Everything 2020 Taught Me (Part 1)

Dec 28, 2020 35m 45s 8 insights
The host, Stephen Bartlett, reflects on 2020, emphasizing the perspective gained on life's fragility and the importance of living fully. He shares lessons on embracing mortality, prioritizing meaningful connections, and practical productivity hacks like time blocking and cultivating urgency.
Actionable Insights

1. Embrace Mortality, Cultivate Urgency

Realize life is finite and nothing is guaranteed to eliminate procrastination, self-doubt, and fear, compelling you to live fully and pursue your most important goals with urgency.

2. Act Decisively, Overcome Fear

Don’t let fear win; instead, be spontaneous, pursue opportunities, express love, read, start businesses, learn new skills, and take risks, driven by the urgency of life’s preciousness.

3. Invest Care Wisely

Identify the few ‘worthy buckets’ like family, friends, and meaningful relationships, and invest your limited ‘care’ into them, consciously caring less about toxic buckets like material things, social media validation, and fear.

4. Prioritize Self-Approval Over External

Stop making decisions based on gaining societal approval and instead focus on what makes you like yourself more and wins approval from those who truly matter.

5. Impose Strict Deadlines

Apply Parkinson’s Law to your advantage by imposing strict, short deadlines (e.g., two weeks) on projects and goals to force action, break down perceived barriers, reject excuses, and achieve remarkable results quickly.

6. Time Block Your Calendar

Shift from working off a to-do list to scheduling tasks directly into your calendar, allocating specific time blocks to create urgency, priority, and accountability for your tasks.

7. Practice Empathetic Time Blocking

When time blocking, be realistic and empathetic towards your future self by scheduling in breaks, downtime, and even ’nothing’ to avoid burnout and ensure adherence to your calendar.

8. Prioritize Creating Memories

Actively create great memories with great people, especially as you get older, realizing the importance of these experiences over material possessions for long-term fulfillment.