The Top Of My Todo List

When I first saw the title of this essay, I thought I already knew what I was going to say...<p>Something about how my own todo this now has only one item on it, the single most important thing to do next. I gravitated to this based on the great quote by chess master Jose Capablanca:<p>[When asked how many moves ahead he looked while playing]: "Only one, but it's always the right one." (from <a href="http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Jos%C3%A9_Ra%C3%BAl_Capablanca" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Jos%C3%A9_Ra%C3%BAl_Capablanca</a>).<p>Then I read pg's essay and Bronnie Ware's blog post and realized that this post was less about work and more about life.<p>Then it hit me: My life's todo list <i>still</i> has only one item on it and always has:<p>"Always do the right thing."<p>I realize that this can be very hand wavy because the "right thing" means something different to everyone and even something different to me at different times. But still, it has been the perfect #1 for my todo list.<p>Several years ago, my mother, who lived 1000 miles away, was diagnosed with Alzheimer's and could no longer use the phone. So I began flying back to Pittsburgh every other weekend to be with her. After a while, even this wasn't enough. So I moved to Pittsburgh to be with her every day.<p>People tried to say the right thing to me, but it never was right. They'd say things like, "I admire your doing this, but you really don't have to because she doesn't even know who you are," or "You may be making a sacrifice now, but in time you won't regret it; you'll have nothing to be sorry for." And I thought, "How sad. After all these years these people still don't get it. This isn't a sacrifice from me to her. It's a gift from her to me."<p>I'm a little uncomfortable distilling pg's and Bronnie Ware's five thoughts from down into one, but "Always do the right thing" just works for me. I just hope the others in my life find something that works as well for them.

I'd rework Paul Graham's list a little, as the first two items are phrased in negative terms (it's easier to do stuff than to not do stuff).<p>"<i>Follow</i> your dreams; take a break; say what you think; cultivate friendships; be happy."<p>The idea of putting them at the top of your todo list is interesting. At the moment I organise myself with Trello, one list per project, and at the top of each list I have a card that reminds me why I'm doing the project. Every now and again I check these cards to see if any projects should be culled -- if they're not meeting their goals, or if there's a better way to achieve those goals, or if I no longer care about those goals.<p>Keeping long-term priorities in mind when caught up in the midst of your daily tasks seems like a winner. Your life is lived one day at a time, after all -- if you don't seize the day, you won't seize your life.<p>Anyway, the whole idea of combining your todo list with your bucket list -- your daily goals with your life goals -- is interesting. I've seen a few startups based on this idea (evr.st, Goalhawk). It'll be interesting to see if the model works.

At the risk of sounding cynical, I wonder how much it actually matters. We tend to live our lives thinking as we go that we should be striving to end up at some optimal place and that the purpose of our lives is desperately trying to keep us exactly on that course. If we don't ask the girl to the dance, or give up on an idea, or spend extra nights at the office to get a promotion instead of hanging out with our family we think that we are drifting off of our optimal course and we drive ourselves crazy wondering at every step if we are losing our way and strive to keep our future regrets to a minimum. But the reality is that life is no more valuable at the end than at the beginning or the middle. Why worry about what our future selves will regret while forgoing present happiness? Why should I worry today about what I will feel tomorrow if I know I can be happy today?<p>When I hear somebody say "I wish I would have spent more time with my family" I wonder whether they really wish they had spent more time with their family or if they just miss their old family and wish they could have them back. That is to say I wonder whether people confuse nostalgia with regret. As you get older you regret not taking advantage of some things in the past, but I tend to think that what you feel as regret is actually just longing for being young again.

What's so bad about being a cog?<p>I work 9-5 for a large company (100,000+ employees). I clock on each day, they pay me a great daily rate and I enjoy the work that I do.<p>Work doesn't define who I am and I am definitely not unfulfilled. I take French classes, dabble in photography and build the occasional web app. Once a month I take a 3 day weekend and go somewhere I've never been before. So far this year I've been to Switzerland, Belgium, Iceland and I'm shortly off to Madrid. I also enjoy cooking and going to fine restaurants.<p>The only reason I can afford to do these things is because of the money I receive from my work as a cog. Sure, I could try and grow one of my web app ideas, work a bazillon hours for the small chance that it takes off and I become a millionaire.<p>But what would I do then? Most likely the exact same things that I am doing now.<p>I'm not advocating working in a job you hate and avoiding following your dreams. I'm saying that working as a cog allows me to afford my dream, so don't be so quick to bag it.

