Do you feel like it’s getting harder to get stuff done?
It’s not just you. The distraction machine is cranked to 10. Endless apps and feeds and algorithms fight for our attention. They’re good at getting it, too! No wonder Reed Hastings, founder of Netflix, says their greatest competitor of all is sleep.
I find myself revisiting simple practices to help make sure I actually get anything done.
Here are ten habits I (try to) do to get more done each day:
1. Wake up and look at my ikigai
An ikigai is the ‘reason you get out of bed in the morning.’
Leslie and I take simple blank index cards, fold them in half, and set them up like tent cards on our bedside table.
I think of the ikigai I write on the card as “my morning message to myself” and find it helps provide a quick north star to my day.
I change what I write on the cards. Sometimes I’ll get lofty and purposeful (“Helping people live happy lives”), sometimes I’ll get focused (“Finish writing the next book”), and sometimes I’ll just use the card as a way to neutralize anxiety (“You have enough.”)
I write more about ikigais in The Happiness Equation and, if you want to go deeper, I recommend Héctor Garcia’s book Ikigai.
2. Two-Minute Mornings
I spend half a second staring at my ikigai card. Now what?
The next thing I do is grab my Two-Minute Mornings journal (or just any other index card is fine) and write my response to three prompts:
I will let go of…
I am grateful for…
I will focus on…
Research titled “Don’t look back in anger!” by Brassen, Gamer, Peters, Gluth, and Bluch in Science shows that minimizing regrets as we age creates greater contentment and happiness. I think there’s a big reason why confession and repentance show up across major world religions. Writing down and letting go of something feels like wiping a wet shammy across the blackboard of our minds. (I will let go of…)
Research by Emmons and McCullough shows if you write down five gratitudes a week you’re measurably happier over a ten-week period. The more specific the better! Don’t write “my dog” ten days in a row. Try “When the rescue puppy we got during the pandemic finally stopped peeing on my husband’s pillow,” etc. (I am grateful for…)
Finally, all kinds of small aggravating things hang out in my brain when I sleep. I'm not talking dreams. I mean the middle of the night "Oh yeah, I need to do that" things. Take the van in for the oil change! Ask the pharmacist about that rash! Overnight brain burbles need to be processed so the last prompt helps me aim to get one done. I'm carving a “will do” from my endless “could do" and "should do” lists. (I will focus on…)
Two-minute mornings help prime your brain for positivity.
3. Lift something heavy
Every day I lift heavy weights I seem to buy myself the rest of the day without feeling stress. It’s like a magic pill. I don’t like lifting weights! I hate lifting weights! But it’s worth it for that stress-free feeling for the next 24 hours.
Workouts such as Push/Pull/Legs or 5x5 are great -- and, honestly, just Google Image-searching them plus "workout" works for me -- but if you need a cajoling of some kind I suggest using Trainiac. I started in the pandemic and I got a real human coach (hi Geoff!) who sets my routines, using the equipment I have or will have (i.e., at a hotel gym), and then sends me notes, prompts, messages, and videos to keep me going. I don’t know how to do an exercise? I send him a video, he critiques my form. I have a question? He responds the next day.
To be clear: I’m not being sponsored by this app — I have no ads on any of my stuff and I accept zero payments or credits, etc, etc — but I’ve just been using it since the pandemic and enjoy it. I did personal training (like in person, at a gym) years ago but found it time and cost prohibitive.
I personally set my goal for four workouts a week and then if I “fail” and only get three in I still feel good. What about no workout days? I throw my kids in the air for a few minutes. I’m winded after! And we both feel great.
4. Walk 5km a day
Guess what the average human walking speed is?
5km/hour.
So just moving one phone meeting to a “walk and talk” helps get that 5km of walking in. I personally find that I’m actually more focused on the phone call when I’m walking because I’m not surrounded by the endless distractions of screens. Plus, it’s good for your health, good for community connection (you actually talk to your neighbors!), and walking tends to stoke your creativity, too. And, side benefit, it brings out your inner birder.
Okay, this isn’t a daily habit but a weekly one. I’m sneaking it in anyway because it’s so powerful.
A New Yorker feature by Alexandra Schwartz calls our focus on productivity and hustle “improving ourselves to death.” She writes, “It’s no longer enough to imagine our way to a better state of body or mind. We must now chart our progress, count our steps, log our sleep rhythms, tweak our diets, record our negative thoughts — then analyze the data, recalibrate, and repeat.”
