I quit skydiving after 35 jumps. Here's why.

I loved skydiving. 35 jumps. The rush, the freedom, the community. It was the best hobby I'd ever picked up.

I quit anyway.

Not because I lost interest. Because I realized it was costing me more than I thought. Every jump meant a full weekend gone. Travel, gear checks, waiting for weather, the jump itself, packing, driving back. Plus the mental space — planning the next jump, watching videos, thinking about certifications.

It wasn't just time. It was maintenance. And skydiving wasn't the only thing quietly eating my capacity.

When I looked honestly at my life, the pattern was everywhere. Wing foiling on top of wave surfing. A basement full of stuff I hadn't touched in months. A wardrobe with clothes I kept "just in case."

And then I looked at ForkOn.

Same problem. Bigger scale.

In the early days, I said yes to every tool I could find. Asana for project management. Slack for communication. Notion for documentation. Jira for tracking. Then another tool on top. Then another. I thought each one would make us faster, more organized. Every new process felt like progress.

It wasn't.

After a few years, we had layers of tools and processes that nobody fully understood anymore. My team was busy all day. I was busy all day. But doing what? Half of it was maintaining systems we'd set up years ago that didn't even serve our goals anymore.

Every single thing you add — every tool, every process, every commitment — needs maintenance. And that cost compounds silently. You don't notice it until one day you're spending more time keeping old decisions alive than making new ones.

The turning point came on a holiday. First time in months I had space to actually think. I analyzed what my team spent their time on.

Brutal realization. We were all stuck in the same trap. Feeling productive while mostly maintaining stuff that no longer brought real value. Busy, not effective.

I came back with a completely different approach. Three steps I now use for everything.

Delete first. I went through every tool, every recurring process, every meeting. If it didn't directly serve our main goals, I killed it. No "maybe we'll need it later." No "but we already set it up." Gone. This alone freed up hours every week for me and my team.

Automate what stays. For things that matter but eat repetitive time, I removed the human effort. I set up an AI bot that runs 24/7 on a server. It builds landing pages overnight and deploys them automatically. It analyzes my entire Pipedrive CRM and gives me a ranked list of the 20 contacts most likely to become opportunities. It does deep LinkedIn searches to find people I should engage with. Some mornings I wake up and it's already sent me 3 ideas I could execute that day. And it learns and improves over time.

Delegate the rest. What can't be deleted or automated gets handed to someone with full ownership. Not "help me with this." Full ownership.

Now whenever a new tool, process, or opportunity shows up, I run it through these three filters. And most of the time, the answer is no. If it creates maintenance that reduces my future productivity, it's not worth it.

That's why I quit skydiving. Loved it. But it wasn't on my top 3 priorities. Same reason I stopped wing foiling and only surf now. Same reason I decluttered my basement and my wardrobe.

Don't get me wrong. Life isn't just about productivity. When something makes you happy and it's on your priority list — keep it, enjoy it. I still surf every chance I get. But be aware of shiny objects that look exciting in the first moment and become a load in the future. The question isn't "do I want this?" It's "am I willing to maintain this?"

One rule everywhere: only keep what serves your actual goals. Delete the rest.

Sounds obvious. But most founders do the opposite. They keep adding and never subtract. Then wonder why they feel busy but stuck.

The key that made this work for me: knowing what actually matters. Without that clarity, you can't decide what to cut. Everything feels important when you have no reference point.

This week's action:

→ List every tool you're paying for and every recurring process your team runs. Next to each one, write: DELETE, AUTOMATE, or KEEP. Be brutally honest about what's serving your goals vs. what's just there because you set it up once.

→ Pick 3 things and kill them this week. Cancel the subscription. Remove the process. Say no to the meeting. Watch what happens. Most likely: nothing breaks.

→ Take 15 minutes to write down your top 3 goals right now. If something doesn't serve one of those three, it shouldn't be on your plate.

If you don't have a journaling practice yet, I built templates that help you get clarity on exactly this — your goals, your priorities, and what to cut.

Grab them here: Download

All the best,

🌱 Tim