This Is How You Live Twice As Much

If only we had more time, we say.

We’d get more done and finally feel ‘caught up.’

Our to-do list would have everything marked out. Life would be restored. And now we could finally sit and relax. No worries, no concerns, no more problems. Peace, at last.

So it makes sense that we always point the finger at time. 

But would this change anything?

Wouldn’t we just add more to that to-do list? Set our ambitions higher. Seek more to fill our time. 

Would we actually take this extra time — this gift — and do something useful with it?

Probably not.

Think about how we use our time now.

Scrolling. Binging. ‘Killing time.’

We torture ourselves: taking on more than the calendar or clock or our energy permits, wasting minutes that evolve into hours, and most egregiously, not noticing the value in what’s right in front of us.

Nothing exhibits this better than witnessing people on a beach, taking a vacation they spent hard-earned money on, in a job they might not even like, to spend time with their children, who are playing in the sand, with the open ocean in the background…while they bury their head in a phone, scrolling Facebook or TikTok to see what the rest of the world is doing.

And we are all guilty of some version of it.

“It is not that we have a short space of time, but that we waste much of it,” wrote Seneca thousands of years ago, long before iPhones, Netflix, computers, modern-day sports, or even radios, “Life is long enough, and it has been given in sufficiently generous measure to allow the accomplishment of the very greatest things if the whole of it is well invested.”

Note: “Well invested.”

Understanding how to not waste our time on frivolous and meaningless has always been challenging. It’s just gotten even harder in the centuries since he said this.

Nothing highlights this lesson better than our relationships with people.

We say that the most important thing in life is family and that we wish we had more time to spend with them. But do we live this through our actions?

Moments are missed because we are scrolling away at our phones or worried and stressed over something we cannot control. Present physically, absent mentally.

Consumed by outside forces stealing the gift we have right in front of us: time.

No, it’s not that extra time we long for or say we wish we had. But it’s time. And it’s time that one could question whether we aren’t using it well.

So how do we actually live more with the time we have?

Memento Mori is a Latin phrase that means “remember you must die”.

Morbid? You’re missing the point.

Nobody wants to think of death, I get it. 

But to leverage its certainty is a skill we can all use to live a better life, with greater presence, more intention, and a deeper existence. 

Consider all the things you do or have done in the past that you don’t/didn’t really want to do. Pressured obligations an FOMO are destructive behaviors without conscience intention.

Imagine mastering this skill before you turned 30: Would you still have taken that job? Wasted years in that relatonship going nowhere? Put aside that dream or trade your health for more money?

Because to live more with the time you have is a superpower, few possess. 

And it’s not about maximizing every minute of the day. Or your ability to multi-task in a three-screens-a-desk-world. Not more efficiency. Not more squeeze out of your daily to-do list.

That’s productivity. 

A word built by self-help gurus, corporate overlords, and hustle culture. The same culture that wants you to need more, scroll more, purchase more, and check your email more — all fruitless and endless distractions from living your best life — a beautiful and intentional life.

But the real answer to being more productive and more present is the same.

Stop wasting time on the crap that doesn’t matter.

Prioritize your life. Prioritize your energy. Be intentional. Design your life in a way that brings fulfillment, joy, and truly meets the standard you say you care so much about.

Don’t just show up – live.

Most of us have the most beautiful life just beyond the view of our phones, our worries about something that will probably never happen, our emails that don’t need to be returned immediately, and the endless nagging feeling there’s so much more to get done.  

It will all be there tomorrow.

"Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own". Matthew 6:34

Nothing teaches us this more than having kids. Each day they grow, the old version of them, slowly fades away. Blink…and you might miss it. Get distracted, put your focus on the wrong thing, or don’t allow yourself the presence you need and you’ll miss out. They grow up right before our eyes. 

But the only way to get the most out of it while its here, to live deeper, to live more, to double the life you have is to live more, while it’s going on.

Put the phone down. Leave the office earlier. Don’t commit your energy to things you don’t really want to do. Stop worrying about what you can’t fix. Value what you have over what you don’t have. Take care of your mind and body so you can do this longer. 

Put living first, the endless to-do list second — after all, it will still be there tomorrow.

Why chance it?

Live more today.

While you still can.