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iza,
Five minutes before you close the laptop tonight, answer three questions and write down where you left off. Tomorrow morning you don't spend the first hour remembering where you were. You just start!
Five minutes for an hour. I'll take that trade every day of the week.
Four more of these below, all from this summer. If you're not on Instagram you've never seen any of them, so click a title and it will open.
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1
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Last one to log off ▶. That's the one above. I wore late nights like a badge for years, and all they really proved was that I'd been reacting all day with no room left to think. |
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2
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Deliberately suck at something ▶. Before you start anything, ask what level of effort it actually needs, one to ten. Most of your day is threes wearing a ten's clothing: the routine status email, the internal update nobody rereads. Give those a three. Nobody on the receiving end can tell the difference, and you'll still have something left at 4pm. |
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3
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Write the paragraph before the meeting ▶. Write down the decision that needs making, why it needs making, and your recommendation. Do it before you send the invite. Half my meetings used to be outsourced thinking I hadn't done yet, and prose won't let you hide the way a meeting will. Some days you finish the paragraph and cancel the meeting. Other times you send it round and run a much better one. |
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4
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Groundhog Day, read again ▶. I grew up thinking Phil escapes by self-improving his way out. Piano, ice sculpture, French poetry. Watch it again, though, because he learns all of that while he's still trapped. What actually changes is that he stops being the center of the day. |
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5
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The 9pm hour ▶. Between nine and ten at night your prefrontal cortex is done, the people who love you are asleep, and you're writing a reply badly that could have waited till morning. Microsoft has a name for the pattern. I wrote about it for Fast Company. |
Number two is the one people argue with me about, and I stand by it. Try it on something nobody will ever reread and see whether a single person notices.
PICK ONE AND RUN IT THIS WEEK. JUST ONE. If you want somewhere to start, the first one takes about a minute to watch:
Thanks for reading these all month. |
