In the original and most subsequent Pokémon games, the endgame is to defeat your childhood rival—but not before you’ve made it past the Elite Four, or “Top Four” in German. They were the toughest Pokémon trainers in the game, and you better came prepared. In fact, you had to pass a whole set of separate trials along Victory Road just to get there.
Whenever you arrive at the Elite Four, however long you’ve been playing, there’s always a bit of dialogue allowing you to reflect on how far you’ve come. “Wow, I made it. Top Four. Unbelievable!”
Yesterday, I opened my productivity app. It has a leaderboard. You can sort by highest scores on various time frames, like the current week, month, or all-time performance. I flipped to the all-time view, and there I was: top four. Wow. Unbelievable!
The app has been around for five years. I’ve used it for around 14 months—but from the first day onwards, I’ve tracked at least some, usually most, of my work sessions every day. I don’t know who else made it to the top of the leaderboard when. But I have seen plenty of people come and go.
440 days of consistency. That sounds like a lot, but is it? In the grand scheme of things, 440 days pass quickly. Rack up a few points every day, however, and your score will keep climbing—just like a dedicated Pokémon trainer, taking the last steps up the Indigo Plateau, realizing only at the top: “Oh. Elite Four. Already?!”
Days played with your children; pages in a book; coins racked up in a wallet. Keep going a little every day. Before you know it, you’ll have reached the top four.