7 Stoic Strategies For Time Management

Seneca talked about how if you stopped the average Roman walking about their day and you asked them what they were doing, why they were doing it, they wouldn't have a good answer. They just sort of followed what what he called wretched habit. They just did what everyone else was doing, they just did what they always did, and they were paying for this aimlessness with their life, with their most precious resource. The most powerful lesson from Seneca about not wasting time comes with his reframing of death. He says, "It's not that we die in the future, like you have however many years you think you have left." He says, "No, death is now." He says, "The time that passes is belongs to death. We are dying every minute, we are dying every day." The reason you have to stop procrastinating, the reason you have to stop wasting time is that your life is tick tick ticking away. Here are seven strategies for how to manage your time better. If you want to feel amazing, if you want to feel like a king, if you want to feel like you own a city, get up early. Get up early and go for a run. Streets are empty, there's no one out, it's just you. You're pushing yourself, you're challenging yourself. You might not rule over the city, but you are ruling over yourself. And that is, in a way, the hardest thing to do. And how do I know this? Well, Marcus Aurelius talks about it in Meditations. He says, "When you have trouble getting out of bed in the morning, say to yourself, is this what I was put here to do, to huddle under the covers and stay warm?" He says, "No, get up and get after it. Go do what your duty demands, go do what your nature demands." Look, it it can be hard while you're doing it, no question. It's not fun to get up early, but you're always glad afterwards that you did it. I went for a nice run this morning in Rome along the river through the empty city streets. I feel empowered, I feel powerful over myself, which is the whole point. This is not the Baths of Diocletian, this is the Baths of Caracalla. We don't know if Seneca went to this one, probably not, but he did go to that one. And we know that he found it unbearably noisy. And that's where his challenge came in. He he sought it out because it was noisy, because it was hard. He said, "It's so loud here, it makes me hate my powers of hearing." Which I love. He said he could hear men getting their armpits hair plucked, getting pummeled by masseuses, he could hear boxing, he could hear wrestling, he could hear people jumping in the water. But he said, "I find even here that I could think." He sought out the noisiest, busiest place in Rome to train his ability to focus, to train his ability to concentrate. Which is a wonderful idea. I heard Malcolm Gladwell like works in coffee shops on purpose. Makes him focus. We have to understand it's not just the physical part of this that we're training. It's the mental part of it, perhaps more than anything. In this noisy, busy, crazy world that we're in, like doing hard physical things might be simpler than sitting down and focusing for 30 minutes. Concentrating like a Roman, as Marcus Aurelius said. These baths were enormous complexes. The the Diocletian Baths could hold 3,000 people at one time. There was hot rooms and cold rooms and steam rooms. There was exercise equipment. There was vendors selling their wares. There's also all the noise on the street below. You know, it wasn't New York City construction loud, but it was pretty close. Right? We'd like to think the ancient world was quiet, but it was anything but. And so Seneca, he puts himself in this difficult challenge and and he's writing and and by the way, there that's not the only noise he hears. His life is falling apart, Nero is insane, everything's going sideways for him, and yet he's working on his ability to concentrate. That's his challenge. You could do a marathon, you could lift heavy weights, but can you focus? Can you lock in? Can you concentrate like a Roman, as Marcus Aurelius said? That's the rare thing these days. That's what we don't see enough of. The irony is I find when I do these physical challenges, I do some of my best thinking. It's why I take my walks, it's why I go running, it's why I swim. That's where I concentrate. Funny, I was at a gym one time and I got recognized and uh as I was getting out of the pool and like I said, "Oh, I just read Ego is the Enemy, I really liked it." And I said, "I wrote that book in this pool." And he's like, "What are you talking about?" And I did it. That's where I would go. It's not as quiet and serene as my office, but it's a it was the perfect place for me to lock in and focus. >> [music] >> The other line from the Stoics that pertains to Circus Maximus comes to us from Epictetus who obviously wasn't sitting in an owner's box as he watched the races probably had no interest in what was happening here whatsoever but he said, "Look, if you want to win, you should only run in races where winning is up to you." Right? This comes back to the Stoic idea of what's in your control and what's outside your control. If needing to be first, needing to beat other people, if needing to get the perfect score from the judges or in my case hit the best seller list if if if you're focused on any of the parts of it that are not up to you, that are up to the critics or the scorecard or the other competitors, well then you're vulnerable. You are needing, hoping, desiring things that are external to you. But, if your goal is to do your best, if your goal is to push your limits, if your goal is to learn something about yourself, if your goal is to check a box, then winning is up to you. Then you're going