What if the fastest way to lighten your content load this month wasn’t doing more, but finally admitting what you can let go of?
I was sitting at my desk one morning with my coffee (naturally), looking at my own content calendar, and there was a recurring slot on it I’d kept out of habit for months.
Not because it was working. And not because I love making it.
Just because it felt like it had always been there, so taking it off felt like admitting defeat somehow.
You’ve got one too. Everybody does.
- A platform you keep posting to because you started, not because it’s going anywhere.
- A series you committed to in January that’s felt like a chore since March.
- A format you keep forcing because it worked once, a long time ago, and you’re hoping it’ll work again if you just stick with it a little longer.
The Weight of Keeping Everything
We spent the first two weeks of this month talking about noticing, the numbers worth watching, the habit of catching ideas before they disappear.
Both of those are about paying closer attention, and this one’s different.
This one’s about subtracting.
August tends to be a lower-energy stretch, same as it is every year, and that’s exactly why this is the right month for it.
You don’t need a big burst of motivation to let go of something.
Just about ten honest minutes AND a willingness to admit that not everything on your plate deserves to stay there.
Most advice this time of year tells you to rest more, and that’s fine advice.
But it skips the actual weight sitting on you.
It’s not just that you’re tired, but that you’re tired AND still trying to keep every plate spinning that you’ve ever put up there.
Resting more doesn’t fix that part.
Taking a few plates down does.
A Simple Way to Decide
This filter works alongside the numbers we talked about earlier this month, not instead of them.
Those numbers tell you what’s working.
This is about what it’s costing you to keep doing it, whether it’s working or not.
Ask yourself one question about each recurring thing that you have on your plate:
Does this give you energy back, or does it take energy from you every single time you sit down to do it?
That’s it.
Not “is this technically working”, and not “did someone tell me I need this platform.”
Just…does this feel like something or does it feel like nothing.
If something’s draining you and it’s also driving real results, hold onto it for now. But maybe change how you’re approaching it.
If something’s draining you AND you can’t point to what it’s really doing for you, that’s the easiest kind of cut there is.
Nobody’s going to notice it’s gone except you, and you’ll notice immediately.
This filter works for anything on your plate, not just blog posts.
- A weekly newsletter you dread writing every single time.
- A video series you started because everyone said that’s where the growth was.
- A guest podcast circuit you agreed to that’s eating up hours you genuinely don’t have anymore.
Run the same question against each one.
Energy given, or energy taken.
The format doesn’t matter.
The honest answer does.
For me, that was Pinterest. Now, I love me some Pinterest…I’m in there ALL the time.
But for my business, I kept pinning for months, telling myself it would eventually pay off.
It never did, no real traffic, no time saved.
And nothing worth the hours I put into it.
I stopped, and nothing bad happened.
Not one single person asked me where my pins went.
If you want a little more structure around slowing down this season, not just this one decision but the bigger picture of pacing yourself through a lower-energy month, grab my free Self-Care Journal for Entrepreneurs. It’s built for exactly that.
So, What Happens After You Cut Something?
Here’s the fear underneath all of this:
What if I let go of this and it turns out I needed it? What if someone notices it’s gone and asks where it went?
In my experience, and in every client conversation I’ve had about this exact thing, the fear is almost always bigger than what really happens.
Most of the time, nobody notices.
The people paying close enough attention to notice a recurring series disappearing are usually the same people who’d tell you that honestly…they hadn’t been engaging with it anyway.
And if it turns out you did need it after all, you can always bring it back.
Nothing about cutting something this month is permanent.
It’s just off the plate for now, freeing up the energy you’d have spent maintaining it out of pure habit.
One Cut Is Enough for Now
One cut is plenty for right now.
You don’t need to overhaul the whole content plan in one sitting.
That kind of all-or-nothing thinking is exactly what leads to burnout in the first place, tearing everything down and rebuilding from scratch every few months.
And then wondering why you’re exhausted.
Pick one thing. Just the one.
That’s your whole assignment this week.
You can always come back to this same question next month, and the month after that, each time with a little more clarity about what’s really earning its place versus what’s just been sitting there out of habit.
What Comes Off Your Plate Doesn’t Come Back On By Default
Cutting something isn’t the same as failing at it, even though it can feel that way.
Psychologists call that pull the sunk cost fallacy, the harder something’s cost you, the harder it feels to walk away, whether or not it’s still working.
A platform that made sense eighteen months ago doesn’t owe you loyalty just because you used to show up there, and you certainly don’t owe it your time either.
Once you’ve let go of it, don’t put something new in its place right away.
Let the space stay empty for a hot minute.
That’s the part people skip, filling the gap immediately instead of feeling what it’s like to just have less on the plate.
Grab your coffee…You’ve got this!
