The Question to Ask at the End of the Day

Success in any area of life comes from doing good things on a regular basis. We all have those small, easy-to-perform tasks that when knit together, make life significantly better. Some involve routine maintenance which keep big problems at bay and allow us to focus on our goals. Others involve those bite-sized steps, repeated at routine intervals, which help us reach those goals. In any case, identifying those repeating tasks, and organizing them in such a way that they are in front of us at the right time, increases productivity exponentially.
How will you answer the question when today comes to a close? How did you make today count? How did you make today count?

If you use a digital to-do list, add a task which reads: "How did you make today count?" Set the task to repeat daily, meaning when you check it off, it disappears and reappears tomorrow.

In the note section of that task, answer the question. Think back over the day. What did you do that was significant? What did you do that moved you closer to an important goal? What did you do that was significant in the life of another person?

As you enter your answer to "How did you make today count?" you will also be looking at how you answered that question in previous days. You begin to get a picture of whether you are using your time to move forward or simply to tread water.

At the end of the month, cut and paste your responses for those last 30 or 31 days to a Word document, a notebook in Evernote, or wherever you would like to keep a running log of how you are spending your days. You may wish to enter your answer right on your calendar. Whenever you choose to record the significant accomplishments of your day, the process generates a sort of a "mini-diary." It also provides a compass that will help plan for the days to come.

It is a sobering question. Perhaps the knowledge that the day will end with your asking yourself that question will work on your subconscious from the time the day begins.

How will you answer the question when today comes to a close? How did you make today count?


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Those New Year's Resolutions...How Are You Doing?

Making New Year's resolutions is easy. Keeping them is a bit more of a problem. In his book The Way We’re Working Isn’t Working, author Tony Schwartz writes:

"Twenty-five percent of people abandon their New Year’s resolutions after one week. Sixty percent do so within six months. The average person makes the same New Year’s resolution ten separate times without success." (p.33)

As we bring to a close this first two months of 2014, how are you doing with those New Year's Resolutions you set January 1?

It Couldn't Be Done...It's Done

When most people say, "It can't be done," what they really mean is, "I don't know how to do it." In today's world of limitless possibilities, proclaiming, "It can't be done" generally puts one behind the eight-ball. Worse yet, when we settle for "It can't be done," we stop looking for answers.

This poem is for all of those out there who have survived the naysayers and made things happen:

Somebody said that it couldn’t be done,
But, he with a chuckle replied
That "maybe it couldn’t," but he would be one
Who wouldn’t say so till he’d tried.
So he buckled right in with the trace of a grin
On his face. If he worried he hid it.
He started to sing as he tackled the thing
That couldn’t be done, and he did it.


Somebody scoffed: "Oh, you’ll never do that;
At least no one has done it";
But he took off his coat and he took off his hat,
And the first thing we knew he’d begun it.
With a lift of his chin and a bit of a grin,
Without any doubting or quiddit,
He started to sing as he tackled the thing
That couldn’t be done, and he did it.


There are thousands to tell you it cannot be done,
There are thousands to prophesy failure;
There are thousands to point out to you one by one,
The dangers that wait to assail you.
But just buckle it in with a bit of a grin,
Just take off your coat and go to it;
Just start to sing as you tackle the thing
That "couldn’t be done," and you’ll do it.
—Edgar Albert Guest, 1917

What was true in 1917 is even truer today!

While they were saying among themselves it cannot be done, it was done.
                                            —Helen Keller

When have you been told, "It couldn't be done" but you did it?

A Letter to Your Future Self

Write down your goals. Keep them visible.

Those two sentences have been repeated countless times in literature on goal setting. My own variation on that theme came when I wrote my Christmas letter the preceding January. I re-read it every month, and was amazed as how what was written in January came to pass by December. I wrote about that experience in a post called Christmas Letters from the Future.

My suggestion on how to make that letter re-surface each month is:

• If your to-do list is digital, make reading your letter a repeating task, and put the body of the letter in the note section of the task.
• If your to-do list is paper, put the letter in your tickler file. When it re-surfaces, read it and re-file it for a month down the road.

FutureMe.org is a website I saw which accomplishes much the same purpose. You write your letter, provide the date on which you would like to see it again, and enter your e-mail address. On the appointed date, the letter arrives in your e-mail. From there, you can copy and paste the letter back into the website and select a new date.

Whatever your method, the main idea is to envision your preferred future, review that vision periodically, and "adjust the sails." Little-by-little, your performance begins to resemble your vision.

How do YOU keep your goals on tracks? I would love to hear your thoughts.

A Pretty Good Student

I first heard this poem quite a few years ago. It's been a favorite of mime, and serves as a cautionary tale for those who set the bar for themselves increasingly low.

There once was a pretty good student,
Who sat in a pretty good class
And was taught by a pretty good teacher,
Who always let pretty good pass.

He wasn’t terrific at reading.
He wasn’t a whiz-bang at math.
But for him education was leading
Straight down a pretty good path.

He didn’t find school too exciting,
But he wanted to do pretty well,
And he did have some trouble with writing,
And nobody had taught him to spell.

When doing arithmetic problems,
Pretty good was regarded as fine.
Five plus five needn’t always add up to be ten,
A pretty good answer was nine.

The pretty good class he sat in
Was part of a pretty good school.
And the student was not an exception.
On the contrary, he was the rule.

The pretty good school that he went to
Was there in a pretty good town.
And nobody seemed to notice
He could not tell a verb from a noun.

The pretty good student in fact was
Part of a pretty good mob.
And the first time he knew that he lacked was
When he looked for a pretty good job.

In was then, when he sought a position,
He discovered that life could be tough.
And he soon had a sneaky suspicion
Pretty good might not be good enough.

The pretty good town in our story
Was part of a pretty good state,
Which had pretty good aspirations,
And prayed for a pretty good fate.

There once was a pretty good nation,
Pretty proud of the greatness it had,
Which learned much too late
If you want to be great,
Pretty good is, in fact, pretty bad.

—Charles Osgood

How do we guard against the words in the last paragraph becoming reality?