Hmm. About 2 years ago I bought myself a canvas and wrote on it the following:<p><i>Live happy, make friends, enjoy. Make those dreams happy</i><p>It was for much the same reason - to inspire me. However, about 6 months later I thought those idea through and realised that, actually, it was an example of "making me feel better". I could sit and look at this poster and think; "yeh, I'm following my dream, I'm going to be happy". I even had a list of goals to meet.<p>But really you're not; you're following an arbitrary list, and all that is is con-straining.<p>Here's my thought process; <i>trying hard to be happy isn't being happy</i>... That thought mulled for a long while; I was doing cool stuff, with people I liked, and having plenty of down time. But I still felt like it was an effort to pursue.<p>This year has been a revelation. I did something "stupid" and spent a lot of my savings on two big holidays (many years ago I discovered my truest love is travel). Yesterday I spent a big portion of what is left on my third holiday of the year. I've barely done any work since January - one product release and some bugfixes. I started writing, then stopped, wrote a little program for myself, tried some carpentry, almost trashed my car trying to fix it, stood for at least three elections (politics and social communities) on a whim, dated two girls at once. And this is the tip of the iceberg.<p>All of this wouldn't sync with the person who wrote that maxim 2 years before; it would seem reckless and silly. As if I was throwing away what I had worked for years to build. A load of fucking rubbish.<p>Right now I'm free.<p>And I smile more than I ever have in my life. I have more friends. My life is barrelling along where, 6 months ago, it was stagnant.<p>So I wrote a new canvas (about 2 weeks ago, actually) which now says:<p><i>Let rip</i><p>My point is this; take care, with some of these ideas, that you don't get too focused on the means to the end. Just relax, close your eyes, do what you feel like. In the end it will work out. One day we will all be dead - till then I am going to enjoy myself. :)<p>There is nothing wrong with a todo list topped by the words "don't ignore your dreams". But only if it makes you happy.

I disagree. Strongly.<p>Following your dreams, not working too much, spending time with family and friends, saying what you think, and being happy, might belong at the top of Paul Graham's todo list. He's already succeeded at what most people struggle at: making a living. He may have forgotten that getting by is hard.<p>What's so wrong about being a "cog in a machine"? Large organizations exist partly because scale and specialization are useful. People aren't "cogs" out of perversity, but practicality. Sometimes your comparative advantage is in being a good cog. And sometimes being a good cog is admirable. Example: surgeons who specialize in one and only one procedure, doing it exactly the same way every time, have a low failure rate. They save more lives that way. Are they creative? Nope. They follow somebody else's rules. They make themselves as mechanical, as repetitive, as possible. And the guy on the operating table lives.<p>Paul Graham is in a <i>very unusual profession</i>, where risk-taking is much more of an ideal than it is anywhere else. Also notice that he makes money off of telling other people to take risks. The more people decide to be entrepreneurs, the wider a pool he has to draw from. "Follow your dreams" is a useful meme for people like that; if a hundred people follow their dreams and fail and ruin their lives, PG never hears about it, but if one person follows his dreams and becomes a billionaire, PG might get a share. This isn't meant to vilify the guy; there's nothing wrong with making a living by inspiring people. And I'm sure he would say that he's fighting dangerous opposing memes against ever taking risks. I just think you can't take posts like this at face value.

My boss doesn't read hn, so I can get away with this. In the last few years, after my daughter was born, I made a decision to not work too much. I consciously reduced my working hours as much as possible.<p>To my surprise and delight, my productivity and overall work completion has actually gone up. By being time bound (I am leaving at 5 no matter what) I often have to work like mad to get my work done. I have to make decisions quickly and implement.<p>The results are more projects done, sooner. If a mistake is made, or a more complete solution is needed you iterate and do it tomorrow. Already you are two iterations in where 2 years ago I would have been stalled still trying to work up a good starting point.<p>Try it.

