Know where to stop

You open your eyes and the list is already in your head. You close them and it's still there. A day off doesn't make it go away, it just adds guilt to the list.

People call that burnout and then treat it with methods, which mostly means five more items.

The Great Learning opens with a chain that Chinese schoolchildren memorise before they understand it. Know where to stop, and then you have steadiness. Steady, and then you can be calm. Calm, and then you're at ease. At ease, and then you can think. Think, and then you can arrive.

Read the first two characters again. Zhi zhi. Know the stopping place.

The usual reading is that you need to know when to pause before bed. The reading I keep coming back to is harsher. You need to know which things aren't yours to do at all.

Without that, steadiness turns into gritted teeth. You're stable in the way a table with a leg missing is stable, as long as nothing lands on it.

Today, cross one thing off the list that isn't your job. Not rescheduled. Removed, and left off.

MOJOWAY isn't a productivity app and it never will be. It's somewhere to work out what you're actually on the planet to do, which is a different question from what's next on the list, and the answer makes growth possible.