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So this a little habit I randomly started doing about 2 years ago now, and I never seem to get sick of it because when Iām ever in doubt about my productivity; itās there to remind me that hey even the little things matter ā¦
I am quite a messy person when it comes to planning, donāt get me wrong, Iām great with being on time and whatnot ā¦ I just have a hard time planning things too far ahead, and if youāre anything like this; I urge you to try this as a little fun exercise/experiment!
Heres how it works;
The night before a day, especially before a day when you know youāll have a few things to do like errands and whatnot, start making a checklist on your notes app of all the things you need to accomplish, they can be as little as having a coffee in the morning to signing a lease for your new house, all that matters is that you write every single (realistic of course) thing you want to accomplish in the day.
It is also important that the things youāre including are things youre supposed to do in a sense, like doing your laundry for exampleā¦ I say that in comparison to things like āI want to get better at golfā for example, where that goal is more of an aspiration than a task if that makes sense.
while making the list, try imagining how your day will go, that helps with planning the more rigorous parts, and with that you might remember things you forgot youāre supposed to do, or have been putting off.
The next step of course is to have a good night sleep to then wake up and seize the day! Now your goal is to check off every task on the list, sometimes the timeline messes up so we finish some tasks before the other and that is fine as long as we go back to a task weāve missed, it can help sometimes to add the time you need to start/finish a task if itās more of a time sensitive task.
You can check off the list as you finish your tasks, or you can check it off the way I like to do it, where you check off everything at once in your bed at night which feels more dramatic and accomplished in a wayā¦ but obviously if you want to do that, then youād still have to check your list throughout the day just to make sure youāre not forgetting anything, otherwise that check-off-in-bed ceremony is a little disappointing.
So yeah! There you have it ! You did itā¦ kinda ā¦ this exercise if you havenāt noticed already, is all about celebrating little accomplishments even if they were huge, the goal is to remind ourselves that we do more in a day sometimes than we give our self credit for. Taking the trash out, sending that email, trying that coffee shop, hanging up that painting you bought months ago, finally reading more than just 5 pages from a book thatās been in your Goodreads ācurrently readingā thatās been there for longer than youād like to admit, or even just having lunch ā¦ a task too vital to celebrate, they all amount to something!
(The list I have attached to this is a screenshot of a list I made for a Wednesday when I was on holiday - so it was a rather uneventful Wednesda, they usually tend to be longer but I couldnāt find any , because I tend to delete them once Iām done with a list)
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Iāve been doing this since the end of Dec..I was reading an interview about mental health habits and the person shared they do this at the top of each day:
Make a list of these 5 things- full sentences or singular words, whatever comes to mind.
1) 5 things youāre grateful for today
2) things you need/want to do today
3) any fears or resentments
4) things to avoid feeding into today
5) things to strive for/go after today
I love a list, and jotting it down in my daily planner is a nice way of not being too precious about it. š
Feb 4, 2024
Make a list of everything youāve accomplished in a day (even the seemingly small things like getting out of bed, getting dressed, eating a meal, etc). Not only does it make doing the to-dos easier because youāve already done some stuff today, but also you can say āta da!ā to yourself every time you do a basic task. Win win. My old mentor made me start doing this and itās so good for my brain. Hereās a sample from mine today:
Feb 23, 2024
š
I find hand-writing the checklist and crossing each task off is empowering for some reason. It also pushes me to get it done because I donāt like things weighing on me!
Feb 18, 2024
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Maybe Oscar Wilde is trying to poison my brain and push my unproductive habits forward, but saying āconsistency is the last refuge of the unimaginativeā unfortunately resonates with me too deeply. I have always self proclaimed my imaginative and creative nature and that statement only justifies and enables any inconsistencies I have in my work and lifestyle with the excuse that Iām āimaginativeāā¦
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