Warren Buffet's 5/25 rule is absolutely brilliant. I've recently discovered it and implementing it. Start using it!

So goal setting can be challenging for us when it comes to deciding where we want to focus our priorities. With the new year and decade, I wanted to really give my everything to all the things that I wanted to accomplish. But there were so many things that I wanted that I couldn't focus on any of them.

Besides being one of the wealthiest and most successful investors in the world, Warren Buffett has demonstrated remarkable emotional intelligence on more than one occasion. For example, have you heard about Warren Buffet's 5/25 rule?

Discovering 5/25 rule

Few months ago, I was reading more about investments and personal finance and came across this anecdote from Flint, Warren Buffet's pilot. One day, Warren Buffet was frustrated that his pilot was still working for him.

"The fact that you’re still working for me tells me I’m not doing my job. You should be out, going after more of your goals and dreams." -  Warren Buffet

Flint thought he was working on his goals; he was spending time on lots of projects. Warren told him to write down his top 25 goals. When he finished, Flint was told to circle his top 5.

“Everything you didn’t circle just became your Avoid-At-All-Cost list. No matter what, these things get no attention from you until you’ve succeeded with your top 5.” - Warren Buffet

5/25 rule

I tried Warren Buffett's 5/25 rule, which essentially required you to list down 25 things that you wanted to accomplish in the foreseeable future. Nothing was off the table.

Next, you have to rank all those things in order of importance. This is super hard because you have to decide what's most meaningful to you. But after doing that, you've to circle 5 on top of the list.

The 20 remaining items became a list of items to avoid at all costs. And the truth is that due to their lesser importance, I realised that they were only taking away my commitment to the things that mattered most to me.

This is so helpful to me and I think that I actually have a shot of accomplishing the things I want to now. If you're struggling with this, I really think you should give it a shot.

Once you're an adult, there is never going to be an enforced structure like school in your life to manage your time. If you don't prioritize your time then someone else will whether it is your boss, wife, kids or someone else. So, prioritize your goals. Pick top five of them and never look at anything else again unless those five have been achieved. Every action or habit then needs to be such that it helps you accomplish those five goals.

That's it for this blog post and if you feel that you've something to add to this or you have a different perspective then share it and discuss it on r/StoicHuman or go to the Reddit discussion post for this blog post linked down below.

Stay healthy, Stay safe!

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