Stoic Freedom as a Productivity Hack

Stoicism on Advice for Making Better Use of our Time

The Greek and Roman philosophy of Stoicism is exceptionally useful for staying present, handling stressors, and shaping the world.

By adopting Stoicism, we aim to align our desires with what is under our control. This means desiring what we are likely to reach, while refraining from desiring what is out of our control. This is a key component of the Stoic discipline of desire.

From this perspective, it makes sense to desire that we are virtuous. We have direct control over our actions and character. We can shape ourselves. While it makes less sense to desire retiring without ever working — for most people, labor is a necessity for achieving other goods that they want.

Through application of this one idea, one can become free. Freedom is won by disregarding what is beyond our control.

The idea here is that when our desires come authentically from ourselves and are within reach, we are able to live how we’d like. Freedom isn’t a matter of having thousands of options available to us, instead it’s simply a matter of being able to do what we want.

This is a deep insight that has import for many domains in life, let’s focus on productivity today.