The Rules of Life (Expanded Edition): A Personal Code for

The Rules of Life is a bookshelf of short reminders designed to make everyday choices easier. Templar’s approach is pragmatic: you don’t need grand theories to improve results; you need a personal code you’ll actually use. The book groups its rules around attention (what you notice grows), relationships (kind candor beats polite resentment), and self‑management (habits and environments do the heavy lifting). This summary highlights a few high‑leverage rules and turns them into concrete moves.

First: own your attention. Most frustrations are downstream of noisy inputs and vague priorities. Write the three things that matter this week, put time blocks on the calendar for them, and let the rest fit around those blocks. Second: separate facts from stories. When upset, write what happened in bullet points without adjectives. This simple debrief prevents overreaction and makes repair easier. Third: design boundaries as defaults. Turn off non‑essential notifications, create a standing “no” to low‑value invitations, and pre‑decide your shutdown ritual.

In relationships, Templar’s rules push for gracious directness: say the awkward thing early, praise specifically, and apologize without a paragraph of excuses. People trust steady patterns more than occasional heroics. Finally, think in decades. Choose behaviors that are still good ideas in ten years: saving a little more, reading a little daily, walking a little farther, telling the truth now so you don’t have to remember a lie later. A few durable rules, repeated often, turn into a quiet edge.

See also: The Rules of Life (Expanded Edition): A Personal Code for, Create a Self-Coaching Framework for Better Everyday Decisions, How to Be Perfect