When tomorrow comes, your attention will go somewhere. It has to. And, as Chris Bailey put it in his book, Hyperfocus, “Attention without intention is wasted energy.”1
So you’d be wise to choose where your attention will go. If you don’t, other people will choose for you. (App designers and advertisers, mostly.)
And if you’re anything like me, you make far better choices when you decide what to do in advance rather than in the moment. (Remember if-then planning from my willpower article?) Most decisions made in the moment are driven by your current emotions. Most decisions made in advance are driven by thinking about your goals, priorities, and values. Not surprisingly, these are better drivers of behavior than your present feelings.
That’s why you should decide tomorrow tonight. Or, if your brain doesn’t work so well at night, decide tomorrow today. Set aside some time to carefully plan out the next day. Choose where you’ll put your attention. Decide what is worthy of your limited time and energy. And write it down.
Regular readers will know that this daily planning routine is just the first level in my three-part to-do list system, but it is the most important. There’s no reason to have weekly to-do lists or long-term to-do lists if you can’t direct your attention today. So start here.
Oh, and don’t just pick what you’ll do tomorrow, get clear on when, where, and how. Leave nothing to chance or whim. Leave nothing to be decided. That way, when tomorrow comes, all you’ll have to do is start.
1 Bailey, Chris. Hyperfocus: How to Manage Your Attention in a World of Distraction
. Viking, 2018.