Back to Breef
These are the decision-guiding notes of Andy Mitchell, maker of Breef and ActiveInbox (which has supported him, and later a small team, for 15 years). They’re mostly the ideas of others, distilled into what I found to work. It’s not prescriptive of ‘the right way’, but I hope you find bits you can apply day to day.
“Why should I listen to you?”
“Isn’t this just a way to turn into a perfectly soulless capitalist machine?”
It’s an optimized way to get what you want, not what you should want.
Here’s a hint though: Our universal happiness is revealed in the 5 regrets of the dying. It’s notable that each of them is what was missed. The gaps. So invert them: make more time with friends and family, try interesting things.
I’ve always enjoyed the lyrical tone of Alan Watts on jobs and money, “It’s absolutely stupid to spend your time doing things you don’t like, in order to go on spending things you don’t like, doing things you don’t like and to teach our children to follow in the same track. See what we are doing, is we’re bringing up children and educating them to live the same sort of lives we are living. In order that they may justify themselves and find satisfaction in life by bringing up their children to bring up their children, to do the same thing, so it’s all retch and no vomit. It never gets there. And so, therefore, it’s so important to consider this question: What do I desire?”