From a time traveler perspective, if I could jump ahead in time and see my life from the point-of-view that my life was already over, it helps me to see the events in my life more objectively.
Imagining your life as already complete—like looking back from the future—can shift your perspective in profound ways. It helps you see events not as isolated moments but as connected pieces of a larger narrative.
From this time-traveler mindset, challenges that feel overwhelming now might appear as pivotal turning points or lessons that shaped your growth. Regrets might soften when viewed as stepping stones rather than mistakes. Successes may feel more meaningful when seen as part of a longer journey rather than fleeting achievements.
This approach mirrors the idea of a "life review"—a concept described in near-death experiences, where people see their lives as a whole and evaluate the impact they had on others. It encourages reflection on what truly matters, helping prioritize values and relationships over distractions.
Thinking this way can also highlight the impermanence of time, nudging you to act on dreams and goals instead of waiting. It’s a mental tool for living with more intention and clarity.
It’s a new way to view the end in mind before we begin. I think of those who know what they want to do with their lives, from a young age, who achieve their ‘mission’ or at least live life more purposefully. I am looking back at my life from the end of my life and want to make wiser choices on how to spend my time now.
It's a powerful perspective—starting with the end in mind and working backward to shape the present. It’s a mindset that clarifies priorities and brings intentionality to how you spend your time.
Imagining yourself at the end of life and reflecting backward helps highlight:
- What truly matters. Is it relationships, creativity, impact, or personal growth?
- What regrets you want to avoid. Did you chase distractions or invest in what aligned with your values?
- What legacy you want to leave. Is it wisdom shared, art created, people influenced, or love given?
For those who seem to know their mission early in life, their clarity often comes from aligning their choices with their core values and passions. For others, clarity can emerge later—especially through reflection like this.
Your approach of looking ahead and then planning backward aligns with practices like writing your own eulogy or imagining what you’d want said about you at the end of your life. It’s not morbid—it’s grounding.
By asking, “What would my future self thank me for today?” you’re actively reshaping your present to align with a deeper sense of purpose.It seems then that my calendar, to begin with the end in mind would be reversed. The end would drive the past and I’d be moving in a direction of completion. I say this because I tend to start a lot of things, but stop before they are finished. It's a fascinating way to reframe time—structuring your calendar backward with the end goal as the anchor. Instead of simply reacting to what’s next, you’d be pulling yourself forward toward completion by working in reverse from your desired outcome.
This approach could help counter the tendency to leave projects unfinished because:
- Clarity of Completion. You’d always know what the “finished” version looks like, making it easier to stay focused.
- Milestones Become Steps Backward. Instead of vague progress, you’d have clear, time-bound steps that lead directly to the outcome.
- Urgency and Purpose. Viewing time as finite, shaped by the “end,” naturally creates urgency and prioritization.
A Practical Example:
Goal: Publish a book in 12 months.
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Start at the end date (book launch).
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Work backward through key milestones (editing, writing deadlines, drafts).
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Fill in each week/month with specific actions needed to meet those checkpoints.
Why It Works for Starters Who Struggle with Finishing:
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It flips the focus from “what’s next” to what’s necessary to complete.
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It narrows attention to actions that directly contribute to the end goal.
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It treats time as fixed, reducing procrastination.
You might even ask yourself daily: “What needs to happen today so the final outcome is inevitable?” This question keeps momentum tied to the bigger vision instead of distractions.And I see that this can help me with clearly defining the outcome (end) of a project before I begin. For example, to gain clarity in the end of the client engagement (or any other project) before I start. If I the outcome is clear, expectations are more aligned, and I can stick to the steps to complete the project. Consider that it's my own lack of planning that leads to the overwhelm I often experience! What if it's me who is the source of scope creep, not my client. What if what I'm calling scope creep is actually the result of rushing a proposal and not clearly defining the desired outcome with the client? The defined objectives from the start don't align with the actually time required. What should have been a 6-month engagement turns into 12 months. You’re onto something huge here—realizing that unclear outcomes and rushed planning might be fueling scope creep is a breakthrough. It shifts the focus from blaming external factors (clients) to owning the process, which gives you control to fix it.
Key Insights:
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Clarity Equals Boundaries.
- A well-defined outcome prevents ambiguity and keeps both you and the client aligned.
