tba
Although this is discussed extensively in almost every time management book and life management book, it is worth repeating.
A MILLION THINGS TO DO BEFORE I SLEEP...THE ROAD TO NOWHERE!
There are a million things we can do in life. We fall into the trap of thinking we "must" do at least more things than we can possibly do, to accomplish more goals than we can possibley accomplish, to be a person beyond what we can possibly become - all in a giant failure to be realistic about life and to hold it in perspective. This is, to me after all of my studies in the field, clearly delusionary - and it leads to much unhappiness and wasted time. (The best treatment of this, I think, is in Covey's book First Things First.)
Basically, the idea is to put the most impactful items on top of the list of all there is to do - and then just do them in that order, leaving the rest undone - and the rest are undone simply because you inserted your top priority of giving yourself rest and rejuvenation.
WHO SEZ? MAYBE WE OUGHTA "CHECK IT OUT"
There is no great god that says you must achieve "x" in life or that you must do any one thing beyond having sufficient shelter and food and peace of mind.
After all, the happiest people in the world, per at least two brain scientists, are Tibetan Buddhist Monks. I bring this up to get rid of any idea that it takes material "stuff", creature comforts, being "cool", being "powerful", eating ice cream, shopping well, being popular, etc., to be happy.
We are, in fact, very poor predictors of what will make us happy - and therefore it makes sense that we should first learn what makes ourselves happier (and what doesn't) so that we can have a great prioritized list to run our life from. (Just in case, you should read How To Create Unhappiness - and maybe you should stop doing those things.)
80/20 IS STILL THE PRINCIPLE TO FOLLOW IN LIFE
I've started a site (and may have it mostly completed, depending on when you read this, about how to live the 80/20 Life. Basically, it says we should, to the greatest extent we can, stick to only doing the top 20% in terms of impact/importance and we'll get 80% of all the results we want. If we apply this principle well, we can reach as high as 400% of what we would achieve otherwise in life.
But to achieve more and more of what we want, we must keep applying the principle - and avoid the opposite. We must eliminate the bottom 80%. Since, of course, most people feel too anxious that they might just miss something, I recommend that one starts by eliminating at least 40% of the activities one does - do a list of all of your activities and what the impact/importance/benefit is - you'll find many are of no or little use and/or should be delegated. And I recommend that you throw away all of those things, unless earth shaking, that you never use or never get around to.
PREPARATION H FOR YOUR PILES
I made the incredible mistake of piling up lots of things, in huge piles that would sometimes fall over in a big mess, that I was "going to read" - in my grand delusion of becoming the perfect man and being a super-achiever. All it created was anxiety and "failed intentions." (Not smart!) So, I just threw it all away, experiencing the relief of eliminating 1,000's of to dos from my list. (See what they do about this in this Mission Control workshop: Do More By Doing Less.) (H = ?; hunker down and toss it?)
