New Year’s resolutions are for chumps.
Most New Year’s resolutions are bound to fail.
We just aren’t that good at discipline and self-control.
And yet we still have a strongly held belief that willpower is something you can actually will into being.
Believe that, and you’ll remain a statistic … and become yet another human casualty of the failure to follow through.
There is an alternative, though. What you might even call a “hack”.
Our bodies run low on juice as the day goes on. Our energy might ebb and flow, but most of us tend to slow down as the winds on. Naps after lunch? Sign me up!
As go our bodies, so do our brains. And as the brain tires, our discipline weakens, along with our ability to make good decisions (or any decisions at all).
The task we procrastinated from this morning? It won’t get done. The goal we set for the day, which we haven’t started yet? Forget it. That writing project we haven’t written a line for? Good luck. Maybe tomorrow’s your day.
The hack for defeating the discipline demon is simple: do the hard work in the morning, while your brain is strong and focused.
All of the emails that are piling up? They can wait until later, when you’re bored or distracted. (And as far as I know, no one ever won an award for first email of the day.) All the meetings and conversations you need to have? Punt them, at least until after you’ve got a few hours of work under your belt. And those edits you just have to make to your latest manuscript? Afternoons are for editing, friend.
You have just a few hours to do your best work. Do it now before it’s too late.
(It also doesn’t hurt if you wake up early, and have a daily routine.)
Also published on Medium.