Merlin on Priorities

Merlin has a way of distilling down life into what's useful. Then he wraps it up in perfectly conversational and readable text.

That means you really need to read what Merlin has to say about priorities and prioritizing things in life. I love it, and some fifteen thousand plus other people love his post, too.

If you're not tempted by just the numbers, here's the gist of it. Merlin keeps a cool blog on Life in General, and how to make sure you get the better of it (rather than the other way around). Last month he made a little post during a trip to Connecticut. It summarized a simple fact of life:

A priority is observed, not manufactured or assigned. Otherwise, it’s necessarily not a priority.

And from that observation, Merlin brings home some of the truths we'd rather not hear. Priorities mean conflicts, and conflicts demand choices and decisions that we would sometimes rather not make. Maybe the solution to that is a kind of razor:

Ask yourself what you must not do in order to make sure [the priority] gets taken care of. Once you see and accept real priorities, the rest just turns on the mechanics of fearless completion.

Name your priority, and then really do that. And don't stress when you don't do something else instead. You're not missing out - you've decided your priority. Go practice that.