Write Your Obituary – and Live Up to It

There is advice you hear and immediately forget. And there are those rare pieces of wisdom that won't let you go – that stick, because they touch something fundamental. In May 2023, a 15-year-old boy asked the then 92-year-old Warren Buffett a simple question at the Berkshire Hathaway shareholders' meeting: How do you avoid mistakes in life?

This unusual recommendation may seem morbid at first glance. But it contains one of the most powerful strategies for a fulfilled life that I know. And it shows us why habits – the small, daily actions – are the key to everything.

The Man Behind the Quote

Warren Buffett is not just any advisor. With a fortune of over 140 billion dollars, he is one of the richest people in the world. But what makes him truly remarkable is not his bank balance – it is the way he lives.

Buffett has lived since 1958 in the same house in Omaha, Nebraska, which he bought for just under 31,500 dollars. He stops by McDonald's every morning to pick up breakfast – and decides, depending on the state of the stock market, whether to take the more expensive or the cheaper menu. He drinks five cans of Coca-Cola a day and spends 80 percent of his workday on a single activity: reading. That is no joke. The most successful investor of all time sits in his office day after day, surrounded by stacks of annual reports, newspapers, and books. Asked about the secret of his success, he once replied:

The Obituary Exercise: Thinking from the End

But back to his advice to the 15-year-old. The idea of writing your own obituary is not Buffett's invention. In his final Thanksgiving letter to Berkshire shareholders in November 2025, he referred to the story of Alfred Nobel – the inventor of dynamite and founder of the Nobel Prize.

According to legend, Nobel read his own obituary in a newspaper that had accidentally confused him with his deceased brother. The headline read, in essence: "The merchant of death is dead." Nobel was shaken. He realized that his legacy would be immortalized in history as that of a man who had brought destruction. This realization motivated him to endow the Nobel Prize – to be remembered instead for promoting peace, science, and literature.

This exercise forces us to ask the most important question of all: What really counts? Not in ten years. Not next week. But at the end, when everything is summed up. The answer to this question changes everything – above all, how we spend our time today.

The Power of Daily Habits

This is where it gets interesting. Because between what we want to have in our obituary and what we do every day, there is often a huge gap.

Nobody writes in their dream obituary: "He spent three hours a day on social media" or "She was always busy, but never truly present for her family." And yet these are the habits many of us maintain – unconsciously, automatically, day after day.

Warren Buffett understands this better than most. His entire life philosophy is based on the insight that success – financial as well as personal – is the result of small, consistent actions.

That is the paradox of habits: they are easy to understand, but hard to implement. Everyone knows that daily reading educates, regular exercise keeps you healthy, and consciously nurturing relationships makes you happy. But how many of us actually do it – every day, without exception, year after year?

The Buffett Formula for Everyday Life

Buffett's daily routine may seem unspectacular, but it is a masterpiece of habit building. Let's look at his core routines:

He wakes up every morning at 6:45 and allows himself eight hours of sleep. No getting up at four in the morning, no sleep deprivation as a status symbol. "I have no desire to be at work at four in the morning," he said. Instead: rest and recovery as the foundation for clear decisions.

He reads several newspapers over breakfast – the same ones every day: Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, New York Times. This routine keeps him informed without having to decide anew each day what to read.

He spends most of his day reading and thinking. Not in meetings. Not on emails. Not in a rush. His office in Omaha has no computer on the desk. It is, in his own words, more of a library than a traditional office.

He goes home between 4 and 5 p.m. Every day. Work-life balance is not a buzzword for him, but lived practice. At 10 p.m. he goes to bed, reads for another half hour, and turns off the light at 10:45 p.m.

These routines seem almost boring in their constancy. But that is exactly the point.

Why Consistency Beats Everything

Charlie Munger, Buffett's longtime business partner, put it succinctly: "Neither Warren nor I is smart enough to make decisions with no time to think. We make actual decisions very rapidly, but that's because we have spent so much time preparing ourselves by quietly sitting, reading, and thinking."

That is the secret: the daily habits prepare the ground for the big decisions. Those who read every day don't have to start researching when an opportunity appears – the knowledge is already there. Those who work on their relationships every day don't suddenly find themselves alone when it matters.