to succeed no matter what. And that's a good metaphor for life. I think about this as an author. My My goal is to write the best book that I possibly can, to grow from the process, to be made better for it. And then depending on where it hits on the list or how many copies it sells, that's all extra. Same goes for when I run. Am I pushing myself? Am I challenging myself? Am I having fun? Am I learning? All that. Then how my time stack up to someone else, how I place if it is in a race, all of that is extra. That's an important reminder from Seneca. On the road in front of the forum, there's a bunch of statues of some of the most famous and eminent Romans. Julius Caesar, Augustus, Trajan, all the famous emperors. And And it would have looked something like this in in the ancient world, too. There would have been not just emperors, but senators and generals and patrons of the arts. But Marcus Aurelius wanted to make a point about these so-called famous people, the ones that we look up to. We're told for instance that Julius Caesar once saw a statue of Alexander the Great and broke down weeping in front of him because Alexander the Great in that statue was younger [music] than he was in that moment and he had already conquered the world and this made Julius Caesar immensely jealous. But but Marcus Aurelius actually addresses that in Meditations. He says in book eight he says Alexander and Caesar and Pompey, three of the most famous Romans, he says compared with Diogenes, with Heraclitus, and Socrates. He said the philosophers knew the what, the why, and the how. He said their minds were their own. He said the others, the great generals, the people with the statues, he said they knew nothing but [music] anxiety and enslavement. Enslavement sounds like a pretty strong word considering there literally were slaves here. But but Seneca makes a similar point. He's talking about Marius, one of Rome's great generals and dictators. He said, you know, Marius commanded armies but ambition commanded Marius. He says we're all a slave to something and in fact that idea of ambition, of of the need to be powerful, to have the most, to be remembered, to be commemorated, right? To be in the room where it happens, to be in the mix, to be necessary, to be relevant. These are timeless desires and urges. They're also traps. Seneca talks about, you know, old lawyers who can't retire, who's still begging for one more case, one more one more crack at being the talk of the town. And so all these things were happening then and they're still happening now. But Marcus Aurelius is saying that philosophy gives us the clarity, gives us the perspective, gives us the truth to break out of this trap, to see what actually matters, to see what's actually important, to live a simpler life, a more contemplative life, a more public service-oriented life, not about aggrandizement and achievement and accomplishment, but you know, actually making a difference for people, you know, actually maybe getting to know your kids, being around, being home. You only get one life and so to spend it enslaved, to spend it in harness, worst of all a harness you put on yourself and that you could take off at any time. The Stoics saw this as particularly tragic and sad and most of all, it was avoidable. I've talked a bunch about getting up early, the power of getting up, getting after it in the morning, but make no mistake, I think sleep is super, super important. Not just what time you go to bed, but how you sleep. And a big part of my sleep routine is my Eight Sleep. I love it, my wife loves it. You [music] can have different sides, cool at different temperatures. It's even how I wake up in the morning. Instead of an annoying alarm clock or that, you know, horrible sound on your phone, it lightly buzzes you awake and then when you're up, you want to turn it off, you just tap the mattress. There's all sorts of awesome features in my Eight Sleep. It was worth every penny. I love it. You can use the code dailystoic at eightsleep.com/dailystoic [music] right now for up to $500 off. And if you have an HSA or an FSA, some Eight Sleep stuff qualifies for that as well. Through TrueMed and qualified customers save about 30% on average. [music] Check your eligibility at trumed.com/eightsleep before you buy. TrueMed is for qualified customers. HSA [music] and FSA tax savings may vary. When I'm watching the game, I'm present. I'm enjoying it. Maybe I'm learning things. I'm just watching excellence uh play out. That's great. But when I'm reading the news the week before about who's hurt or what the plans are or what people are speculating is going to happen, that's when I remind myself I'm kind of just totally wasting my time because nothing I learn in the days preceding up to the game is going to change what happens during the game cuz I'm not the GM or the coach or on the field, right? I think about this with the election. I know what I want to happen. I know who I'm obligated to vote for. Watching the news play out in real time, every late-breaking development, every gap, every disaster, every frustrating thing, all that's doing is making me crazy and not changing the outcome in any way. In fact, what it's doing is taking me away from my actual family, my actual job, and things that I might do in the real world to bring about that outcome. So, I think enjoying things, watching things, whatever, as as long as it doesn't become this kind of pseudo reality that it's so easy to live in. To me, that's my relationship and the the way that I I think about those things, right? I will say Marcus Aurelius did not enjoy the gladiatorial games and he was often seen writing his philosophical meditations at