Beware the Allure of Middling Priorities

Beware the allure of middling priorities.

There's a cool story (probably apocryphal) attributed to the Sage of Omaha, Warren Buffett. When asked how to set priorities, he replied that we should list the top 25 things we want out of life and then arrange them in order of importance.

These top five, Buffett advises, are those upon which we should focus our attention, effort, and energy; and organize our time.

Now, here's the twist...

The other 20 are NOT ones that we try to tackle once we have more time. Instead, we should avoid them at all costs.

"Because," in the words of the author Oliver Burkeman, "they're the ambitions insufficiently important to [us] to form the core of [our] life yet seductive enough to distract [us] from the ones that matter most."

Middling priorities are those projects and aspirations that might seem important or attractive but which leech away our limited attention, finite energy, and precious time from what is truly essential.

If you were pressed to answer right now, what would you say are the top 5 things you want out of life? I genuinely hope that optimal healthspan is one of them! Now, being completely honest with yourself, is 100% of your time, energy, and attention focused on those things?

Our healthspan is the amount of time we get in our lifespan to enjoy fully robust and functional cognitive and physical abilities.

If your healthspan is not on your list of top 5, unless you are extraordinarily lucky or blessed, there will be a steep price to pay looming in your future.

If you're in your middle decades here's encouraging news - we still have time to change course (hopefully!). We can make better decisions about what we rank in our top-5 list. And we can choose to vigorously avoid the other 20 things that promise to siphon away our time, energy, and attention.

We believe and often repeat that the best years of our life can happen at any age. So, why not now?!

At MidStrong we work it and live it so we get to keep it.

MidStrong is for life.

P.S. I heartily recommend Oliver Burkeman's recent book,Four Thousand Weeks - Time Management for Mortals. It's a wonderfully refreshing and humorous look at our misperception of time and the decidedly limited control we have over ours.