- Clear deliverables make it easier to push back on extra requests or renegotiate timelines if scope changes arise.
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Scope Creep as Self-Created.
- Starting with incomplete definitions or vague goals creates gaps that get filled with “extras.”
- When time estimates are unrealistic, projects naturally expand, leading to frustration and burnout.
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Proposal Planning Sets the Tone.
- Proposals should be more than sales tools—they’re project roadmaps.
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Spending more time upfront clarifying objectives, deliverables, timelines, and review points can prevent the chaos later.
Action Plan for Scope Discipline:
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Reverse-Engineer the Proposal.
- Start with the end deliverable and work backward through each milestone.
- Include buffers for unknowns or revisions.
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Define Success with the Client.
- Ask: “What does success look like when this is done?”
- Write it down and include it in the proposal to manage expectations.
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Timeline Reality Check.
- Double-check whether the schedule fits the actual work required, not just what feels “sellable.”
- Resist over-promising—even if it means pushing back.
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Revisit Scope Regularly.
- Build checkpoints to reassess scope with the client mid-project.
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Treat scope creep as a negotiation moment, not a failure.
The fact that you’re already seeing this pattern and owning your role in it means you’re ready to make a shift. With better planning discipline upfront, you’ll likely feel less overwhelm, deliver more predictable results, and protect your time—and energy.
Design Your Own Adventure
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Ships dives deeper into the paradox between 'creative freedom' and time allocation for a creative project.
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The Merlin Principle dives deeper into this concept of looking back from the end.
Who is Merlin?
Merlin is a millionaire.
Merlin is a miracle maker.
Merlin is mindful.
Merlin is my future self.
Merlin can step away from the present to diffuse a difficult situation by viewing it from the future. Merlin rarely 'loses his shit' or has a meltdown. Merlin is the definition of equanimity. Why? Because he's able to zoom out and see a different perspective - a future point of view. Taking life events in stride as he sees the end game. To take life in stride, it's about being able to pause and assessing the situation (including life itself) from a wiser future perspective. It's about finding the calm within the storm by seeing beyond the storm.We all have our unique paths, and Merlin cares. Merlin is not hooked easily and does not let negative experiences linger.
Merlin Calendar
Imagine if everything you put on your calendar came true...
It's not a matter of if, but when.
If every plan came to be?
It's not a matter of if, but how.
Here's how you can make everything you put on your calendar come true:Reframe time
Rethink the traditional calendar and remove the 24 hour constraint. Time itself is a continuous ever expanding phenomenon, so why put up fences that don't actually exist. Time exists, but the segments we label don't. We either change labels to suit our needs, or our needs change to suit the labels we've already defined. The only reason you don't currently get everything done on your calendar is because of the way we define time. Time itself is real, but the minutes that click away on a clock are not. They are not real because they are man-made measurements. Think back on the best parts of your day, if not today, yesterday. I bet what you'll find is the duration of the peaks you recall were of the day were disproportionately smaller than the day itself, yet it's what we recall. We can recall a brief experience within an hour, but fail to acknowledge how the entire was actually spent. If what occurs in the timeframe of 1 minute is more meaningful than the other 59 minutes in that hour, why do we give more weight to an hour than a minute? In looking back at my gratitude journal, I see that many of the moments I cherish are short in duration, but long in meaning. 5 minutes with a close friend can be as meaningful as 5 hours. Instead of measuring your tasks for the day with traditional time, use Merlin time.
I do use the clock to keep my fences up between events I'm committed to, but I don't let the thought of time itself confine me from being fully engaged in the activity within the limits I may still define by clock time. I honor our time together whether it's 5 minutes or 5 hours equally. You only limiting what can be achieved in a day because you've defined a day to be 24 hours. To become limitless, make your day limitless. A day does not end in 24 hours for Merlin. His day is perpetual. As such, time only serves to mark milestones. Define the segments of your life by milestones. Start defining the time between milestones (achievements), not in minutes or hours. It's no longer how much you achieve in a day. When you stop measuring how much you achieve in a traditional 24 hour day, you'll feel a weight lift off you and no longer beat yourself up for what you didn't achieve in a 24-hour period, which wasn't anything any of us voluntarily signed up for anyway! None of us volunteers for a 24-hour day. If it were up to me, my days would not be 24 hours. They'd be 24 years. But a year would not be 12 months, it'd be 12 years. Give me that much time, and I could achieve anything! Guess what? It is up to me! How we define time is totally within my control!What is Merlin time?
