Given the high speed of modern life, it would seem that the need for daily time management skills is a recent development. However, a look through history shows that busy people in every age were concerned about making effective use of their time.

In Ancient Greece and Rome a simple but profound philosophy of life developed called Stoicism. An article on the Daily Stoic web site defines stoicism as this:

“The philosophy asserts that virtue (such as wisdom) is happiness and judgment should be based on behavior, rather than words. That we don’t control and cannot rely on external events, only ourselves and our responses.

“Stoicism has just a few central teachings. It sets out to remind us of how unpredictable the world can be. How brief our moment of life is. How to be steadfast, and strong, and in control of yourself. And finally, that the source of our dissatisfaction lies in our impulsive dependency on our reflexive senses rather than logic.“

While browsing the Daily Stoic, I came across an article on stoicism and time management. The five principles highlighted in this article show that the wisdom of the ancients still has value in our busy 21st Century society. For example:

Take Your Time On Things That Matter

“Nothing great is created suddenly, any more than a bunch of grapes or a fig. If you tell me that you desire a fig, I answer you that there must be time. Let it first blossom, then bear fruit, then ripen” — Epictetus, “Discourses”

Sometimes we’re forced to rush things. Maybe our boss is putting pressure on us to meet certain deadlines, or maybe it’s our own internal pressure; our own internal deadlines. We live in a fast-paced world where everything is an emergency. But if we truly wish to improve our time management skills, it’s more important that we slow down and be still.

Read more about this principle and four more on The Daily Stoic web site.

Memory is fleeting or so we are told.  Everyone has had the experience of forgetting something important.  Both David Allen and Tiago Forte have written about the importance of not relying on your brain to remember information, but instead to put the data into a trusted system.  This process is at the core of most productivity advice.

However, are their times when we should rely on our biological memory over a database or electronic “second brain”?  In a guest post on Tiago Forte’s Praxis blog, Tasshin Fogleman, a Buddhist monk, argues the value of memorization has great merit in this electronic age.  He writes:

“Building A Second Brain (BASB) is an effective default for personal knowledge management (PKM) in the digital era. But outsourcing our creative thinking to a second brain has its pitfalls.“

A robust memory can be a useful supplement to digital PKM systems. Contrary to Tiago’s assumptions, memory is not a useless, outmoded relic of our biological bodies. It is an astonishing skill, and we would be unwise to overlook it.”

Fogleman proceeds to share several methods to improve our memory, including Spaced Repetition, Mind Palaces, the Mindful Review, and more.  Read all about them in his guest post.