I have been following Leo Babauta at Zen Habits for years now and I try very hard to follow his advice re: “Practice 1” (see below), and when I do, it really makes a difference in my day.
Practice 1: Win the Day
“Instead of starting the day with a list of tasks to get done … what if we identified 1-3 things that would make this day an absolute victory, if we were to do them?
So the practice is to start the day with a simple entry in your notebook or on a simple text document: what could I do to make this day a victory? I like to title it, “Win the Day: Saturday Feb. 6” (or whatever date it is, obviously), then I list 2-3 potential victories. (For today , writing this blog post is one of mine!)
I have other tasks and meetings on my list, obviously, but these are the 2-3 I focus on. Sometimes it’s just one. If I can get that single task done, or those 2-3 tasks, done, it will be a big victory for my goals for this month or year, or for my mission. Or it would just feel fantastic!
I keep this list front and center, and refer back to it multiple times a day. It helps bring me back to what I want to accomplish. And then I look back on it at the end of the day (more on this in the next section), and celebrate what I can. Sometimes I don’t get them all done, which is not a cause for disappointment but for learning. But most days I do at least 1-2 of them, and any progress is a huge cause for celebration.”
Find out what practices 2 and 3 are here.
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I also find this ties in nicely with David Cain’s Raptitude article about how to set yourself up for success to complete a challenging task tomorrow (instead of never), which you can read here.
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And I also really like what David Cain says below about how all big projects are really just a series of simpler tasks, once you break it down.
“Work is always done in pieces, and you never know quite what any of it looks like until it is happening. As David Allen says: you can’t “do” a project, you can only do actions, and projects are nothing but actions. Even huge projects are made up only of sketches, phone calls, brushstrokes, application forms, little circles made with a polishing cloth, and other tiny, eminently doable actions.”
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Other blog posts about this subject:
- David Cain’s article, How to do the things you keep avoiding, here.
- Leo Babauta’s Creating Impact When You’re Overwhelmed here.