Stoicism is a philosophy of life that aligns with the core practices of productivity. As opposed to surface-level productivity hacks, Stoicism offers a framework for living a productive life.
In today’s post, we’ll run through some productivity lessons we can learn from the school of Stoic philosophy. As a result of such Modern Stoicism, we find ourselves thinking more clearly in life about our goals and responsibilities.
Stoic Productivity & Mental Clarity
The main reason I started learning about Stoicism in early 2020 was to find a way to clear my mind. I felt like never-ending workloads that caused stress and anxiety were becoming a regular part of my day.
No matter how hard I worked or how many late nights I spent at the office, it seemed like my tasks only piled up more and more. There seemed to be no end in sight.
With this mindset, I felt I needed a remedy. A quick Google search for something along the lines of “how to think more clearly” led me to consider Stoicism as a philosophy to live my life by.
Below are my top productivity lessons from Stoicism.
Focus on What’s in Your Control
The chief task in life is simply this: to identify and separate matters so that I can say clearly to myself which are externals, not under my control, and which have to do with the choice I actually control. Where then do I look for good and evil? Not to uncontrollable externals, but within myself to the choices that are my own.
Epictetus
Before getting into Stoicism, I spent a large part of my life focusing on external markers of success. Being respected by others for my personality, life decisions and job title were among these markers.
The dichotomy of control is a key framework in the Stoic doctrine. It claims that we will find inner peace by focusing on actions within our control. We should learn to embrace anything outside our control with the concept of Amor Fati, simply: Love your fate. This is the key to happiness.
Change your definition of success to focus on what’s in your control. You cannot always guarantee the results of your actions, but the action itself is clear and swift.
For example, rather than looking at a large complete project as a daunting endeavour, break it down into actionable steps. Then, designate your next actions to get the ball rolling.
Regularly taking this approach allows us to move the project along piece by piece without worrying too much about a grand scope.
We should focus on what we can control, because otherwise we’re just wasting time and energy. Things outside our control happen either way. We need to make sure we’re having the impact we can affect.
That’s why we focus on what we can control.
Focus on What You Think Is Important
You are not your body and hair-style, but your capacity for choosing well. If your choices are beautiful, so too will you be.
Epictetus
I used to think that I produced most of my value between the hours of 9-5. Then when I finished my work day, I would go home and rest for the next day. Similarly, I spent weekends meeting friends, watching TV and eating good foods. Before going back to work on Monday.
I’m not saying that these things are not important, because of course they are! What I mean is that Stoicism helped me learn to appreciate the short time I have on Earth.
Stoicism helped me start a new career in content creation alongside my 9-5 job, because it’s important to me. I’m happy to write articles and podcast scripts. Because improving these skills matters more to me than the indulgence of television and late nights at the pub.
It is not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste a lot of it. Life is long enough, and a sufficiently generous amount has been given to us for the highest achievements if it were all well invested. But when it is wasted in heedless luxury and spent on no good activity, we are forced at last by death’s final constraint to realise that it has passed away before we knew it was passing. So it is: we are not given a short life but we make it short, and we are not ill-supplied but wasteful of it… Life is long if you know how to use it.
Seneca
Stoicism also helps us focus on what’s important by emphasising our personal values. When we know what really matters to us, it becomes a lot easier to live by our principles.
Do Less
Once we know what’s important, we can begin to focus on fewer tasks – the ones that truly matter to us. We should then dedicate more time and energy to these important tasks.
To-do lists can be a useful productivity tool. The issue is that these never-ending lists usually don’t reflect our most important work. Oftentimes, our to-do list tasks are a reflection of someone else’s priorities.
That’s why we need to learn to prioritise our tasks to focus on what matters. Prioritisation is a key principle of every productivity system from Deep Work to Getting Things Done.
“If you seek tranquility, do less. Or (more accurately) do what’s essential. Do less, better. Because most of what we do or say is not essential. If you can eliminate it, you’ll have more tranquility. But to eliminate the necessary actions, we need to eliminate unnecessary assumptions as well.”
Marcus Aurelius
The Pareto principles states that 20% of our work contributes 80% of the results. We need to learn to focus on that 20% to improve the quantity and quality of our results.
If you want to start doing less, ask yourself the following questions of any task on your to-do list:
What’s the ideal outcome from this task? How can I automate this task? How is this task going to help me or someone else?
Ultimately, doing less helps us both find inner tranquility and achieve our greater purpose in life.
Anxiety vs Productivity
I’ve seen first-hand how anxiety about my work does not help me work any quicker. Learning to distance myself from my negative emotions has been a key takeaway from Stoicism.
By focusing on what I can control, I’ve learned that I can choose how I react to difficult situations. This includes urgent tasks and huge workloads. Stress isn’t going to make it better, but keeping cool while I strategise and plan my attack might. And it usually does.
According to the Stoics, there’s no such thing as a “bad situation”. We get to decide what each situation means to us. We can look at stressful situations as a moment for improvement. Also, once you finish your workload, you’ll be proud of what you’ve accomplished.