The kindness he speaks of is not a grand gesture. It is a daily habit. Being a little kinder every day. A little more patient every day. A little more attentive to others every day.

The Compound Interest Principle of Life

Buffett became famous through the concept of compound interest – the idea that small gains, reinvested, lead to exponential results over time. What most people overlook: this principle applies not only to money.

Reading 30 minutes every day means over 180 hours of knowledge building after a year. Moving 15 minutes every day means almost 100 hours of physical activity after a year. One real conversation with a loved one every day means hundreds of moments of connection after a year.

But it also works in the other direction. One hour on social media every day means over 350 hours of lost time after a year. One meal too many every day means dozens of extra kilos after a year. A little more stress without balance every day means an exhausted nervous system after a year.

The question is not whether we have habits. The question is whether our habits are making us the person we want to be in our obituary.

The 5/25 Rule: Focus as a Habit

One of Buffett's lesser-known strategies is the so-called 5/25 rule. He recommends writing a list of 25 goals or tasks – and then selecting the five most important. The remaining 20? They don't become second priority. They are actively avoided. Buffett explains:

That sounds brutal, but it is deeply honest. Most of us don't fail from a lack of opportunities. We fail because we pursue too many opportunities and none of them properly.

For habit building, that means: don't start ten new habits at once. Start one. The one habit that makes the biggest difference. The one that would appear in the obituary.

From Theory to Practice: Anchoring Habits

How can we put these insights into practice? The first step is the obituary exercise itself. Take 30 minutes. Imagine you are at the end of your life. What should be written? Which qualities do you want mentioned? Which relationships? Which achievements?

Then ask yourself: Which daily habits would lead to this obituary?

This is where a painful discrepancy often shows itself. The desired obituary speaks of a person who was loving, wise, healthy, and fulfilled. The current habits tell a different story.

But – and this is Buffett's second great message – it is never too late. In his final letter, the 95-year-old wrote: "Don't beat yourself up over past mistakes – learn at least a little from them and move on. It is never too late to improve. Find the right role models and imitate them."

Even the idiots can change, he added with his typical humor. It is never too late.

The Role of Systems

Buffett does not rely on willpower. He relies on systems and environments. His office is set up so that reading is the natural activity. He has no meetings that distract him. He lives in Omaha, far from the hustle of Wall Street, to be able to think clearly.

That is a central insight for anyone who wants to build habits: design your environment so that the desired habit becomes the path of least resistance. Willpower is limited. Good systems are not.

A habit tracker like Yeap can be part of such a system. Not as an end in itself, but as a tool of awareness. It makes visible whether the daily actions align with the desired obituary – or whether a course correction is needed.

Three habits Buffett recommends

From all his advice, three core habits can be distilled that anyone can adopt:

• Daily reading. Not scrolling, not skimming – real, deep reading. At least 30 minutes a day. Books, articles, reports. Material that sharpens thinking and expands knowledge.
• Being kind. Not as a grand gesture, but as a daily practice. In every interaction, a little more patience, a little more understanding, a little more warmth. "Treat every person the same," Buffett writes, "regardless of their status."
• Spending less than you earn. A habit that seems so obvious and yet is practiced by so few. Buffett: "If you spend a little more than you earn, you have debt. And chances are good that you'll never get out of debt again."

These three habits – learning, kindness, thrift – sound almost too simple. But that is exactly what makes them so powerful.

The Obituary as a Compass

Let's return to the beginning. The obituary exercise is not meant to confront us with death. It is meant to confront us with life – with the question of how we want to live it.

Every day offers the opportunity to take a small step toward the desired obituary. Every habit we maintain or abandon helps write this final text.

Warren Buffett has lived almost a century, and he is still living. At 95, he still goes to the office every day. He reads. He thinks. He nurtures his relationships. Not because he has to, but because that is who he wants to be – because he knows exactly what should be in his obituary.

The question is not whether we make this decision. The question is only whether we make it consciously – or leave it to chance.

Our habits write our obituary every day. The only question is: What story do they tell?

Want to build habits that lead to your dream obituary? The Yeap Habit Tracker helps you take small steps every day – and makes visible that consistency really does make the difference.