There are two ways of living: fear-based, and love-based.<p>People who live fear-based avoid things. They avoid things that might cause heartache, pain, difficulty, etc. but all of the most interesting pursuits in life have the potential to cause these things sometimes.<p>People who live love-based move towards things that bring happiness and satisfaction in the long term. They work hard and play hard, and when they hurt they know that things may get better.<p>I heard this several years ago now, and I see one of these approaches in most people around me.

It's hard to step outside the systems of social domination which suppress dreams, encourage overwork, etc. because they operate from fears which are often so deep-seated we're often not even aware of them. Bringing those fears into the light and unlearning the reactions they trigger is the main goal of spiritual practice (at least of mine.) This sort of emotional study and training is on the critical path for all of the desiderata pg lists (again, at least for me) and would have to precede them on my todo list, if I had one for this sort of thing.<p>Something my teacher wrote along these lines: <a href="http://www.unfetteredmind.org/learned-helplessness/0" rel="nofollow">http://www.unfetteredmind.org/learned-helplessness/0</a><p><pre><code> Can learned helplessness be undone? Well, that’s the big question, isn’t it? The answer is “Yes.” The cost, however, is high. We can only undo learned helplessness by severing our internal connection with the system that gave rise to it. Our motivation must be clear and strong. We must really want to hear and respond to our own questions about life. We must really want to live our own life and not one prescribed by our family, society, culture, profession or tradition. Metaphorically, we must be willing to go north, the direction that takes us out of society. We must be willing to endure pain, know from direct experience, act on what we see and receive what happens. We must yearn to experience what is without relying on anything to confirm our existence.</code></pre>

5 most common regrets reflect what most people do.<p>If majority of people worked as entrepreneurs not cogs they would have different list of 5 regrets. But they would still have list of 5 most common regrets. Only different ones.<p>I think that people when they die usually regret the way they lived because they all dreamt about something different.<p>The only way not to regret anything is never dream and be happy with whatever hits you and with whatever comes out of your efforts.

You only get one life: use it wisely.<p>A couple of years ago I had a conversation with a man, then aged 85. Outwardly successful, he took over and ran the family textiles business his father had built, raised a family -- "but did you enjoy the job?" I asked. Because before joining the family business he first did a degree in electrical engineering -- in the 1940s -- and joined an engineering consultancy, and worked in it for some time. "No," he said, somewhat sadly.<p>That's not to say that he had a bad life, but he'd let his father drag him into a line of work that wasn't his dream, and grew old dutifully following it. He was a ho-hum director of a company in a decaying old-world sector, while what he'd wanted to be was an engineer.<p>So my advice (for what it's worth, after 47 years of trying to figure life out for myself) would be: work out what you enjoy doing, then do it. Don't put it off until later, and don't let a false sense of duty lead you down a dead-end occupation. Don't chase an end goal, because if you get it you'll then have to figure out what to do with the rest of your life; build your life around the journey, not the destination.

I once did something similar, except inverted.<p>I'd put at the bottom of my to-do list "...Die unfulfilled and unhappy"<p>I figured seeing that at the bottom of my to-do list would remind me to make sure it doesn't happen. And maybe even rethink the items on top.

I wonder a few things about this...<p>1) Is it a given that our regrets, when death is close, are wiser than the choices we made when death seemed further away?<p>We clearly choose to do things like move away from our family and friends, to follow spouses, chase careers, have different lifestyles. And that keeps us occupied for decades.<p>If we chose to do none of that, or less of it, would be feel like we were in a rut all our lives? Maybe you'd still feel alone when you were dying, because you never set out in the world to find people who really understood you.<p>Maybe you <i>always</i> feel alone when you're dying and there's nothing you can do about it.<p>I'm just exploring this idea for the sake of testing it; actually I do not doubt the article's wisdom so much here. But my next concern, I believe in a bit more.<p>2) I wonder how many of these regrets are due to the systems we live under.<p>It seems to me that even a few hundred years ago, "I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends." would be absurd. You'd be sick to death of how close your friends were (in the 1300s, perhaps literally). Americans are particularly likely to move long distances, though.<p>And as for living a life true to oneself, and expressing oneself -- would you even think of such things if your horizon was one town, or one tribe? Maybe you'd have to be far more discreet, without the refuge of a large city, or other forms of anonymity.<p>As for not working so hard, that seems to be the most tied to whatever our political and economic systems are.

