Let’s keep chugging along with another look at the daily reminders I added to my list in 2019.
-You're welcome
Longtime readers may recall that I once joked how saying “you’re welcome” was my New Year’s resolution. I kept up with it for a while but I soon forgot so I added it to my reminders. This is what a reminder is, right?
The basic idea isn’t to say “you’re welcome”, it’s to avoid those stupid rejections of gratitude that have become commonplace. If someone wants to express gratitude, I want to let it happen.
-Ten-day cycles
Standard units of time invite us to organize our lives around arbitrary rhythms. We want to have a nice day, a focused week, a productive month, and so on. From my personal experience, a ten-day cycle works better for many things. This especially seems to apply to resetting body rhythms for routines like eating, sleeping, or exercise. I suspect each person has an optimal cycle that has long disappeared under the suggestions of standard time units.
-50 minutes of focus
I think most things can be accomplished with a strong effort of around an hour. This often includes daunting tasks that seem like they might take up an entire day. The challenge is just getting started and seeing the results of a good fifty minutes of committed effort. This reminder has been helpful for showing me that when I have a free hour, it’s a great opportunity to get something done.
-Instead of interrupting, take a drink
I found that having a drink on standby is the single best way to keep myself from interrupting. If I have a thought but I need to let someone else finish, I just take a sip of the drink. Can’t talk while drinking, right? I’ve found this to be a mostly positive change with the occasional problem that I sometimes outpace others with my drinking.
