“Time assets vs. Time debts. Time assets are choices that save you time in the future. Think: saying no to a meeting, automating a task, working on something that persists and compounds. Time debts are choices that must be repaid and cost you time in the future. Think: saying yes to a meeting, doing sloppy work that will need to be revised, etc. Time assets are an investment. Time debts are an expense.”
James Clear, Blog
“I remember the day quite clearly. My brother and I were in the front yard playing basketball, as we often did after school. My father drove up on his motorcycle, coming back from work, and said, ‘I have some good news guys. I have decided to order cable TV.’ Our life changed. We went from about 4 stations to over 60 stations overnight. In the following months, my brother and I played basketball together less often, and as more kids in the neighborhood also got cable, there were fewer evenings when we were all out playing hide–and–go–seek in the neighborhood. I learned that every new offering both gives something … and also takes away.”
Soren Gordhamer
”Seneca notes how much time we waste in life. It may well be that we are wasting much of that time and energy thinking about things as unfulfilling and unproductive as being on time. Being punctual is important, yes. But more critical is making time for the things that really matter… and then being on time for those.“
Ryan Holiday
”Circumstances are never going to give you what you need. You’re going to have to take them. No one is going to give you time to study philosophy, you have to take it. You have to make the time. Externals are never going to restore what is essentially an internal issue. You need that break now…and you must get it by stepping away, not literally but figuratively. Stop fooling yourself. Stop expecting someone or someplace to restore you. The only person who can only do it is you. And the right time for it is not later, but now.”
Ryan Holiday, Daily Stoic Blog
“The ‘if I had time’ lie is a convenient way to ignore the fact that novels require being written and that writing happens a sentence at a time. Sentences can happen in a moment. Enough stolen moments, enough stolen sentences, and a novel is born — without the luxury of time.”
Julia Cameron, The Right To Write
“The time that you’re alive is the only thing you truly possess, and you can give it away. You can give it away by working for other people—they own your time and you can be miserable. You can give it away by reaching for external pleasures and distractions—spending the time that you have as a slave to different passions and different obsessions. Or you can make the time that you’re alive your own.”
Robert Greene, The Daily Laws (Page 426)
“One of the simplest ways to win is to always connect the small things you do to the larger thing you hope to accomplish. Five minutes can be spent working on something trivial or working on something life-changing. A brief session of work oriented toward a great cause is always time well spent. Most daily actions evaporate. Some accumulate.”
James Clear, Blog
“The problem isn’t that you’re too busy. You are too busy, but that’s not the problem. If you view being busy as the problem, there is no solution. You will always be too busy, and that will never change. As Andy Grove once noted: ‘A manager’s work is never done. There is always more to be done, more that should be done, always more than can be done.’ The problem is that you’re acting like a firefighter instead of a fire marshal.”
Ed Batista
“People can take away your possessions, but—short of murder—not even the most powerful aggressors can take time away from you unless you let them. Even in prison your time is your own, if you use it for your own purposes. To waste your time in battles not of your choosing is more than just a mistake, it is stupidity of the highest order.”
Robert Greene, The Daily Laws (Page 320)
“When people say ‘Do you have 5 minutes?’ I don’t think they’re cognizant of the 30+ minutes of context-switching I’d have to do for that 5 minutes.”
Sahil Lavingia, Twitter