This is about priority. I'd argue that while this reminder is nice, it doesn't go far enough, it is too passive.<p>Actively working towards those goals is the only way you'll actually achieve them. Instead of putting these generic statements at the top of your list, put some concrete action or goal there.<p>This is something I'm trying to live right now. A month ago I quit my job [1] to travel the world after having saved and dreamed about it for years. During the time I was dreaming we put together a plan, set aside money, and tried to reign in expenses. All tangible actions that lead to an end.<p>[1] <a href="http://orofino.me/homeless-and-jobless-travelling-the-world/" rel="nofollow">http://orofino.me/homeless-and-jobless-travelling-the-world/</a>

Objectives in the negative have a bad effect on the brain according to NLP so<p>"Don't ignore your dreams; don't work too much; say what you think; cultivate friendships; be happy."<p>Can be better expressed as: " pursue your dreams, get appropriate rest and relaxation, say what... "<p>(if you believe in NLP)

"Don't ignore your dreams; don't work too much; say what you think; cultivate friendships; be happy."<p>Will counter and say, it's impossible to achieve dreams (or the first big exit) without putting your head down, working insane hours, neglecting friends, and being miserable. Need to live the bad times, ultimate lows, to fully realize happiness and no regrets.

"Don't ignore your dreams; don't work too much;"<p>Aren't these two mutually exclusive?<p>My feeling (caveat: I'm only in my late 20's) is that it's impossible to simultaneously eliminate all the regrets on Ms. Ware's list. If you work really hard in order to chase your dreams, you end up neglecting friends and family for a bit. Stick around among your family and friends, and you don't get to chase your dreams as much.<p>It's hard to know where the exact boundaries lie such that a satisfying equilibrium is achieved. Makes me wonder if some regret is always inevitable.

If you put anything at the top of your to-do list that you don’t _have to_ read and pay attention to you’ll ignore it sooner or later.<p>Ever invited someone new to your home and been surprised at the things that caught their attention? The things we make permanent fixtures in our environment—unless we have to interact with them or they change—ultimately get accepted and forgotten. Many people really hate to accept this because it means that any positive changes that we create in our life will ultimately be eroded. A solution to this problem is one of my main preoccupations.<p>In the mean time, the question that should be being asked is how _exactly_ will you live your life differently in order to adhere to these standards? And apply that question to tomorrow, next week, next season, next year, and the next five years. You could try writing a plan but then plans fail because they speculate. Sorry I don’t have any real answers.

I feel that balance, which can be hard to achieve, need a spot on the list. I had a friend who's approach was akin to work hard and be frugal. He was so frugal that he became famous for not cashing his paychecks for weeks. As an engineer he made very good money. He saved most of it and had been buying gold and silver as investments for the last 20 years. He and his wife were going to move to Hawaii and enjoy life. On his last trip there to buy a house he went for a swim out of the same beach they had visited for years. And he never came back.<p>This is an extreme example of a case where lack of balance produced the wrong outcome. He did not enjoy a lot of things in life because of his extreme focus on frugality.<p>Seek balance.

I think many of us mistake expressing our feelings with saying whatever comes to mind which can lead to a bigger wreck than ignoring or suppressing them.<p>I would change it to: don't ignore your feelings. How you act on them is where wisdom comes in.

My dad died when he was 49, I'm 27.<p>49 - 27 = 22;<p>Keeping that in mind gets me moving every day. Enjoy the time that you have, build great things and do great stuff.

I wanted to make a poster of this for myself so I did. Sharing in case anyone else might wanna use it, you're more than welcome. All respect to Paul Graham &#38; Bronnie Ware.<p>There's a 26" x 39" poster version, in case you happen to have a big-ass printer around, and an 8.5" x 11" smaller version if you're normal. <a href="http://cloud.ejfox.com/G1IE" rel="nofollow">http://cloud.ejfox.com/G1IE</a><p>Also available in black: <a href="http://cloud.ejfox.com/G1Wm" rel="nofollow">http://cloud.ejfox.com/G1Wm</a>

I think "say what you think" is fundamentally different than "not suppressing your feelings." I think suppressing your feelings goes deeper, into the inner person and getting in touch with who you really are and why you feel what you feel. But saying what you think is a lot easier. It's what a lot of know-it-all people do. You just say what's on your mind but that doesn't mean you're really paying attention to what you're feeling.

