How to not be busy
Step one: identify what seem to be, right now, the most meaningful ways to spend your life.
Step two: schedule time for those things.
There is no step three.
Everything else just has to fit around them – or not. Approach life like this and a lot of unimportant things won’t get done, but, crucially, a lot of important things won’t get done either. Certain friendships will be neglected; certain amazing experiences won’t be had; you won’t eat or exercise as well as you theoretically could.
In an era of extreme busyness, the only conceivable way to live a meaningful life is to not do thousands of meaningful things.
—Oliver Burkeman
Found this in my notes from a few years ago. Huge fan of Burkeman’s book The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can’t Stand Positive Thinking.