves.

Maybe it’s less perfectionism.

Less explaining ourselves.

Less keeping up.

Less saying yes automatically and wondering afterwards why we did.

These things are much harder to declutter than a cupboard. But they can occupy considerably more space.

Sometimes we have to look at what the ‘too much’ is costing us

One of the most useful ways to think about this isn’t simply to ask what we dislike.

Instead, we can ask:

What is this leaving less room for?

Perhaps rushing through every morning leaves less room for starting the day calmly.

Perhaps spending every weekend catching up on household jobs leaves less room for doing something simply because you enjoy it.

Perhaps being constantly available leaves less room for uninterrupted time.

Perhaps worrying about somebody else’s choices leaves less room in your head for your own life.

Perhaps saying yes to every invitation leaves less room for the quiet evenings at home you keep saying you want.

Perhaps maintaining a standard that once mattered enormously to you leaves less room for something that matters more now.

That’s when less becomes interesting.

Because this isn’t really an exercise in subtraction.

It’s an exercise in making room.

The question isn’t only What do I want less of?

It’s also:

What might become possible if there were a little less of it?

You are allowed to want less of something good

I think this one is worth saying.

We sometimes find it easier to admit we want less of things we’ve decided are objectively bad for us. Too much screen time? Fine. Too much clutter? Fine. Too much stress? Of course.

It becomes more complicated when the thing we want less of is something we’re supposed to be grateful for.

You can love people and still need less time being available to everybody.

You can enjoy your work and want it to occupy less space in your head when you’re at home.

You can adore your family and want less responsibility for remembering every single thing for everyone.

You can be fortunate to have a busy social life and still want fewer plans.

You can enjoy a beautiful home and decide you want to spend less time maintaining it.

You can care deeply about something and decide you don’t have the capacity to give quite so much of yourself to it right now.

Wanting less doesn’t mean you don’t appreciate what you have.

It can simply mean you’re paying attention to what you have room for.

And sometimes the thing that needs reducing is an expectation

There are so many quiet expectations woven through ordinary life that we barely notice them.

The expectation that the house should always look a certain way. That we should reply quickly. That we should attend everything we’re invited to. That meals should be cooked from scratch. That weekends should be productive. That holidays should be memorable. That friendships should always look the way they once did. That we should keep doing something because we’ve invested so much time in it already.

And then there are the expectations we place on ourselves.

To cope without asking for help.

To remember everything.

To be useful.

To make the most of every opportunity.

To never disappoint anyone.

To do things properly.

Sometimes what we want less of isn’t the responsibility itself. It’s the pressure we’ve wrapped around it.

Dinner still needs to happen, but perhaps it doesn’t need to be impressive.

The house still needs looking after, but perhaps it doesn’t need to be perfect.

The work still needs doing, but perhaps it doesn’t need to occupy the evening too.

The relationship still matters, but perhaps you don’t have to be the person who keeps it going single-handedly.

A surprisingly small lowering of an expectation can create a surprising amount of room.

Your Free What Do I Want Less Of? Printable

I’ve created a simple What Do I Want Less Of? reflection printable to accompany this piece.

Like all of the pages in The Life I’m Living Collection, it isn’t designed to produce a long list of things you now need to eliminate from your life. It’s simply somewhere to make the invisible a little more visible.

The page invites you to consider some of the places where too much might currently be showing up: in your time, your home, your head, your responsibilities, your relationships, your habits and the expectations you carry.

Then, rather than stopping at I want less of this, we’ll take the thought one step further:

What would less of this make room for?

Because that is the part that matters.

Maybe less rushing would make room for slower mornings.

Less scrolling might make room for reading again.

Fewer plans might give you the quiet Sunday you’ve been craving.

Less perfectionism might simply make ordinary life easier.

And perhaps there is one thing you notice that you’re ready to make a little smaller.

Not remove completely.

Not solve forever.

Just give slightly less space to.

How to use this reflection

I would begin this one quickly.

Don’t try to produce thoughtful, beautifully phrased answers. Give yourself a few minutes and write down whatever comes immediately to mind when you finish the sentence:

I would like less…

You may write rushing. Clutter. Work. Phone. Noise. Worry. Driving. Commitments. Cooking. People needing things from me. Thinking about money. Trying to keep everybody happy.

Whatever comes up, write it down without immediately judging whether you’re allowed to feel that way.

Then go back through your answers more slowly.

Which ones are temporary? Which are simply part of a particularly busy season? Which are unavoidable for now? Which have you perhaps been giving more space to than they deserve?

And then look for the answer that gives you a little feeling of recognition.

Yes. That. I really would like less of that.

That’s probably the one worth exploring.

The next question is not How do I get rid of it?

Ask instead:

How could I make this slightly smaller?

Could you do it less often? Spend less time on it? Lower the standard? Ask somebody else to take a share? Stop volunteering automatically? Put a boundary around when you deal with it? Decide that good enough really is good enough?

