Volume 2 · The Discipline of Hours · Essay 271

To Don't List

There are ideas that shout. To Don't List is not one of them. It waits quietly until the day you need it.

The idea is simple, and like most simple ideas it is easy to nod at and hard to use. The nod is free. The use costs attention, every day, in small change.

Strip it to the floor and you find an old instruction: look carefully, judge slowly, act decently. The new name exists because the old instruction keeps being forgotten.

Consider the farmer. He does not argue with the season; he arranges his work inside it. The city man does the opposite — he argues with every Monday and is surprised every Friday.

Time is the one currency the Reserve Bank does not print more of. If this page made you think of one specific person, do not send it to them. Apply it to yourself first; that is how these things work.