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What task would make today great?


good Monday morning so if you’ve been
following this channel for a while
you’ve been noticing that I’ve been
feeling a little bit being a little bit
off lately I’ve been missing uploading a
couple of new episodes you’ve been
probably reading between right there in
between the lights of the tweets that I
am like not on the top of my game and
yeah I am in a little bit of a rough
patch and I’ve quite frankly had a
little bit of a time keeping my head
above the water so to speak but I’m
seeing the end the light of the tunnel
so to speak and no dark period that
doesn’t have something good and valuable
come out of it and there’s been a lot of
lessons but there’s one in particular
that has been very very useful to you to
me during this period and I would like
to take the opportunity to share it with
you so here it is it’s very simple
really
you come up with a task that answers the
question what tasks would make today
great and then you make that task the
theme of your day
I know that this sounds so simple that
it’s almost dumb it’s one of those
sentences there might be like oh yes be
happy but there’s a lot of lot to their
sentence what what task would make today
great so that is what I’m going to spend
today’s video talking about only this
sentence what would what task would make
today great I am mpj and you are
watching fun function
I’m better first give you some
background to my situation so we all
have these things in our lives that
provide us with a sense of structure
might be a lot of things it might be
that you have a whole you have a if
family you have you have a girlfriend
you have a spouse you have a have a
family perhaps you have children you
have maybe have a job maybe studies like
you come into work every day and there’s
a Trello board there are things that you
need to do in the morning you eat
breakfast a chapel you know how to
travel to work you know like that kind
of thing like it provides you with this
momentum all the time you have that you
have built up and provides you with
feedback and makes you gives your day
like a sense of gives you day a feedback
structure you know kind of when the day
has been going well and whatnot and for
me of course like this this YouTube
channel is a great sense of that that
feedback structure I make a video every
week that’s that’s sort of part of my
identity and I know know what to do
every week it’s excellent and of course
I also know how to do it I had a studio
because I’m right now moving my entire
life from one city to another so I’m
relocating not just my home but I’m also
relocating my my workplace and I will be
honest with you this this move has taken
a much harder toll on me than I
anticipated I figured that this I would
be kind of fine when I initiated this
because I’m very happy about the entire
thing in like conceptually like it’s
moving for love moving for a new and
better studio space I’m gonna be working
with David on site which is amazing and
have a an office with him and I’m gonna
be returning to Stockholm which is a
city that I like a lot but and the thing
is like what you whatever you didn’t
anticipate that oh I’m getting a cold as
well fantastic is that when when you’re
moving your your office and your home at
the same time and you are also the
person responsible for like relocating
the office and finding a new space and
may like also as in my case also renting
out your old apartment that create like
a profound sense of chaos while almost
all of your these these core feedbacks
structure pillars of your life or it
like basically just crashing that
crashing down because that’s seeing your
intention that’s what I wanted and
because I’m building new ones it’s yes
that oh there’s nothing to provide a
sense of stability for me oh there are
some things of course but a lot of the
sense of stability that I had is it’s
well a lot of my friends observed that I
was like being stressed because yeah you
know move is stressful but the problem
is that resting in this situation really
doesn’t help much because well partially
because they’re like your anxiety is
actually not from kind of like an inner
presence from the fact that you need to
do a lot of stuff otherwise things are
gonna go
so one are they pretty much the only
thing that really helps with anxiety is
to attack the things that are causing
and also even if like you find like
these face lilies small spaces to for
self care that’s that’s really hard to
find when you when you don’t really have
these stable spaces like when I was
moving between Stockholm and Gothenburg
last time when I was moving to
Gothenburg then I then I started working
at Spotify and like I had a nice desk
and had a nice and computer and I have
where colleagues didn’t like almost from
the start and that meant that I had like
a kind of stability where I could can
like okay now I’m going to work and I
don’t have to worry about like the
apartment and chef that is a separate
mess it provided me a sense of stability
so there’s really no space for you to
relax so that led me to be like start
musing on what is what is what is the
engine of my day and what I mean by that
is like if everything else was removed
you know all of those stop all of the
things that we talked about work or
girlfriend or even a family or like you
if all of that was did not exist like
imagine that you were the guy in Walden
Thoreau just living in a cabin you and
and just writing or like yeah and
building your cabinet which is basically
like what routines to create stability
in your life would exist if you had
didn’t have like what you do in the
morning and your normal commute and your
normal Trello board
what what what stability would remain
you probably have very different from my
life but in my case I identified a
couple that I have had back and forth
during the years but like during this
this time I recommitted to them and one
of them was morning reading like reading
a book
reading use like doing that first thing
in the morning and just making a nice
breakfast is something that I pick up
picked up many years ago for my brother
because it creates a very nice sense of
safety battery ran out or something
can’t brush your tongue there’s a lot of
there’s a lot of things that need to
like crack come crashing down in order
for you to not make a decent breakfast
it’s a very good stable secure thing to
have and also morning morning meditation
like guided meditation using the waking
up apt by Sam Harris at the moment it’s
like really good also like headspace
those are all good they’re very helpful
but if I’m being honest like no matter
if I like sleep very well or if I do my
morning meditation or read a book and a
lalala like it’s still my days can still
like Oh like very wild in mood and
energy level and direction and one thing
that I found is has been particularly
good at determining whether or good
whether or not my day turns out well or
not yes to ask myself what task would
make today great and then make that task
the theme of my day okay so how to do
this let’s talk a little bit about the
specifics of of doing this I because the
specifics are important it’s easy to
just say that oh I’m gonna be be a