The adjustment may be tiny.

That’s fine.

This entire collection is built around the idea that we don’t necessarily need to transform our lives in order to change how they feel.

Less can be gentle

There is a version of simplifying life that can become strangely demanding.

Declutter everything. Cancel things. Say no. Set boundaries. Delete apps. Clear the diary. Create the perfect routine. Strip life back until everything is calm and intentional.

Real life is rarely so accommodating.

We have responsibilities. Other people matter. There are seasons when life genuinely is busy. There are things we don’t particularly enjoy that still need to be done.

So this isn’t an invitation to create some perfectly edited existence.

It’s simply permission to notice when something is taking more than you want to give it.

And perhaps, where you can, to give it a little less.

A little less time.

A little less energy.

A little less attention.

A little less importance.

Because every time we make something slightly smaller, we create space somewhere else.

And what we choose to do with that space may tell us quite a lot about the life we want to be living.

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Continue Reflecting

Previous: What Do I Need More of Right Now?

Return to Reflection 05 and consider what your body, mind, heart and sense of self may be asking for in this season of life — and where you might gently make room for more of it.

Next: What Am I Doing Because I Think I Should?

Continue with Reflection 07 as we look at the quiet rules and expectations we accumulate over the years — the things we do because we believe we should, and whether we still genuinely want to live by them.

Explore The Life I’m Living Collection →

Explore the complete collection of thoughtful reflections and free printables designed to help you slow down, check in with yourself and pay a little more attention to the life you’re living now.

Chat soon,

Ciara x

Printable FAQs

Is this printable free?

Yes. All of the reflection pages in The Life I’m Living Collection are free to download for personal use. You can print just the pages that speak to you, or work your way through the complete collection over time.

What size are the printables?

The printables are designed primarily for A4 paper, which is the standard paper size used in Ireland, the UK and many other countries. If you’re printing on US Letter paper, select Fit to Page or your printer’s equivalent setting and the design should resize neatly to fit.

Occasionally, a reflection may work better in landscape format. Where this is the case, it will be clearly indicated on the individual printable.

Do I need to complete the collection in order?

Not at all. The Life I’m Living Collection has been thoughtfully arranged so that the reflections can naturally lead from one to another, but there is no right way to use it.

You can begin with the question that feels most relevant to you today, move through the collection in order, or simply return to individual pages whenever you need them.

Do I need to answer every question?

No. These pages are invitations rather than assignments.

Some prompts may immediately give you something to write about, while others may not feel particularly relevant to the season of life you’re in. Write a sentence, fill a page, leave something blank or come back to it another day.

There is nothing to complete and no score to achieve.

Can I use the printables as journal prompts instead?

Absolutely. You don’t have to write directly onto the printable. You can use any of the questions or prompts as starting points for longer reflections in your own notebook or journal.

You might also find that one small question gives you far more to think about than the space provided on the page. Follow it wherever it takes you.

Can I print the pages more than once?

Yes. For your own personal use, you can print the pages again whenever you’d like to revisit a reflection.

In fact, returning to some of these questions six months or a year from now could be particularly interesting. Our answers change as our lives do.

Can I put all of the printables together in a binder?

Yes — and the collection has been deliberately designed with that in mind.

Although the individual layouts vary depending on the reflection, the pages share the same cream, navy, antique-gold and blue-and-white visual style so that they form one cohesive journal when collected together.

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• What Am I Doing Because I Think I Should?
  How much of what we do comes from quiet rules we’ve absorbed along the way? This gentle reflection explores the expectations, obligations and ‘shoulds’ we carry — where they came from, whether they still fit and what we might be ready to keep, change or let go. Includes a beautiful free reflection printable.
• What Do I Want Less of in My Life?
  What would you like a little less of in your life? This gentle reflection explores the rushing, pressure, obligations, habits and expectations that may be taking up more room than you want to give them — and what making them a little smaller might create space for. Includes a beautiful free reflection printable.
• What Do I Need More of Right Now?
  What would make the life you’re living right now feel a little better? This gentle reflection invites you to consider what you need more of — for your body, mind, heart and yourself — and to look beneath the first answer to what you may really be asking for. Includes a beautiful free reflection printable from The Life I’m Living Collection.
• What’s Taking Up Space in My Head?
  Sometimes what makes life feel overwhelming isn’t only how much we’re doing, but how much we’re trying to remember, anticipate, decide, solve and carry at the same time. This gentle reflection explores the invisible mental load of ordinary life and includes a beautiful free brain dump printable to help you put some of it down.
• Where Does My Energy Go?
  Where does your energy go — and is everything receiving it really worth the cost? This thoughtful reflection explores energy well spent, the things that restore us and the quiet energy leaks that can leave us depleted. Includes a beautiful free reflection printable from The Life I’m Living Collection.