One version of the fable of Merlin is that he lived his life traveling backwards through time. This concept has always intrigued me. What happens when write others into the your life? In this life, as creators, we are given a currency. It's similar to the current of an electrical circuit, but it's always on. Even when we don't realize it, our thoughts are charged. What's manifested in our life is the result of the thoughts that we put our currency into. Time itself has no value, what has value is where we allocate our time. It's where we spend our time that matters. The ideas we pursue, the people we follow, the voices we pay mind to, the words we read... all impact our thoughts. The experiences that perpetuate are based on what you tell yourself, influenced by who you surround yourself with, where you spend your time, and what you write down. Every thought is charged by the current the resonates within you.
Tuning in
In reflecting on the benefits of meditation, I believe it's in a large part due to the unplugging that occurs. [summarize audio notes on this topic here] My insights on mediation are capture in my writing on samatha. What allows us to achieve everything on our calendar and complete our plans? Tuning in and tuning out. Zooming in and zooming out.
Find your Drishti
A focal point (drishti). The brain functions best when it has a poitn of focus.
What lights you up?
When we are engaged in what lights us up, our current flows freely. When we aren't, resistance to what is impends the flow of energy and we operate at a weaker voltage. Have you ever considered where energy draws it's power? Does it come from the source or from what draws the current? Is is the light, or what produces the light? Are they not dependent on each other? The more current a light draws, the more energy given to light it. Is this passion? What sparks passion, the creation, or the work to create it? It's the definition of co-creation: What is created is as dependent on the creator, as the creator is to what is created. This explains why we excel at what we enjoy and struggle in the aspects we dislike. Areas we avoid will never get our full charge, and thus we'll never function at full capacity in those areas. Why what we resist persists. Once you find a connection with the creation, the work of creating becomes much easier. When you remove the resistance, energy flows freely. The source of resistance. There can be many possibilities and I'd like to hear your ideas, but here's a few that quickly came to mind:
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What you're doing is impeding something else you'd rather be doing.
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You are not in agreement with the outcome itself. In fact, the outcome is something you don't want, so you are very reluctantly doing the work to bring it about (I think this is why most of us resist doing our taxes).
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You don't agree that what you are doing is the best path to the desired outcome.
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You are doing the work for someone you do not like or for a cause you don't support. Let's return to the original idea. What if everything you put on your calendar came to be? Here's a little secret. The things we get done are the things we enjoy. If not directly enjoyable, they lead us to it. We tend to go where there's less resistance. In fact, we take the path of least resistance most of the time. Yes, there are things we don't enjoy we still must do, and we'll eventually do them, maybe not when we planned, but eventually - we'll either do them or they won't get done and we'll suffer the consequences. My mother-in-law loved to shop. You could say she liked to spend more than she liked to earn. When the credit card bills arrived, she never paid them in full. While paying off the balance was certainly possible, it meant she would have less money to shop. Having money to spend was always a priority, until she had more debt than she could afford to pay off. Eventually, the credit cards were paid off, just not while she was still with us. So you see... everything eventually gets dealt with. When we delay, sometimes there consequences, often there are not. Her outlook was no different than millions of other Americans and it's what keeps the credit card companies in business so the rest of us can enjoy the convenience of having them. You should expect to achieve everything you put on your calendar, IF everything on your calendar consists of things you enjoy.
Scraps
To turn an activity you don't enjoy into what you do, simply identify where the resistance stems from. We'll never function at full power until we remove the point of resistance. More often than not, we need to look inward to find the resistance. But we can't push through it. You learn to dance with it. The nervousness never goes away. I fell _ and __. Our efforts are hampered by something unn Instead, we spend a portion of our limited energy on precious energy is being spent on the re When we are resisting the activity, we are not fully engaged, and the current that hits resistence does not flow as freely as it does when the It never starts well, but it begins. Genius is not something that stems from within, it's something that is pulled out of us, driven equally by the need.
Things never start well, but they often finish well. The only way to get good at our craft is to do our craft. ~ Seth Godin The difference between responding and reacting. It's not about talent or gifts... it's about intelligence, and intelligence can be learned. You can choose to learn. Bibliography