January is in full force, and some of us are still in resolution mode. I’m going to join a gym. I’m going to start cooking a healthy meal three days a week. I’m going to get that new certification. I’m going to introduce a new process for my department.

Healthcare people are doers by nature, and that’s great. Doers make things happen. But the reality is, we all have limited hours and limited energy. We can’t just keep adding new goals to our busy lives. To free up bandwidth for the new, we need to do some subtraction.

This reminds me of how we keep adding things to leaders’ already overdone schedules, sometimes without asking what we could take away that’s no longer working. I picture a leader walking up a hill with a backpack, and we keep adding rocks (which makes the already hard journey even harder)!

We need to think—and live—like editors.

For the past few years, I’ve been writing books. It’s a fascinating process. There’s a tendency to pile everything into the manuscript. Let’s add this piece of research. Let’s include a chapter on this. Oh, here’s another great story. Before you know it, the book has grown out of control—which is a problem, because people want shorter books these days.

So once you’re through the idea-dumping phase, the cutting phase starts. Should this chapter be chopped down? Does this story really make sense? Yes, that’s a great insight, but does it distract from the larger point? Editing might feel like loss, but really, it’s about focus. When we remove what’s unnecessary, what remains gets stronger, clearer, more impactful.

Living like an editor means always looking for what we can subtract. Quint Studer and I recently updated our book Rewiring Excellence: Hardwired to Rewired. In it, we talk about figuring out which of our long-held processes, practices, and behaviors are outdated, have gotten too complicated, or don’t really serve patients or our team at all. (I wrote about how to apply this principle to the “rocks” that are cluttering up your leadership backpack here.)

In the same way we rewire our healthcare organizations, we can rewire our own lives. (And in fact, they are related, because when we get our own lives streamlined and super-focused, we create space for greatness in our leadership.)

Editing means asking hard questions like:

• What am I doing that doesn’t really fit my value system and how I want my life to look? (Am I clear on these things?) 
• What drains rather than energizes me?
• What commitments did I say yes to out of habit, guilt, or momentum rather than intention?
• Where am I confusing activity with impact?
• What am I holding onto because I helped create it, even if it no longer serves its purpose?
• What am I afraid to remove, and what does that fear say about me?
• What deserves more of my attention—but can’t get it until something else goes?

The most meaningful changes rarely come from adding more. They come from editing with intention…so that what remains truly reflects who we are and how we want to lead.