What’s one solution? Untouchable Days. These are days where I am literally unreachable, by anyone, in any way — all day. My productivity is about 10 times higher on these days.
I know on the surface this idea sounds completely impractical and I mostly get scoffing and head shakes when I start talking about it. But, I also get more emails from people successfully using this concept across a vast array of ages and careers. If it sounds too hard, there’s nothing wrong with starting with an Untouchable Lunch. Leave your phone at your desk and get outside for an hour where nobody can reach you.
Books create empathy, intimacy, compassion, and understanding. Why? Our brain’s mirror neurons fire when we read about experiences we haven’t lived — when we’re another gender, in another country, in another time … our minds think we’re there.
It’s like that Game of Thrones quote: “A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies … the man who never reads lives only one.”
But Science magazine published a formative study in 2013 which showed that reading literary fiction improved test results measuring social perception and empathy. So if we can channel a few minutes of phone time each day to reading fiction, we’ll have a natural way to zoom out of our problems and feel more connected to the wider world. Everything feels easier after that.
7. “Wear one suit.”
It’s a principle.
I wear a blue suit jacket, white dress shirt, dark blue jeans, Nike running shoes, and my yellow watch … to every single speech and media interview I do. So I never think about what to wear for any of them. I just buy multiples of the same running shoes, shirts, socks, etc.
Same thing with my breakfast. “Drink one shake.” I’ve been drinking the same shake for fifteen years. Water, turmeric, cinnamon, half a frozen banana, powdered greens, frozen greens, protein, nut butter, nut milk, yogurt, and avocado. Sure, maybe I change the protein flavor once in a while, but the point is that I can make it on auto-pilot.
What can you systemize to free up more brain space for everything else?
8. Write a “3 things” cue card
Every night before I go up to bed I write an index card with tomorrow’s day up top — THURSDAY — and a (maximum) 3-item checklist below. Beside each item, I draw a square box to be checked off.
Why? Well, a laundry list of 20 things feels overwhelming and oppressive. (That can go on a weekly or monthly checklist.) But the nighttime forced prioritization helps me go to bed knowing I have my track set for the next day. And by making it only 3 I’ve done some of the hard work of simply choosing what not to do.
Also, one principle within the last? “Write first.” What I mean is that writing takes more of my energy than anything else I do, so if the day includes writing I’ll put that first. (You may have heard a similar principle for going to the gym: “Squat first.” Just start with the hardest thing.)
9. Lock the phone up around sunset
University of Bologna professors published a report in Sloan Management Review which showed that anxiety spikes when students don’t have their cellphones for even a single day.
Everyone talks about intermittent fasting … with food. We should be talking about intermittent fasting … with phones.
When I interviewed Johann Hari (author of Stolen Focus) he told me he drops his phone in a K-Safe every night. That’s a big square plastic box with a timer on the outside. Set the timer to 3 hours? It doesn’t open for 3 hours.
Now: Why do I say “around sunset”? Well, because I’m trying (trying!) to get my body more in line with natural light. When the sun dips down I want my brain to dip down, too. Dimmer lights. Candles at dinner. Fewer screens. More books.
Easing my body and mind into a darker, deeper sleep.
Also, if you don’t have a K-Safe or timed lockbox you can try my strategy of asking your partner to “Please hide my phone until tomorrow and don’t tell me where it is even if I ask.”
10. Have a “wind down” routine.
Research from Australia shows that exposing our brains to bright screens before bed reduces melatonin production — the sleep hormone.
So screens mess up our sleep. Great! Now what do we do? Well, we’ve already talked about reading. But what I mean here is you need a nighttime ritual. Maybe it’s playing Rose Rose Thorn Bud with your boyfriend. Maybe it’s flossing and brushing your teeth with your wife. Maybe it’s reading books to your kids. Maybe it’s tidying up your dresser and setting out your clothes for the next morning. Maybe it’s having a warm shower and shaving.
We need to plug our phones in the basement. (I recommend the furnace room — the darker and cobwebbier, the better!) And have a nighttime ritual that allows us the mental space to widen, reflect, and process the day in a slow and peaceful way.
Okay!
That’s it!
A long list, sure. And a lofty one! But, as always, as with anything I’m suggesting or trying myself, the goal is never to be perfect — it’s just to be a little better than before.
I hope even one or two of these resonate with you. And if you have something you suggest adding to my list — just drop me a line and let me know.
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