Seneca’s advice on time management

Frankly, I trust proven competent historical figures far more than I trust today’s gurus on self-development. Before adopting any advice, I want to see that it has worked for different people across the centuries. I want to see lots of evidence in favour. #seneca (4 BC – 65 AD) gained significant insights about #timemanagement and his followers have applied those insights with good success. I’m talking about twenty centuries of experience, not about a flash in the pan. That’s why I think that we should pay attention to what Seneca said about time management. I am going to summarise Seneca’s recommendations in this area, in a way that they are formulated in universal, perennial terms. I hope that readers can find them useful to some extent. Seneca warned us repeatedly against being too busy. On the one hand, he meant that we should not pursue contradictory goals. If we try to go north and south at the same time, we are not going to make a lot of progress. On the other hand, Seneca called for an effective, rational employment of resources. For instance, individuals in #ancientrome had to economise on paper (papyrus) because it entailed considerable costs and was not readily available. That’s one of the reasons why Ancient Rome generated a relatively small number of authors. For most of the population, it was unaffordable to purchase papyrus or equivalent materials for writing. Nowadays, paper is cheap, but other #resources remain very expensive. I mean housing and parking spaces in city centres, biological and organic food that is not locally produced, study fees in leading universities, just to name a few examples. For the individual, time remains the most scarce, expensive resource because it cannot be replenished. When our lifespan is over, we cannot extend it at any price. Here is the link to the original article: https://johnvespasian.com/senecas-advice-on-time-management/