Relax, it’s a literary metaphor, suggesting that when you edit your writing you cut out some of your best passages, your ‘darlings,‘ to leave room for the even better ones.

Make your writing lean by removing the fat.

That’s good advice for everything we do. A romantic version of the Pareto Principle (aka, The 80/20 Rule)—prioritizing the “precious few” over the “trivial many”.

If you’re like me, things often take longer than they need to. Projects that might be completed in a weekend are still in the planning stages weeks or months down the road.

Sometimes, it is our inner perfectionist bedeviling us. Yeah, we should murder him, too.

But it might simply be we have too much on our plate.

The simple solution—do less.

When doing research, focus on the key cases and arguments. Give yourself two hours to distill the essentials, not two weeks to categorize the entire library.

With tasks and projects, choose a few (at a time) and put the rest on the back burner.

Use fewer tools or systems to do the job and don’t get seduced by productivity porn.

When we have fewer options, fewer things going on in our life, we can focus on the precious few and do them well.

We can accomplish more and have plenty of time to attend our darlings’ funeral.

If you only use one marketing strategy, make it this