“Life is What Happens To You While You’re Busy Making Other Plans.” — John Lennon

“Life is What Happens To You While You’re Busy Making Other Plans.” — John Lennon

If You?re Too Busy For These 5 Things: Your Life Is More Off-Course Than You Think21K99

Benjamin Hardy, PhD

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?Life is busy.?

I agree with what you said Benjamin. I think John was loosely referring to the word plan in his quote. Most people plan on having a better life than they do. Ironically, if they planned more, they just might achieve it.

The question is why they don?t.

The answer is most people lose perspective of the long term because of the short term. You give urgency to things you can see right away instead of what you know has a greater impact months and years to come.

You often don?t realize time is saved when you plan. Eventually tomorrow will be today, and the choices you made yesterday will affect the time available and the outcomes you experience now.

You need to see how time spent today can save wasted time tomorrow and how a few minutes wisely spent will compound over time.

You need to see how just a few minutes spent reflecting and planning in each one of the categories mentioned in the article will place you squarely on life?s upward curve as so eloquently explained by Jeff Olson in The Slight Edge.

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Most people lose sight of the big picture because of the day-to-day. Everything turns into a priority. Everything becomes important.

It?s possible to multiply your time by doing things that cover multiple areas of your action plan. This would include things like working out with family while listening to a personal development podcast.

Before you can get to that point, you should probably take advice from another invaluable book, Essentialism, and make time to assess what?s important.

Pick The One Thing in each of those categories that will propel you forward. Implement the Pareto principle and eliminate the unessential. Use a portion of the saved time to further reflect and plan on your one priority in each one of those areas.

Pick one thing in your life today that?s unessential and replace that activity with a little life planning and reflection. Decide what twenty minute block of time you can replace daily until you?ve weeded out the eighty percent of your actions that can be dropped, outsourced, or put off until you?ve completed what?s truly effective in your day and your life.

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