5 Stoic Secrets to Increase Your Productivity
Stoicism for Productivity by Daily Stoic and Ryan Holiday
1. Stop putting stuff off
“You could be good today but instead you choose tomorrow.” — Marcus Aurelius
Do it if you’re going to do it.
If it matters, do it now.
Now you have for certain; you don’t know if you will have tomorrow.
“How much longer are you going to wait to demand the best from yourself.” — Epictetus
2. Design your life
“Life without design is erratic” — Seneca
Wake up early.
Spend some time with a journal.
Think about the value you can create for other people and the world.
Concentrate as if the thing you are doing is the last thing you are doing in your life.
Work for the common good.
At the end of the day, stop and think:
“What could I have done better?”
“What difference did I make?”
“How did I improve myself?”
When you go to bed, think “This is my last day on earth,” and when you wake up the next day, you are grateful.
3. Shift your perspective
It’s not what happens, it’s how we respond to what happens.
Ask yourself at every moment, “Is this essential?”
When you do less, you get the added benefit of doing less better.
4. Re-read great books
We never step in the same river twice.
You change, and the world changes.
5. Accept your fate
“It is fortunate that this happened to me and not someone else because not everyone would have remained as unharmed by it as I have been.” — Marcus Aurelius
There is no such thing as a bad event, there is only what we make out of it.
Better me than someone else, I am going to get through this, I am going to survive it.
