Prompt: Write about what you need less of.
May 27, 2026 — What I Need Less Of
The prompt for today, May 27th, 2026, is: Write about what you need less of.
This is a good one.
I think I need less of a lot of things. I need a lot less, as it were.
A few years ago, I decided I wasn’t going to buy any more pens. Instead, I would use up all the pens I already had.
Now, this is a tricky one, because I make pens, so they’re constantly coming in. But I used to buy all sorts of different pens — ballpoints, rollerballs, fineliners, whatever caught my attention.
So the plan was simple: use what I had.
School helped with this. If you bring anything to a school, it’s bound to disappear eventually. I brought some extras in, and sure enough, they vanished.
The ones I kept for myself, though, I slowly worked through.
I also had a stack of notebooks with paper that wasn’t particularly good, so they paired well with those ballpoint pens. Through my morning pages, one page at a time, I worked my way through both.
That’s become something of a larger project for me: to buy less, to bring less into my world, and to use what I already have.
I haven’t been in the shop in a couple of months, which is killing me. But when I think about it, I have so much there already — pen kits, wood, materials, ideas waiting to be made.
If I really pushed my creativity, I could make something meaningful with what I already have. I don’t need anything more.
I think there’s something valuable in that.
I’m reminded of the idea of freedom within limits. Creativity often works that way. When there are clear constraints — when there’s structure, when there are requirements — creativity has something to push against.
Open-ended possibility can actually make it harder to create.
It makes me think of Formula 1. Before the cost cap, the biggest teams could simply throw money at problems. Innovation often came from resources rather than ingenuity.
Now, with limits in place, teams have to be more creative and more decisive about what they build and what they bring to the car.
There’s value in less.
I see that at school too.
One thing I’ve learned this year is that I need to scale back what I’m hoping to achieve in my lessons. I need to present students with less.
Sometimes it feels like I’m not giving them everything I want them to learn. But at the same time, I’m giving them what they’re capable of learning right now — not more, not less.
That’s a difficult balance as a teacher: paring things down to the fundamentals while still leaving enough room for enrichment.
There’s value in less.
I’m still working on that lesson.
Especially since I do, in fact, have to place an Amazon order after writing this.
This piece was lightly edited with the help of AI to improve clarity and readability while preserving the original voice and intent of the spoken reflection.
Leave a Reply