I would change "cultivate friendships" to "cultivate relationships". With family, friends, acquaintances, etc. And I'd also add "Focus on your health"

It's funny because most of these are problems I don't have yet affect me because others do have them.<p><i>You forget your dreams</i><p>Never. I live for my dreams.<p><i>ignore your family</i><p>Out of college the first startup concept I attempted was a family social network (family tree, photos, blog). How great would it be to use tech to possibly keep families together? I learned that women and new families loved it, but men seemed to be apathetic. "You spend time with your family?" "Of course" "Good, because a man who doesn't spend time with his family can never be a real man."<p><i>suppress your feelings</i><p>I try to keep people around me who don't mind listening to how I feel. Don't be a complainer, but don't hesitate to express yourself.<p><i>neglect your friends</i><p>The president of my high school class surprised me when he told me he has to make such an effort to get people to hang out. It is a challenge to know if you have a healthy friendship if you are always initiating the get-togethers.<p><i>forget to be happy</i><p>Of all, this seems to be the most difficult. If you aren't making progress with the other four, certainly this point will be true.

I can't think of any regrets that I have. There are things that seriously annoy me about my life, like I am deeply in debt, homeless and trying to declare bankruptcy/find some solution for my financial problems. But I got into this mess by getting myself and my children healthy when the world says that cannot be done. It annoys the fool out of me that there is no support for what I have done but I could milk the system for scads of money if I took the conventional course of treatment. It just makes no sense. It is so not right. What I have done is both cheaper and more effective than conventional treatments. And no one cares, neither about my plight nor about how to replicate my accomplishment for others. The whole thing makes me crazy.<p>But regrets? That would suggest I made the wrong choices. Given the hand I was dealt, I cannot think of a single thing I "should" have done differently.<p>So no regrets, in spite of wanting to spit nails about my situation.

I remember where in one of Vonnegut's books, he describes life not as some fixed end-result in time to be celebrated or mourned, but a process, something you could visualize as a roughly drawn line taking all sorts of directions through time, alongside other lines, often interacting with some of them, creating effects, and finally terminating.<p>I suppose, in some sense, it's not far off from our idea of a process running on a computer, often interacting with other processes, launching other processes, eventually terminating.<p>Taking that further, one way to look at this is that life is really a process, running on our software (genetic code), which we have some control over (somehow). We literally are code that writes code, albeit very slowly, over generations. And perhaps that what we really want is to able to look back at what we've etched into this big computer's (i.e. the world's shared) memory and be proud of it.

I'm very curious what these principles are optimizing for. If they successfully produce the certain kind of life pg desires, how is that life qualified?<p>It seems like this method optimizes for happiness, as well as some kind of self determination. I'm curious if happiness is differentiated from pleasure, or contentment.<p>I'd be concerned that based on the derivation of these rules that they actually are tuned to minimize regret at the end of one's life. If I had the choice between, say, twice as much pleasure throughout my life, but pangs of regret at the end, or a less pleasurable life that I felt satisfied with at the end, it would be a pretty difficult decision for me.<p>edit: downvote? really? to clarify, I'm not criticizing the article. I just want to think through the assumptions that underly it, both to know more clearly what they are and then to evaluate the ruleset by evaluating the goals it's working towards.

As a person who is currently pretty much paralyzed by anxiety attacks I can vouch for the "don't work too much" part. Even though the cause of my distress was actually a mixture of work and fun. It sounds counterintuitive but doing stuff you like and being happy can actually be quite stressful.<p>Please remember to take vacations and the like.

