We were sipping on preposterous, eight-euro tea in the Four Seasons lobby when my friend Michael walked me through his daily journaling prompts.
“So there’s, gratitude, self-reflection, some emotional check-ins, and of course a few productivity ones, too. ‘What do you want to do today?’ That sort of thing.” His next one jumped out at me: “Oh, and I also recently added one: ‘What do you not want to do today?’ You know, to avoid distractions.” It’s always the seemingly obvious things that hit you the most. “Wow! That’s a great question,” I said. “Brilliant!”
It makes sense to write a to-do list in the morning, of course. To ask, “What needs doing today?” But with it, for most of us, comes the assumption that, naturally, we’ll then work on those items to the exclusion of all else—yet when do we ever? From fun but non-urgent tasks to the completely irrelevant, a million distractions regularly usurp the more important outcomes in our plans. What if we started paying attention to those instead of pretending we can magically keep them at bay by ignoring them?
“Let me not spend a whole hour watching movie trailers on Youtube again today.” “Finishing my drawing will have to wait until tomorrow.” “I know the boss asked me for it, but it didn’t seem like the competitor analysis was urgent. I think I can skip it for now.” Perhaps these insights are worth just as much as knowing where your time and effort should go to begin with.
What do you not want to do today? Try this question. See where it leads. Oh, and even if the prices are outrageous, having tea at the Four Seasons from time to time should not be the answer—because sometimes, new environments lead to new questions, and that’s always worth more than dollars.