Effort is overrated, and expensively so. The modern object strains to justify itself — it does fourteen things, connects to nine others, and updates without being asked. It is, in a word, needy.
We prefer the object that does one thing, or ideally none. There is no firmware in a stone. A blank canvas has never once requested your attention at an inconvenient hour. Our Premium Silence will not, under any circumstances, attempt to improve your commute.
Doing less is not laziness; it is editing. The sculptor removes marble. The writer removes sentences (we have removed several from this one). The considered life is arrived at by subtraction, and the invoice for subtraction is, satisfyingly, still an invoice.
Begin somewhere small. Cancel a plan you did not want. Leave a message unread for a dignified interval. Acquire something that does nothing, and admire how completely it succeeds.
You will find, in time, that the less you do, the more it appears you have chosen. This is the entire secret of taste, and we have now given it away at no charge — a lapse we intend not to repeat.