Freaky. I had exactly the same reaction when I read that list a couple of years ago. It really reminding me of some of the conversations I had with my dad just before he died, and I knew I didn't want to have those regrets.<p>At the top of my to do list is:<p><i>Honour dreams. Work less. Speak honestly. Have friends. Be happy.</i>

I like the sentiments expressed in the post and hope that on my deathbed I will not regret "not having spent more time with my children".<p>I think, though, I would regret it more if on my deathbed I thought "My children did not get the opportunity to attend University because we could not afford it", or "If I had the money to send them to a better school, they may have had more opportunities".<p>I also would not like to be a burden on my children if I became sick because I did not have enough money saved to pay for medical care or whatever other care I need.<p>In my fifties, when there are redundancies, I don't want to be the one they say "while all the other workers are prepared to put in the hard yards, he's the one that always leaves at 5:00" or miss out on promotions because the others work longer hours than me.

This reminds me of Neil DeGrasse's Tyson's "two main philosophies in life": <a href="http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/qccer/i_am_neil_degrasse_tyson_ask_me_anything/c3wgffy" rel="nofollow">http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/qccer/i_am_neil_degras...</a>

To me this one looks buggy<p>&#62; don't work too much<p>It implies "chillin' out" which is fine occasionally but will not achieve goal 5 "be happy" if over-used.<p>We put a lot of effort into planning, organising and executing our work lives and many of us are good at. The parallel tendency is ignoring our outside-of-work lives.<p>I'd postulate if we put the same kind of techniques we apply to work to our personal lives, it would be far more fulfilling than "chillin' out".<p>I'd also postulate it's a zero sum game - in any given time frame, e.g a week, we only have so much energy, desire and time to invest in being successful, planning, organizing etc.<p>So I'd propose changing "don't work too much" to<p>&#62; reduce the effort put into work and invest that effort in personal life instead<p>Not so catchy unfortunately.

This article is so unsubstantiated...<p>1. These are the regrets of the dying. Maybe that it's not the best state of mind to make decisions about your life.<p>2. The regrets are so generic that every one could see himself in these circumstances, like with oroscopes.<p>3. It's not explained what it means to be a cog. Am I a cog? Is it possible to never be a cog? How?<p>4. It is implyied that having a family, dreams and feelings as priorities is a good thing. Maybe it's not.<p>5. In general, it makes the same error it is trying to avoid, omission. If you are living your life and you are not happy, don't have a family or many friends, maybe it's because you are doing something more important than those.<p>6. You could be happy and, at the same time, not doing the right thing.

pg, you should definitely learn something about cultures that are not so self centered then the american one. Your post reads like a prove of a mathematical system that only uses parts of it's own system. Of course it sounds logical.

I'd have thought the top regret of the dying would be, "I wish I wasn't dying."

GET AWAY FRO0M THESE MACHINES JUST A LITTLE BIT MORE! I think technology has created this vacuum where everything around you no longer exists and you find yourself in a place of isolation. To all those like myself jumping from machines at home, to iphones on the train, to machines at work, to iphones on the way home, to machines while you eat dinner, to iphones as you lay in the bed, and finally you wake up and the first thing you do is reach for your iphone. Let's make a serious effort to spend more quality time away from the machines before it is too late!

I found this article a few months back and was struck by its simplicity and big-picture view. We would be crazy to not try to learn from those ahead of us since we only get one pass at this.<p>I sent it around to some friends and, oddly, a common response was "You're too young (I'm 30) to be thinking about death." How ironic. We don't want to think about the end until its thrust upon us, but by then its too late to change course. I like the inversion you did. Its a good reminder to live life intentionally.

Its like getting consistent physical exercise, isn't it?<p>Keeping fit should be a priority - we feel happier, fitter, more relaxed after a workout. Yet its easy to laze around, sometimes checking email, hn, finding excuses to not go in today.<p>In Ms. Ware's essay - consciously choosing happiness is a very intelligent thought. On some days I feel miserable, then I look around (I am in India). I thank heavens for a wonderful life. Being miserable, then appears to be a choice.

Here is my advice to change your defaults.<p>You want to lose weight? Throw away all your junk food. You want more time? Get rid of your TV. You want to be with your family more often? Live close to them.<p>I don't have practical advices for how to not ignore your dreams, not suppress your feelings, not neglect your friends, and not forget to be happy. But I am sure there can be similar advices for these, I just lack the creativity.

