You’re ready. You cannot fail. Fall, but not fail, unless you stop before the summit. You have taken the first step. Now to sustain it. Commitment is not the moment you make the promise, it is the persistence that follows.
What will determine whether you summit or become another victim? Not willpower alone. What is the bridge between starting the climb and celebrating the accomplishment? Maybe I’ve built it up too much. It’s quite boring, in fact. It’s your routine.
All great navigators have one. Repetition to sustain progress. Daily they rise, navigate to a checkpoint, and recover. Simple and effective. They trust this system. It brings them home safely.
Similarly, you will rise, progress to the next pit stop, and recover. Inexorably, until you plant your flag at 28,000 feet. Repeating the system that you trust.
Routine to escape the routine
What is your system to get stuff done? Do you rarely forget important things? Is your mind clear to do what it does best – to have ideas and not just to remember stuff? The best ideas come, not when we’re busy but when we’re not. At any moment, are you comfortable, not only with what you’re doing, but what you’re not doing?
If you’re not a clear “Yes” to these questions then you’re a “No”.
Here is the routine I trust . . . a magical week. This is where the rubber hits the road, where we move from dreaming to practical and pragmatic. Consider each week an expedition. We have a bag of time. And plenty of stuff to pack. But we won’t get far with too much baggage.
1: Master List
Every good scout stores equipment in one place, away from their activity. Do you have one single place to capture everything that takes your attention? Like a second brain. This contains two things.
- Projects: any goal with a start date, a series of tasks and an end date, eg “Build house”, “travel Europe”, “create online business.
- Actions: self-contained small tasks, eg buy new phone, fix tap.
Most people try to remember everything. This depletes mental energy. Choose one place for all your stuff’. Make it portable and accessible at any moment. Every day, capture everything you think of. Emails, meetings, people, ideas, projects – everything. Master this practice and your mind will become clear and calm.
2. Allowance
The problem with time is we think we have loads of it. Our master list always has too much. We have to consider what fits. What capacity is our bag of time? A 20 lb shoulder bag, a 40 lb holdall or a 100 lb suitcase? We often feel overwhelmed. We lug a suitcase when the allowance is a carry-on. Or worse still, we let others pack our bag.
Packing should be easy because stuff fits or it doesn’t. Time is a little less obvious. But we can still plan by simply matching demand, what we could do, with capacity, the time we have.
To calculate your allowance, grab a weekly calendar. Start with 24 by 7, which is 168 hours each week.
Block out anything you do every day. These rituals include sleep, morning routine, exercise, commuting, lunch, dinner, TV and so on. Workwise, it might include emails, calls. Nobody’s judging. Be honest! Include things you should be doing such as personal time, finances or family time.
Maybe you have 30 hours left. The suitcase has become a holdall. Now commit another hour every Friday (trust me) to plan each week.
29 hours left.
Now, meetings. What once-off commitments do I accept? Be strict. Is it essential? Do I really need to be there? Can someone else cover? If it’s essential, then accept it.
15 hours. This is your capacity. Shoulder bag it is.
3. Goals
Now to decide what’s essential. We all have too much to do. This can be positive. It means choice. Imagine the opposite.
From your master list, pick what you should do. Where will I be? What do I absolutely have to get done? Highlight the top four or five.
Stop! Put the bag down. No packing until you know it fits. Estimate the hours. It doesn’t have to be perfect. Just roughly estimate how long they will take.
This is demand. It must be less than capacity (we always leave space for the stuff we pick up). If not, either:
- Reduce the essentials until they fit.
- Increase the capacity of your bag. Give up the three-hour Netflix marathon.
Make these decisions now. Don’t be the guy at the airport ditching stuff on the fly.
Then pack the big stuff. Frontload everything so that you have spare time towards the end.
Don’t forget the small stuff.
Pack little items in the gaps. Gather them together according to where you do them. eg home, shops, laptop.
4. Inspiration
Anything you want to read, watch or listen to.
5. Connection
Anyone you need to help or ask for help.
6. Admin
Other items you need to take care of, buy, pay for, send, research etc.
7. Leisure
Always include fun and recovery. This is non-negotiable for sustained performance.
That’s it! Your itinerary for a magical week.
Most of us complain we don’t have enough time. But we all have the same amount. Anything truly essential to our happiness and wellbeing must be packed. Sometimes we just need to clear stuff that’s in the way.