4. Reflect on the past

Whilst sharing his thoughts on the vice of procrastination, Seneca writes:

“While wasting our time hesitating and procrastinating, life goes on…”

Seneca suggests that one of the best ways to overcome procrastination is to practice what Stoics refer to as Premaditatio Malorum....

Everyone hustles his life along, and is troubled by a longing for the future and weariness of the present. But the man who … organizes every day as though it were his last, neither longs for nor fears the next day.

Often we postpone our happiness until the future, but Seneca argues that iro...

Contrary to popular opinion, Seneca argues that busyness is an illusion of productivity that actually steals our valuable time:

“No activity can be successfully pursued by an individual who is preoccupied …Living is the least important activity of the preoccupied man; yet there is nothing w...

It is inevitable that life will be not just very short but very miserable for those who acquire by great toil what they must keep by greater toil. They achieve what they want laboriously; they possess what they have achieved anxiously; and meanwhile they take no account of time that will never mo...

“You live as if you were destined to live forever, no thought of your frailty ever enters your head, of how much time has already gone by you take no heed. You squander time as if you drew from a full and abundant supply, though all the while that day which you bestow on some person or thing is p...

Whenever you create goals and envision a better future, you’re actually planning for your future self, who values discipline and long term rewards.

But when it comes time to take action, your present self—who values short term gratification—fights with your future self. And more times than ...