Sometimes HN really feels like a Tim Robbins seminar.

And now for the hard part.<p><i>don't ignore your dreams</i>: build yourself in new ways that initially seem wrong or stupid.<p><i>don't work too much</i>: be less materialistic but push your limit.<p><i>say what you think</i>: don't take shit, ask questions, think what you do.<p><i>cultivate friendships</i>: real bridges don't burn and avoid schadenfreude.<p><i>be happy</i>: be prepared to let go of what you know to be true and strive for health.

Nice reminder to constantly put work/life in perspective. Shifting from defaults can certainly be tricky when you're jumping from one thing to the next and losing yourself in the monotony of it all. There definitely is a problem here, as well as room for a better technological solution. Opportunity for a startup, perhaps?

Brian Leiter wrote about this on his philosophy blog and solicited comments from readers. <a href="http://leiterreports.typepad.com/blog/2012/04/what-would-your-biggest-regret-be-if-this-were-the-last-day-of-your-life.html" rel="nofollow">http://leiterreports.typepad.com/blog/2012/04/what-would-you...</a>

"Don't be a cog."<p>Inserted as the subtitle at the top of my TiddlyWiki organizer (my rolling ToDo list), and linked to pg's essay.

&#62; I would like to avoid making these mistakes. But how do you avoid mistakes you make by default?<p>I try to do it by challenging a lot of what I think, almost all the time. It's a solution, although it's very taxing.<p>(I'd like to say I challenge everything always, but I likely have some blind spots)

#4 seems to explain a lot of the success that Facebook has had. FB may not be the best venue to maintain truly meaningful relationships but it serves an innate human need and does so at scale, which is why it is so valuable.

I would just change all these to the positive form rather than the negative form of what you're trying to avoid. Any thought of what you're trying to avoid just perpetuates it.<p>Don't ignore your dreams =&#62; Live your dreams<p>Don't work too much =&#62; Have fun<p>Say what you think<p>Cultivate friendships<p>Be happy.

&#62;But how do you avoid mistakes you make by default?<p>For me, this is what mindfulness is all about. A mindfulness practice gradually develops the ability to be in the present moment and be aware of the choices you are making.

I think that the fifth rule, be happy, is either:<p>- a guiding principle by which the other four rules are derived or... - the effect of following the previous four rules<p>I don't think of "be happy" as a rule so much in itself.

Forking the list: Don't tie your dreams to objects; work enough to keep you satisfied; don't be an arrogant prick; build effective relationships; be happy.

I think tlb perhaps disagrees: <a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1644285" rel="nofollow">http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1644285</a>

I'm glad PG is finding the time to write essays more frequently. Maybe this is a result of finding the time to do the things that make him happier.

More importantly and likely implicit...<p>"Have Dreams, Work Hard, Think for Yourself, Speak Up, Be Friendly...and you will live a happy and productive life!"

The best concise system to avoid having these 5 regrets I've heard of is 'SSS' : sport, sex, sleep. Everything else is optional.

Only successful people can say "don't work too much." The cruel reality is success comes from hard and overtime work.

"We're making the same mistakes we made 1,000 years ago. So they must be the right ones. So relax." -Chuck Palahniuk

Does it really matter if you die unhappy?

I have a similar message that gets echoed ever time I open my shell. It's the journey, not the destination.

When I die, I hope I won't regret not spending enough time with my family. This is a reminder for me.

Dream, relax, express, love, enjoy.

"Don't ignore your dreams"<p>Especially re-occurring ones, but the first step is to remember your dreams.

I wonder which 1 of the 5 mistakes PG is least likely to make.

Agreed, however my wake up alarm its named "Now or Never".

Or you could work to end aging.

Hi from hell! Good list y'all.

That list is now in my .plan

Hey! Paul Graham uses a text file as a todo list like me!

Hi from hell

repent and be baptized in the name of the Messiah

So, can you offer me and everyone else a nice job that makes all of this possible? That makes it possible to NOT be a cog? Or is this just another set of advice that only the privileged ones can afford to heed...

Hunter S. Thompson is the only one who had it right.<p>&#62; Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming "Wow! What a Ride!"

6. Use hypens when you spell "to-do list".