the Colosseum to the chagrin of most Romans who were, you know, rather bloodthirsty. I think there's a difference between that and, you know, what we watch on the pitch or the field or the court. So, this is the Caswellis family tomb. They came to Bastrop in the 1850s and they built a little building on Main Street, which housed a shop that he owned and he built a house down the street. His son, Will, who This is him. That's the father. This is Will. Carried on the business when his father died in 1901. Well, I own that building now. The The building has changed hands dozens of times in the decades since it left the Caswellis family, which, by the way, is what happens to all our possessions. The things you love, the things you care about, eventually someone is going to possess them. That is to say, if they don't throw them away. There's a story about Epictetus. He had this lamp that was stolen. And you'd think he'd be upset. Instead, he goes, "Look, you can only lose what you have." And he goes back and he replaces it the next day with something cheaper. But, the funny part is that after he died, one of his students bought it for a lot of money. He wanted to possess something that Epictetus had possessed. Of course, totally missing the point of the lesson. Now, again, the lesson isn't you should never have anything and you shouldn't care about anything. You should give away all your possessions like a monk. No, it's just a reminder that that as the Stoics say, we only own this stuff in trust. We have it temporarily. Not just the job, not just the house, not just the place we currently stand or operate, but everything in our life is only ours for as long as we are lucky to have it. I heard someone say and I think about this with where I live on this ranch out not far from here. He says, "The bank is just letting me make payments on it." Like you don't even own it. You have it temporarily. And if you can think about it that way, you're not only going to be more insured against the ups and downs in life, you're going to know the proper perspective on things. It helps me relax with my children. I don't have to take everything so seriously. I don't have to stress about everything. I don't own it. We remind ourselves that we don't really own this stuff, that it's only ours temporarily. So, the day when we have to give it up, whether it's while we're living or at the end of our life, we're okay with that. We're okay giving it back. I actually had a friend of mine who died not that long ago. And he he wrote about this saying, "I'm ready to give the gift back." That's what he was saying about his life itself. Ready to return the gift. And that's a very Stoic idea. All of it. It's only temporary. We only get it for a little bit. >> [music] >> As we wrap up here, I wanted to give you I think what the most important practice, a practice I always try to leave people with from the Stoics, which is this idea of memento mori, right? Remember that you are mortal. The Roman emperor had someone whisper this in their ear at their highest moments. Remember that you are mortal, that you are not a god, that you are a human being. I carry a ring with me. I'm wearing it right now. It says memento mori and on the inside has a quote from from Marcus. He says, "Let that determine what you do and say and think. You could leave life right now. Let that determine what you do and say and think." Of course, we all know we're going to die on some level, right? Obviously, everyone who's ever born will die. That's the one prophecy that's never failed. And yet, the Stoics would say we get it wrong to think of death as this thing in the future, right? It's not some distant thing that will happen to you when you're old. I mean, it can happen to you at any moment. But, Seneca would say we have to see death as something that's ever present, right? In the midst of life, we are in death. Not just cuz people can die, things like plagues or pandemics can happen, tragedies can happen. But, he would say that the time that passes belongs to death. That once time passes, it's dead to us forever. As we kill time, time kills us. He says, "We're dying every minute. We're dying every day." So, the reason we have to say no, right? The reason we have to design our lives, the reason we have to be conscious of where we're going and what we're doing is we don't know how long we have. Don't know how long we have. The Stoics say we have to balance the books of life each day to make sure we're spending this time wisely, we're making a positive difference with it, we're using the gift for what it is. It's a gift. And I was in Waverly Cemetery today. Look, if that's where you go when you die, I guess there's worse things that could happen to you. But, all those people, right? All those people, they saw death as something that would happen eventually, inevitably, and then it came to them one day all too soon, as it does to all of us. It comes as a surprise, even though we know it's always going to be there. Maybe we thought we we were too healthy, too important, or we thought we're working on something that's going to outlive us. It doesn't do Marcus Aurelius any good that we're talking about him, you know. He says, "People who long for posthumous fame forget that they won't be around to enjoy it." And he says, "The people in the future are also stupid and annoying and uh you know The point is Marcus Aurelius survives and endures not cuz that's what he chased but because of what he did with the time that he had and who he was with that time. And that has to be enough. Dying every minute, we're dying every day. You could leave life right now. Let that determine what you do and say and think.