better chef or I’m gonna exercise more
I’m gonna be more healthy this year and
vagueness tend to tend to creep into
those it’s important to be very specific
when you when you want to make life
changes I have a friend who she’s her
name is Anna she’s a cognitive
behavioral psychologist and she always
she often asks this amazing little
sentence which is how will you practice
this whenever somebody says something
vague
it was like how will you practice this
um which I find to be an excellent
question to ask yourself to unveil your
ambitions
first of all it’s very important that
you pick one task that makes today great
decide on that I already like I should
be full disclosure I stole like the
concept of this question from the 5
minute Journal which has a bunch of
questions including like and it
specifies like three items that would
make today great which I find is like
ludicrous amount I rarely get three
things done in a day
in total let alone things that are
supposed to be the ones that are the
criteria for making the day great
so time is limited you get very little
things done things go awry set your
goals as low as possible and focus on
just pick one that will make today great
if we are stuck in one task like a lot
of you will think well does it have to
be the optimal task then do I have to
spend time figuring out which it’s the
best task I could possibly do of all the
things in the known cognitive universe
space of my world no you just need to
pick one that is good if it helps like
you could just redefine the question to
be like what would make today good or
what make today different what would
make what would make me feel okay about
this day another thing that is worth
clarifying is that it’s also not the
only thing you do you do more than one
thing this day of course like it would
be absurd to just do one task but there
is a great value and like figuring
out one thing that would be a
high-impact
thing to do because it can like zooms
you out a little bit and keeps you from
being caught up in all this busy work
just pick one task that is hey I’m gonna
be this seems very decent this seems
like it would make make a good impact on
my life would make things better will
make things better for someone else and
I’ll just decide that this is my focus
and I’m gonna be pushing out of the
things aside or and creating a space for
this
ask this is a task that I’ve decided
that would make today great and I’m
and you will you will find yourself
during the day challenging yourself is
this really the best thing I could
possibly do and it’s probably isn’t
there probably is a better task it’s yes
that for now you will give yourself the
freedom or like the you will provide
yourself the service the benevolence of
access just deciding of the day maybe
it’s maybe it’s it’s it’s not the best
one but you just decided that it it is
today it is so maybe in reality you
really isn’t optimal on perhaps it is
better one to do tomorrow but today we
decide that this is the most important
thing to do that’s what we’ve got to
believe and that’s what we’re gonna
focus on and it’s okay if we’re wrong
because this is just one day we might
make a better decision about our
prioritization tomorrow make it the
first thing and you do it
does it have to be the first thing no
not really
because the thing with these kinds of
tasks is that they are often not super
urgent
they’re often tested or important but
they don’t have to be done today it’s
just like oh I need to progress on
finally progress on my book or finally
go exercise like it doesn’t doesn’t need
to be done right now but it’s still like
super important to to get done but
usually you do have some that
you need to do that morning like get
that send that invoice off or make that
phone call and it takes five minutes you
do it the first thing and then you get
on to your what would make today great
task but there is benefit to having it
be the first thing if you can or at
least make it as early as possible in
the day the benefit of that is benefit
of having it first is that it creates
like this sense of relief like once
you’re done with it your day is now
great it’s it
you’ve won the day already with the
first task its you’ve made a high impact
this day and you you can kind of you
kind of forgive yourself for for not
being this getting things done David
Allen
really hate that book it’s it’s
basically I think it’s the productivity
equivalent of anorexia Photoshop models
giving teenagers horrible bodies for
your ideals
nobody gets nobody can actually use that
book unless you have I don’t know I
can’t my point being is that if you
don’t get like the the those four
thousand the tasks done every day you’re
okay because you you have decided that
hey this is the task that is the one
that makes today great that’s what I
believe today that that is that is my
absolution that is my deliverance my
self-care my productivity allowance and
I’m fine now that I made this and this
opens up the day in such a nice way
because now everything else is a bonus
everything else is just you you just
like you are now free to act and breathe
and hey maybe I’ll do this maybe I’ll do
that
or maybe I’ll go grab a coffee with a
friend maybe I feel like working more
and being productive or maybe I feel
like yes strolling around the block and
grabbing a burger
so talked a little bit about morning
habits before but I found that the
question is not it’s it’s suitable as an
evening habit and the reason for that is
that it’s good for dissolving worry
whenever like evening approaches or like
night approaches start like thinking
about like oh my god what should I be
doing tomorrow and it’s good to have
that cleared out of your head to decide
that like oof okay
tomorrow’s gonna have that in that
direction and that is also good when you
wake up in the morning because it makes
you wake up with a sense of direction
and in the in the back of your head like
when you wake up it’s only on a
subconscious level but you kind of
internalized where this day is gonna
take you evening have it yeah but you
should not do it like right before bed
because I found that that just creates
your brain rolling around the thing it’s
better to do it like in early evening
when you’re closing off your day sort of
and leave a couple of hours at least
between the the writing of acting and
answering the question and actually
going to sleep but sir I found that to
be very good right and that is what I
wanted to talk about today it’s the
practice that I found of asking myself
what tasks would make today great and
then making that the theme of the day a
little bit about like nuances of that
and how I do it you might do differently
or might not to do it at all might not
work for you I am just sharing something
that has been very very helpful to me
Spiller in the sense of chaos that has
been in my life for the last couple of
months you have just watched an episode
of fun fun function I release these
every Monday morning over 200 G is GMT
at least I’m supposed to like I almost
always do it but you will forget that so
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I am mpj and until next Monday morning stay curious
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