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The Life Plan: How To Plan Your Days, Months, and Years
Since 2015, I’ve been working on a life plan. I’ve been planning my days, months, and years. In this article, I will share how I do it, and what kind of impact this had on my life and career.
I was inspired to work on long-term planning by Jim Rohn. He talks about this in his classic seminar, How To Take Charge Of Your Life. It’s 30 years old, but his advice is more relevant than ever.
We have so many opportunities and shiny things that grab our attention that we let indecision paralyze us. Too many people wander around without a clear purpose. With planning, you can avoid that type of time-wasting and aimlessness.
Don’t Change Your Tool—Change Your Purpose
Imagine that life consisted of one long construction project of a house. And imagine that you were born with one tool attached to your hand. Let’s say you were born with a hammer.
Your primary skill is to slam nails into wood. But that’s not all you can do with a hammer. According to Wikipedia, a hammer is a versatile tool: “Hammers are used for a wide range of driving, shaping, and breaking applications.”
We need all those things if we’re building a house. It’s essential work. But let’s say you dislike those things. You prefer to draw like your neighbor, Jimbo, who was born with a pencil. He draws, designs, writes, and makes doodles. Since you can’t do any of that stuff with a hammer, you walk around frustrated and angry all the time.
Marcus Aurelius: 3 Rules For Life
How does one live well? It’s a question that our fellow human beings have been pondering for centuries. Out of that simple question, many philosophies and religions have been born.
But no philosophy does a better job of explaining the ideas for living well in a practical way than Stoicism.
The Emperor-Philosopher Marcus Aurelius, once the most powerful man on earth, was also a practitioner of Stoicism. Marcus wrote a collection of thoughts, ideas, and rules for life in what was later published as Meditation.
He wrote the things in that book for his own use. He was practicing the philosophy of Stoicism. I read that in The Inner Citadel by Pierre Hadot, a book that analyzes Meditations. In that book, I also read that Marcus had 3 rules for life that are found throughout Meditations.
Stoicism as a Way of Life
How often have you finished a book and tucked it away on your bookshelf? Or how often have you borrowed a book, read it, and returned it?
There’s a difference between reading and living a book. Most of us simply read books. And that’s a good thing because you can read hundreds of books, but you can only live a handful.
But why would you even live a book? And what does it mean to live a book?
When you live a book, you make the philosophy of the book your own. You use the ideas in the book as a way of life. I first learned about this idea this year when I read Philosophy As A Way Of Life by Pierre Hadot.