the critical question isn't how the two differentiate between…

Page 73 keyword choice the critical question isn't how the two differentiate between activities that matter and those that don't, but what to do and far too many things feel somewhat important. And this can be answered by three main principles. Principle number one is to pay yourself first when it comes to time. For example if you take a portion of your paycheck and you put it away for savings you may not notice it but if you pay yourself last instead of buying what you need and hopefully they'll be money left over to put into savings, you usually find that there isn't any. The same thing is with time If you try to find time for your most value activities by first dealing with all the other important demands on your time in the hope that they'll be some left over at the end you'll be disappointed. So for certain activity really matters to you whether it is writing a book or nurturing a relationship, the only way to be sure it will happen is to do some of it today no matter how little and no matter how many other things are begging for your attention. The second principle is to limit your work in progress. The most appealing way to resist the truth about your finite time is to initiate a large number of projects at once. That way you get the feel as though you're keeping plenty of irons in the fire and making progress on all fronts. Instead, would usually ends up happening is that you make progress on no fronts because each time a project starts to feel difficult you bounced to a different one instead so you get to preserve your sense of being in control of things but at the cost of never finishing anything important. The point isn't to force yourself to finish absolutely everything you start but rather to banish the bad habit of keeping a large number of half finished projects on the back burner. This alone will have a large effect. This will also cause you to break down projects into manageable chunks because otherwise you would not be able to finish anything. The third principle is to resist the allure of meddling priorities. Make a list of the top 25 things you want out of life and then arrange them in order from the most important to the least. The top five Warren Buffett says should be those around which you organize your time. You don't need to list out all your goals. You just need to learn how to start saying no to the things you do want to do with the recognition that you have only one life.

— from True North (Ethics, Integrity, Truth, Values)

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