For years, Ari Meisel worked eighteen-hour days in the construction industry, but in 2006, he was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease, an inflammatory disease of the digestive tract aggravated by stress and considered incurable. He was forced to find ways to get things done in less time because there were some days when he could only manage to work for an hour. He needed to simplify his life and somehow continue to be productive. Necessity drove Ari to optimize, automate, and outsource much of his life, and in the process, the system he calls Less Doing was born.
Through lifestyle changes, Ari eliminated all symptoms of Crohn’s and now considers himself cured of the disease. He typically has two scheduled workdays per week and spends the other five with his family. Less Doing is his business through which he helps other people optimize, automate, and outsource through teaching, coaching, and services.
Apart from his business, Ari also helps others overcome Crohn’s.
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Key Segments

[00:20] Ari Meisel considers himself cured of Crohn’s disease because he put himself through a long process of self-tracking. When Ari got sick, he sometimes couldn’t work more than an hour a day. This is how Less Doing came about. Ari needed to find a way to get more down in an hour and mitigate the stress.
[03:15] What can we do to be more productive using the resources Ari provides and recommends along the way? Ari has a company named Less Doing. He teaches people how to optimize, automate, and outsource everything in their lives. What does that mean? Everyone has outsourced something, even if it was just asking the kids to do a chore. The problem is that people skip right to outsourcing as the first line of defense when it should be the last. People need to optimize first to weed out inefficiencies and streamline. The second thing to do is automate in the vein of set-it-and-forget-it. Outsource only after you have optimized and automated.
[04:30] How would Ari recommend people get started with his system? There are different paths. Ari has two coaching programs and a virtual assistant company. The Less Doing, More Living Podcast is a great way for people to find out who Ari is and what he does, but it is a launching point for people to take the next step. Visit Less Doing Call and get a free 30-minute coaching call with one of Ari’s Less Doing Certified coaches. This coaching call is where Ari tries to direct everyone to get them started. If they find the coaching valuable, they can get information about programs that might be a good fit.
[05:50] Ari’s book Less Doing, More Living: Make Everything in Life Easier outlines the nine fundamentals of the system [more on the nine fundamentals below], and he is working on a second book that will cover more of the “why” of Less Doing.
[07:10] Ari’s two coaching programs are his Boot Camp and his Master Mind. His Boot Camp is the for-everyone program. It’s all online, and there’s a weekly call with the whole group (currently 150 people). This program takes people through the nine fundamentals and adds other information. In the Master Mind coaching program, Ari works more personally with individuals (currently 14) to address their business, personal growth, or physical problems.
[08:10] In 2015, Ari started the Less Doing Virtual Assistants service (the LessDoIsts). He considers the LessDoIsts to be on-demand project managers rather than just virtual assistants. The service is currently in stealth beta mode, but people can get on the waiting list. They are taking on 3 or 4 new clients each week. They have seen considerable interest and are scaling smoothly to get the kinks out of the system.
[10:25] Ari begins each episode of the Less Doing Podcast with a discussion of interesting links. These are resources he feels may be of interest to his listeners. He provides a summary spreadsheet of these links as the Less Doin