The Best Gift You Can Give Your Team This Year: Less
This time of year always brings a strange pressure — the urge to squeeze in “just one more thing” before Christmas.
Another change.
Another meeting.
Another bit of work someone swears will “only take an hour”.
But honestly, the best gift most teams could get right now is… less.
Less work in progress.
Less noise.
Less juggling.
Less pressure disguised as urgency.
I’ve always believed something simple:
Less increases focus. Focus increases delivery.
And the funny thing about finishing work is this — it isn’t just practical, it’s emotional.
Finishing feels good.
There’s a little release, a sense of progress, a moment where people breathe out and think, “We actually did that.”
That feeling matters.
It breeds more finishing.
It creates momentum.
But it only works if you’re finishing the right things — the things your customers actually need.
You don’t measure quality by how much you’ve done.
You measure it by how happy people are that you did it.
This is why the “gift of less” matters so much.
When you remove work…
• conversations get clearer
• blockers surface faster
• quality improves
• people finish things properly
• stress drops
• the team feels in control again
And it gives space for something we don’t do enough — reflection.
I’ve got a wall of “done” with my current team, and you’d be amazed how much joy they get from telling me what they’ve delivered this year.
They don’t need me to remind them.
They already know.
They just want the chance to say it out loud.
So yes — reduce the load.
Focus the work.
Help them finish properly.
But also, remind them how brilliant they’ve been this year.
Teams rarely get told they’re doing well.
You’d be surprised how far a bit of honest recognition goes.
If you want clarity on where to lighten the load next year — or where your flow might be snagging — that’s exactly the kind of second opinion I offer. Sometimes you just need someone from the outside to spot the weight you’ve normalised.
It’s what I explore through Agile Second Opinion — helping reset culture and get delivery moving again. (See comments for details.)