The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.
Marcus Aurelius
Whereas most people see obstacles, Stoics see opportunities. The Obstacle is the Way.
Having confidence in your abilities and working towards your goals is all you need to thrive in nearly every situation.
Never stop
“It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop.”
Confucius
It’s normal to have more energy when we start a new project. I’ve noticed first-hand the energy dip when the initial dopamine thrill wears off after the first few weeks.
But it’s important to keep at it. Take your time. Quitting after you lose your initial steam is not an option.
The most important factor to succeed is to follow through. That means understanding the deeper reason why you started working towards your goal in the first place.
If we’ve already focused on our priorities, it should be easier to keep up the motivation. But if not, remind yourself why you’re doing it. Imagine yourself completing your goal, then remind yourself what you need to do to accomplish it.
We can be as slow as we want. But we can never stop.
Create a Habit System for Productivity
“Every habit and capability is confirmed and grows in its corresponding actions, walking by walking, and running by running . . . therefore, if you want to do something make a habit of it, if you don’t want to do that, don’t, but make a habit of something else instead. The same principle is at work in our state of mind. When you get angry, you’ve not only experienced that evil, but you’ve also reinforced a bad habit, adding fuel to the fire.”
Epictetus
Find ways to incorporate productive habits in your life from work to health and connecting with others. I found ways to optimise my pandemic habits to make sure I was living well while socially distancing and working from home.
You can also make a habit out of optimising your work environment. Remember that when building habits, motivation is overrated. If your workspace is too noisy, switch rooms or put on headphones. Try different working methods like planning your ideal week to see what works best for you.
Similarly, maintaining a healthy diet and staying physically active are great habits. Daily exercise will bring increased energy, mental clarity and physical health to your life. Waking up at the same time every morning will also make sure you have consistent energy.
Make a point of calling a close friend at least once a week, and leave plenty of time for sleep every night. Reflect regularly, like the Stoics did with their morning and evening routines.
We have enough time to focus on what matters. We should spend some of it on these multiplying behaviours to make the most out of our efforts.
Conquer Procrastination
We can even use Stoic ideas to combat procrastination.
People often procrastinate because they’re afraid of failing a task they need to complete. To accomplish this, we need to learn to distance ourselves from external markers of success.
We should be able to dive right into a problem or project that we’ve been procrastinating with.
For example, we can start by gathering initial information on what we need to do. Then, we can form a hypothesis that we test out. Once we’ve validated our hypothesis, we can put together a plan and get to work.
Having an action plan makes it much harder to procrastinate. Figuring out what we need to do often takes half the energy needed to complete a task. Pre-planning our workload with actionable steps will get us closer to our goal without procrastinating.
Putting things off is the biggest waste of life: it snatches away each day as it comes, and denies us the present by promising the future. The greatest obstacle to living is expectancy.
Seneca
Reduce procrastination by focusing on actionable steps. Like the Getting Things Done methodology, Stoicism urges us to focus on what we can control.
Focusing on actionable steps will help us blaze through our tasks quicker and more efficiently.
Spend Less Time on Distractions
It is essential for you to remember that the attention you give to any action should be in due proportion to its worth, for then you won’t tire and give up, if you aren’t busying yourself with lesser things beyond what should be allowed. Since the vast majority of our words and actions are unnecessary, corralling them will create an abundance of leisure and tranquility. As a result, we shouldn’t forget at each moment to ask, is this one of the unnecessary things?
Marcus Aurelius
It’s not hard to recognise the distractions in our lives. Social media, TV, clickbait articles… the list goes on.
Think about how you spend your time and ask yourself what is the purpose of each activity. The path of least resistance might lead us to spending hours on social media, often without our full awareness. We need to question what value each activity brings us.
If we deem a specific habit a waste of time and energy, we should learn to recognise the patterns that lead us to the activity. Only then can we distance ourselves from these distractions.
Concentrate on What’s in Front of You
“Concentrate every minute like a Roman — like a man — on doing what’s in front of you with precise and genuine seriousness, tenderly, willingly, with justice. And on freeing yourself from all other distractions. Yes, you can — if you do everything as if it were the last thing you were doing in your life, and stop being aimless, stop letting your emotions override what your mind tells you, stop being hypocritical, self-centred, irritable.”
Marcus Aurelius
The Stoics valued practical wisdom above all else. They claimed it was in every person’s reach to live their best life and accomplish their most important goals.
A fulfilled life could only be lived by minimising distractions and building better habits.
After all, distractions are the enemy of deep work.
Stoic Productivity in a Nutshell
Stoicism is a philosophy that values practical wisdom and action. The philosophy has personally helped me be more productive and resilient in both work and life.
Since I learned about Stoicism, I’ve gotten more done, while keeping a cooler head throughout. Focusing on what I can control has been one of the most useful techniques I’ve ever learned.
It also helps to know what I value, so I can focus my energy around what’s most important to me. When our daily actions align with our goals and purpose, our lives become more meaningful as a result.
Have a more fulfilling life with Stoic productivity and Mind & Practice today.