⏱️ The Best Minute: How to have FEWER regrets
💡 1 IDEA FROM ME
Want to live life with fewer regrets? It requires today the same thing it has always required. The same thing it required of you for the things you regret today.
Certainly not all, but I would wager overall, you have more regrets from things you didn’t do but wish you had than things you did do and wished you didn’t.
If that is the case, what you need more of to live with fewer regrets is not knowledge, though that is helpful, but more courage.
Living life with fewer regrets means having the courage in the moment to do what you wished you had done after the fact. It’s easy to say “I would have done X if I could do it all over again” because A) the situation has already passed and things are easier said than done, and B) you it sounds (and feels) good to say how you would do it again if you could, but since you can’t do it again you don’t have to back up those words with action.
So here’s your challenge: prove it to yourself today and live with fewer regrets tomorrow. Do the hard thing you are avoiding today. This is how you can prove you really would do the hard thing in the past differently.
There is a good chance you’ll regret it if you don’t…
Next week in The Best Minute I’ll share why “the early bird gets the worm” doesn’t paint the whole picture, and what it means for how you can actually get the worm (regardless of when you wake up in the morning).
💬 1 HELPFUL QUOTE
I. Kent Beck on why creators struggle to release projects (but is applicable to everyone):
“By far the dominant reason for not releasing sooner was a reluctance to trade the dream of success for the reality of feedback.”
📖 1 BRIEF BOOK REVIEW
Slow Productivity by Cal Newport
Another excellent book by one of my favorite writers. Pseudo-productivity (doing a lot of things while not accomplishing anything of value) is a hallmark for much of knowledge work today.
But activity ≠ productivity. It is more important to create and accomplish valuable things than to do a lot of things. The answer? Do fewer things and do them well. Slow down in order to accomplish things that matter.
As always, Newport combines theory with practical ways to implement this in your own life. If you want to do more things that matter while reducing stress, you'll want to give this a read.
9/10
🤔 1 QUESTION TO LEAVE YOU WITH
Take whatever task you keep putting off and ask yourself, “How could make accomplishing this as easy as possible?”
Maybe the problem is not the task itself, but how you think you need to execute it.
