Optimize your time and impact by weeding out False Obligations

The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook.

William James

We do two types of things: things we want to do and things we have to do.

The balance between them indicates how we feel our lives are progressing.

If we only do things we have to do, we feel trapped and out of control.

If we only do things we want to do, we feel grateful and content.

But even with complete autonomy over our time and actions, there will always be things that we have to do.

Living intentionally is carefully controlling what those things are.

False Obligations

The biggest mistake we can make when choosing where to invest our time is mistakenly identifying something as a have-to-do.

We may think we have to work late, attend a friend’s party, or follow a certain diet, but we should only label these as have-to-do’s if they allow us to do more of the things we want to do.

We have to work because we need money to do the things we want to do.

We have to exercise because we want to be physically capable of doing things we want to do.

We have to attend certain social functions if we want to stay in our significant other’s good graces.

Any obligation that doesn’t result in doing more of what we want is a waste of our time and energy.

Contentment in Clarity

For everything we want to do, there are things we have to do to get those opportunities.

Beginning with the end in mind, we can identify all of the things we need to do in order to do all of the things we want to do.

Approaching everything with this lens easily identifies the wasteful false obligations that steal our time without giving us anything in return.

There are many things that we feel like we have to do but they are not serving us or moving us forward.

Living intentionally is identifying the difference between what we have to do to move ourselves forward and hollow false obligations constantly lobbed at us from different angles.

If we can ruthlessly focus on what will enable us to do more of what we want we will always feel content with the way we spend our time.

Prompts

1. What are the things that you have to do each week?

2. What are the most important things that you want to do?

3. What false obligations are you letting into your life?

4. What do you want to do but aren’t doing the things you need to do to get there?

Deep Dive

• Drive - Daniel H Pink

  • The surprising truth about what motivates us.

This post is part of Prompted, a Series on IH.

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