I was reading Marcus Aurelius' Meditations and came across the following advice:
How much of what we do isn't necessary or useful? We complain all the time about not having enough time to do the things we want, but I already talked about how we make time for things we want to do, even if we leave undone things we prefer were done.
Many people have written books about prioritizing our activity. Chief among these in my recent repertoire would be Steven Covey, who teaches us to stop prioritizing our plan but to plan our priorities. If we put first things first, we may accomplish less in total, but the things we accomplish will be of greater worth to us and free us from worry and fret, tending to greater leisure and less uneasiness as the good Emperor asserts.
Years ago I wrote a poem about the little things, and more often than not, it is the little things that get us down. In Orson Wells' War of the Worlds, the alien onslaught was stopped by a simple infection. The same twist defeated Madam Mumm in Disney's The Sword in the Stone. If we get out of our lives the little and wasteful and unnecessary, we'll find our lives blessed with more full days.
for the greatest part of what we say and do being unnecessary, if a man takes this away, he will have more leisure nd less uneasiness. Accordingly on every occasion a man should ask himself, is this one of the unnecessary things? now a man should take away not only unnecessary acts, but also, unnecessary thoughts, for thus superfluous acts will not follow after.
How much of what we do isn't necessary or useful? We complain all the time about not having enough time to do the things we want, but I already talked about how we make time for things we want to do, even if we leave undone things we prefer were done.
Many people have written books about prioritizing our activity. Chief among these in my recent repertoire would be Steven Covey, who teaches us to stop prioritizing our plan but to plan our priorities. If we put first things first, we may accomplish less in total, but the things we accomplish will be of greater worth to us and free us from worry and fret, tending to greater leisure and less uneasiness as the good Emperor asserts.
Years ago I wrote a poem about the little things, and more often than not, it is the little things that get us down. In Orson Wells' War of the Worlds, the alien onslaught was stopped by a simple infection. The same twist defeated Madam Mumm in Disney's The Sword in the Stone. If we get out of our lives the little and wasteful and unnecessary, we'll find our lives blessed with more full days.
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