Business and Money Tips

The following story is excerpted from TIME's special edition, The Science of Happiness. Whether you’re a web designer, teacher, firefighter or Army officer, you are encouraged to keep checking things off the to-do list, amassing accomplishments and focusing your efforts on the future. There’s always something more you can do to further yourself at work: an extra project or responsibility you can take on, more schooling you can complete to ensure a promotion, or an additional investment to wager on just in case. There’s always that co-worker who is putting in longer hours, showing you that you too can and should do more. And so you strive nonstop to exceed your goals, constantly playing catch-up with your ambitious to-do list. Why? Because you live by the faulty theory that if you want to succeed, you need to continually be getting things done and moving on to the next goal as quickly as possible. Your mind is always on the next task, the next accomplishment, the next person you n...