Wiser by Day
Too Much To Do · Lesson 1 of 6 · Free
Where the time goes
See where the time goes, take away what's unnecessary, and do one thing at a time.
Listen at your own pace
Listen to Where the time goes
Playback starts only when you choose Play. The recording includes the teaching and reflection prompts. Quiet practice time is separate from the recording.
Read the recording transcriptThe lesson
Welcome. Too much to do is partly about the list and partly about how we hold it. Over six short days we'll practise lightening both. Today, we notice where the time actually goes.
Thus it is: we do not receive a short life, but we make it a short one, and we are not poor in days, but wasteful of them.Seneca · On the Shortness of Life, section 1
Aubrey Stewart, 1889
Seneca isn't scolding the busy here. He's pointing at a leak. Time is less scarce than scattered, a few minutes lost to a notification, a few to a task that didn't need doing. Before anyone changes how they work, they need to see it plainly. So today's practice isn't to do less, or faster. It's to look at an ordinary day and notice where the minutes went. You may find the problem is smaller, or different, than the feeling suggests.
Try it for yourself
A short reflection
Recall yesterday in outline: morning, afternoon, evening. Don't try to be exact. Where did time slip away? Where did it feel well spent? Name a couple of each, as a neutral observer. No fixing yet. Notice any urge to judge, and let it pass. Take three minutes.
One question to write about
Where did yesterday's time go, in a few words?
You can reflect without writing. Nothing you think or write on this page is collected.
Recording transcript
This text follows the recorded narration. Source credits for the quoted passage appear above.
Welcome. Too much to do is partly about the list and partly about how we hold it. Over six short days we'll practise lightening both. Today, we notice where the time actually goes. From Seneca's essay On the Shortness of Life, in Aubrey Stewart's translation. Thus it is: we do not receive a short life, but we make it a short one, and we are not poor in days, but wasteful of them. Seneca, On the Shortness of Life, section 1. Seneca isn't scolding the busy here. He's pointing at a leak. Time is less scarce than scattered, a few minutes lost to a notification, a few to a task that didn't need doing. Before anyone changes how they work, they need to see it plainly. So today's practice isn't to do less, or faster. It's to look at an ordinary day and notice where the minutes went. You may find the problem is smaller, or different, than the feeling suggests. Recall yesterday in outline: morning, afternoon, evening. Don't try to be exact. Where did time slip away? Where did it feel well spent? Name a couple of each, as a neutral observer. No fixing yet. Notice any urge to judge, and let it pass. Take three minutes. Where did yesterday's time go, in a few words? That's enough for today. Tomorrow, we look at the difference between busy and alive.