Recommendations & REMINDERS

On loving how one prioritizes

I’m, currently, reading Tim Ferriss’ Tools of Titans — and found the BEST gem! (The book, like his others, is AWESOME — add it to your booklist [Recommendation #1])

Basically, for a few years now, I’ve been preaching this idea… Prioritizing your life, in quarters, based on what’s available to you now that might not be one day.

The idea sparked as I was playfully lecturing a friend about limiting his drug usage at an upcoming festival. The conversation looked something like this:

COURTNEY: “*Nick! Your BRAIN! Can you just try to take it easy at _____.”

NICK: “Yeah, yeah! I’m only going to do _____ and _____ and _____ .”

COURTNEY: “Listen, I’m all in support for indulgences, but for the sake of your life, picture this: Life is a basketball game and you’re only in the first quarter (literally and metaphorically). Save your energy, pace yourself, and then in the last quarter GO HARD — a.k.a. all the drugs you want! BUT, until then, you might need your brain for the next 2 quarters. Just don’t fry.” [Reminder #1]

NICK: “Ahaha! Thanks for the basketball reference — I like that! But, I’ll probably still do, at least, _____.”

COURTNEY: “Ahaha! Fair enough!”

The conversation was silly and we both were laughing about the content of the discussion as well as the tactic to deliver a relevant argument.

BUT, it did stick with me! I thought about this idea a lot. What is available to me now? What likely won’t be available to me in the future? If I divided life into quarters, how can I best prioritize and optimize to ensure the fullest life, based on resources & accessibility via time?

I thought about my physical capabilities, the people in my life (like my parents), mental stamina, monetary capacity, etc.

Obviously, my priorities will differ from yours and the next person, but it was an interesting topic to bring up (any chance I got).

Back to Tim Ferriss — in reading this book, as I mentioned, I found a gem that raised my excitement! He brought up an article, by Tim Urban, called The Tail End, on the blog Wait But Why? READ IT [Recommendation & Reminder #2].

The article is way better than my basketball quarters analogy, as it illustrates the point via numbers and visual aids. TOTALLY worth the two-minute read [Redundant Recommendation #3].

Tim Urban, beautifully, brings the point home: priorities matter [Reminder #3]. And not just your day-to-day, mundane priorities, but BIGGER PICTURE PRIORITIES.

That’s it — just wanted to share! ;)

ACTION ITEMS / FOOD FOR MORE THOUGHT:

• What’s important to you? You might, intrinsically, have an idea, but have you ever laid it out on a piece of paper? Try it…
• After reading Tim Urban’s article, did you find that the visual aids further impacted the importance and scarcity of time?
• If you prioritized (or didn’t prioritize) something in your life, leaving it to Q4 of your life and lost an opportunity… Ah, never mind that question: just don’t do it — prioritize & optimize your life to fulfill your best existence!