Do small things every day.
I read once that we all descend to our habits. What we do every day defines what we can accomplish. That floor can work to our advantage by defining and setting daily patterns of behavior that form a productive minimum.
Daily is the easiest cadence. Humans operate on a daily cycle based on the rotation of our planet. We start and end at different times, but the day defines us. I remember hearing a story about a colleague of my grandfather's - a physicist - who experimented with a 26 hour day. He nearly went mad. The daily cycle is our most natural orientation. If a habit or process happens every day, there's very little to manage or remember.
Second, "put first things first" is the single best time management advice I have read. The process is straightforward: do the important thing first in the day. The regular habit you want to keep on this cadence is easiest to maintain when you just put it first.
The difficulty of this transition surprised me. I initially thought that I would start my morning routine and then go into my "first thing." This sequence did not produce the consistency I thought it would. I learned that I had to put the first things before the routine of, say, breakfast.
But once I arranged to do the activity first, the friction fell away. I could slot the routine part among the steps, but by starting with a daily habit I wanted to ensure happened, I had embarked on a productive path to elevate my productivity floor.
This spring, I read The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron. She describes a 12-week program for fostering one's creative productivity. The starting point, and her most well-known recommendation, is "morning pages." One puts pen to paper and does not stop until the end of the third page. Cameron recommends longhand in a notebook.
I decided to adopt this as an experiment in building habits. Since early April 2021, I have dialed into my version of morning pages.
Every morning after rising, I go to the kitchen, start my coffee, and push the microwave button to cook my steel-cut oatmeal. Then I sit in front of my half-sized notepad and push my pen (I'm a lefty) across the paper about 75 times - three pages of my nigh-illegible scrawl. I permit myself to pour my thoughts onto the paper. As of this writing, I have written on over 110 mornings. Nearly 50,000 words have filled my notepads. Not any great push of effort - just 10-15 minutes before coffee.
I tested this habit for a couple of months to see how it worked. I found it helpful. The calming effect made me immediately more productive and focused on what I wanted to do next.
Morning pages were completely private - scratch on a notepad just for me - and given my handwriting, sometimes obscured! After this initial period, I decided to start writing to ship with daily essays. The first goal was to get me more comfortable with distributing my work product daily. A second was to enable writing I wanted to use for marketing and creative efforts.
I experimented with making the essay a regular evening routine but found myself not completing it, requiring my attention the following morning. Rather than fighting this, I incorporated the habit where it seemed to want to be. Finishing my Artist's Way morning pages permits me to pour a cup of coffee, over which I open my laptop and bring up either my essay topics document or a half-drafted essay.
On good days, I have sketched an outline of the points I want to explore. I apply my lessons from morning pages - write on each prompt. Grammarly editor catches my spelling, style, and grammatical errors as I go. Those colors appearing in my background give me the confidence to focus on the ideas rather than missing an error. As a result, I can bang out my thoughts in 60 to 90 minutes.
I copy-edit guided by Grammarly, then ship. The ideas are still raw, but at least the language is semi-clear.
These habits have baked in the idea that I should get up early to make space for my first things to go first. I now get to see the dawn as I write either on paper or on my laptop. The difference is the time of year - as the sun rises later, I am more likely later in the routine.
I also dropped some of my "doomscrolling" habits - or at least pushed them to later in the day, when I am less likely to be productive. Starting the day with productivity and shipping is a great feeling. No matter what happens with the rest, I have laid another brick on an ever-rising platform on which I alight if the rest of the day falls apart.
Not all habits need to happen first thing in the morning. At midday, I read about 120 pages of a usually well-rated non-fiction book. I tie this to my exercise routine. At the close of my last midday meeting, I close my laptop, throw some clothes and a towel in my backpack, and I light out to the gym with a book playing in my ears. Tying the reading to the exercise reinforces two good habits. I can look forward to the training because I get to consume more of the book, or vice-versa.
This exercise-and-learning routine has served me well, consuming well over 100 excellent monographs in the last ten months. Most are "business" books, but some are on political science, history, and philosophy. That last is the most challenging reading but often the most valuable.
I did not read enough earlier - I read lots of trash on the internet (hello!), but the quality reading that would advance my thinking was occasional. I got much more from going to conferences or brief articles.
And while mornings are the easiest time for "first things," I try to bring consistency to my evening routines by anchoring around small habits. As the essay story above shows, this is not easy. Extending how much of the day is no-lose productivity is itself high-value.
Finally, I recommend celebrating your consistent wins. Keeping up habits is not always easy. Celebrating goals and wins is an increasingly common feature of small communities. Join one and announce your streaks. You will find others want consistency and will celebrate along with you. Celebrate the wins of others as well - a simple "raised hands" emoji can be worth a lot.
Not all initiatives fit this model. Habits are those things to which we descend - a good day will include more productivity! But by setting myself up for shipping and success every day through putting something first, I cannot lose. Even "not so great day" nevertheless includes serious learning, creating, and shipping.
One of the highest brand values is consistency. Play consistency on easy: do small things every day. Bringing that into your routine will enhance both your reality and reputation.