Here is a question I liked in The Daily Stoic Journal and my answer to it:
What would happen if I took a second to cool down?
I read Tranquility by Tuesday last year, and this idea stuck with me: “Effortful Fun Before Effortless Fun.”
The most straightforward kind of leisure time is, of course, scrolling on our phones or watching something, so Laura Venderkam argues that we can add a little bit of effortful fun when we feel too exhausted to do anything productive before using our screens every evening. For example, why not read a book for a few minutes, work on a puzzle, or get some crochet stitches done before? It’s like a small pre-requisite; you can’t check social media until you read a little. After your effortful fun activity, you will feel good, and those minutes will add up with time.
One effortful fun activity that I do is tracking some metrics on an app called Exist that provides nice analytics for me. I track my waking up time, for instance, and my writing and publishing habits, and most importantly, I set a rating for the day with some notes about it, just like a mini digital journal. Mood tracking has been my favorite part of this simple app since I started using it years ago. So, after I do all this tracking at night, I open social media or watch my favorite series.
Another effortful fun activity that I do is checking my book highlights on the Readwise app, which reminds me of favorite passages I highlighted on Kindle books I read, which Readwise directly imports from my Kindle, or famous quotes from audiobooks or paper books I read, which Readwise offers the option to manually add to my library. I feel inspired whenever I read these quotes and often share them with friends and family on WhatsApp or save them for my Sunday Spark readers.
I genuinely love these apps, and recommend trying them for some effortful fun or finding activities you would like to do more and placing them before these effortless scrolling/watching sessions.
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I have been applying the highlight-of-the-day idea, which I learned from the book (Make Time), with my goals group members for around six months, and it has been wildly successful in helping them focus during the day.
How do we do it?
At the start of the day I encourage them to share the goal of the day, which is one thing that, if they finish, would call the day successful. And then, at the end of the day, the group members share the status of their goals.
This daily goal habit helps them define “a successful day” on their own terms and not leave this evaluation to chance. In addition, they get to avoid the feeling of a wasted day many of us have if we don’t start it with intention. I also usually encourage them to share a maximum of three goals as they are sometimes inclined to share their entire to-do list.
My friend and group member told me that this daily goal habit helps her fine-tune her estimate of the time it takes to finish a task and improve it gradually to avoid the planning fallacy we humans are so prone to.
I also share my daily goals with the group because I love the accountability we create; I need to do it because I said I would, and if tasks do not get done, I provide reasons.
Sharing daily goals is also an excellent way to offer mini-coaching sessions if I notice a pattern. For example, a group member set a goal to “finish studying the material.” Some questions I asked:
When it comes to goals, time is usually the most critical factor in achieving them. How much time can you allocate to do what you say you want to do? Setting the goal this way helps you win, and we all need to feel these wins adding up, or else we will give up on planning before it becomes a habit.
At the beginning of every day, ask: What’s your one goal today? or, what are your top three goals? Remember, any other tasks you come up with need to go to a “Might Do” list; do them if you have time and energy, as author Ali Abdaal advises.