30 day challenge january — plan the next day

by tomjen January, two thousand and fifteen

I don’t know where the idea of the 30 day habit started, but I found out about it via Steve Pavlina, who may have invented it.

The basic idea behind this is relatively simple: you have some habit that you are considering adopting but aren’t entirely sold on the idea – so you try it out for 30 days (or 31 if the month has 31 days, since it makes it easier) and see if you like it; sometimes you adopt the habits, sometimes you do not. Sometimes you don’t plan to adopt the habits, but you were simply curious about what it would be like to try them.

For the month of january I decided to do very simple challenge: every day, before going to bed, I write what I plan to do tomorrow. Then the next day I stick to that schedule unless something comes up that makes it worth changing the schedule.

There was a few days where I didn’t have anything to do the next day, but other than that there were some form of written plan every single day.

Verdict: Best thing I have ever done for my productivity, by an insane margin that is so huge it is difficult to describe. I implore you to try it by planing tomorrow, right now.

Did you plan tomorrow? No? Keep reading if you must, but please plan tomorrow.

You know that annoying person who gets home from work, gets the practical things he had meant to out of the way, then start working on his long-term goals – only checking Facebook, Reddit, etc when he has completed what he intended to do that day? Consistently every day?

Normally, so not me. This month? Me every day. You can imagine how much I get done this way, or better yet – you can try it yourself.

So yeah this is the habit I would recommend you adopt. I plan to keep this habit for all the days where I have something I need to do.

And no I didn’t expect it to be that effective either.