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Speaker 1: In a world of constantly competing priorities and tasks, many

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Speaker 1: of us struggle to juggle everything and make time for

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Speaker 1: the things that really matter. In fact, it can often

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Speaker 1: feel like we don't even know what the most important

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Speaker 1: things to focus on are. But Chris Gillibode has a

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Speaker 1: reflection strategy that might just help you figure out what

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Speaker 1: really deserves your focus. Chris is a New York Times

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Speaker 1: best selling author whose book One hundred Dollars Startup sold

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Speaker 1: over half a million copies and his side Hustle School

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Speaker 1: podcast has surpassed one hundred million downloads worldwide. In this

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Speaker 1: quick Win, Chris reveals his trick to figuring out what

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Speaker 1: is and isn't a valuable use of your time. Welcome

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Speaker 1: to How I Work, a show about habits, rituals, and

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Speaker 1: strategies for optimizing your date. I'm your host, doctor Amantha Imber.

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Speaker 1: I like some of the practices in the book that

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Speaker 1: are more around get around, like that deeper reflection. And

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Speaker 1: I think one of the questions that you recommend people

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Speaker 1: ask is what is special about this day? Can you

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Speaker 1: tell me more about like when should we ask that question?

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Speaker 1: And what is the impact of doing so?

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Speaker 2: What is special about this day. I think I came

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Speaker 2: to that practice out of the belief or the concept

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Speaker 2: that when we think about life, people tend to think

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Speaker 2: about big moments. They tend to think like these milestones

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Speaker 2: of like here's this thing that happened in my life.

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Speaker 2: It was like a one off kind of thing. But

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Speaker 2: really our lives consist much more of like ordinary moments

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Speaker 2: and just the day to day, and a lot of

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Speaker 2: that is, you know, unmemorable or maybe in some ways

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Speaker 2: like to make it more active forgettable, but yet at

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Speaker 2: the same time, like every day has something at least

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Speaker 2: one thing, probably more than one thing that is special.

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Speaker 2: And for me, I've tried to work on being more present,

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Speaker 2: on noticing more on mindfulness, but I also had to

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Speaker 2: come to it from a different perspective because I'm not

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Speaker 2: really good at meditation, and I've tried some of those

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Speaker 2: practices and they don't work super well for me. But

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Speaker 2: to get to the same place, like noticing what is

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Speaker 2: special about this day, the ordinary moments that make up

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Speaker 2: our life, and there are things we can do to

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Speaker 2: like inspire that specialness. There are things we can do

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Speaker 2: to like make days special, whether it's a change in

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Speaker 2: routine or just doing something a little bit different, or

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Speaker 2: asking what matters right now. I also like this one

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Speaker 2: about did today matter? So you ask this question at

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Speaker 2: the end of the day, like looking back, and it's

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Speaker 2: really interesting because it's not like asking was it a

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Speaker 2: good day or a bad day? You know, like sometimes

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Speaker 2: you can actually have a bad day, but you feel

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Speaker 2: like you made some progress in something, You spend time

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Speaker 2: with people that you loved, like you actually felt alive

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Speaker 2: even though the day was kind of stressful for whatever reason.

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Speaker 2: Or you can have days in which everything was kind

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Speaker 2: of fine, but you look back and you're like, today,

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Speaker 2: I'm not really going to ever think about again. And

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Speaker 2: so if you think about did today matter and being

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Speaker 2: able to answer yes, today mattered because of A, B,

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Speaker 2: and C, and those answers might be different for each person,

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Speaker 2: that's helpful because the next day you want to do

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Speaker 2: more of those things, and you know, hopefully like build

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Speaker 2: up this streak of days that matter to you. So

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Speaker 2: I think all of those things together, it's like pointing

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Speaker 2: towards mindfulness, but maybe a way that's a little bit

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Speaker 2: different from how other people have gotten there.

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Speaker 1: It's an interesting question did today matter? I feel like

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Speaker 1: and I'm going to try this asking myself that question,

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Speaker 1: certainly at the end of today and hopefully for a

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Speaker 1: few days. But I feel like I would answer that, well,

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Speaker 1: of course it did, and I would look for the meaning,

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Speaker 1: which would ultimately be a good thing to reflect on, Well,

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Speaker 1: what did matter about today? Because I think as humans,

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Speaker 1: you know, we don't want to go I've just wasted

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Speaker 1: a day, even though I think a lot of people

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Speaker 1: have that thought. At the end of the day, today

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Speaker 1: felt like I wasted it. I missed around, you know,

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Speaker 1: I spent too much time on social media or whatever.

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Speaker 2: Sure, sure, okay, that's a good point. Yeah, so you

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Speaker 2: could like look back and find the meaning in it

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Speaker 2: and find what was special. But maybe here's another way

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Speaker 2: to think of it. Then, If so, if we think

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Speaker 2: about that pressure, another question is like how valuable were

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Speaker 2: my last forty minutes? And so this is a much

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Speaker 2: shorter time period, and I do think if most people

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Speaker 2: ask that question, there are lots of times during the

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Speaker 2: day that we will say the last forty minutes, I

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Speaker 2: don't know that they were that valuable. And so value

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Speaker 2: can also mean productivity. It can mean like satisfaction, enjoyment, learning,

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Speaker 2: you know, there's lots of different ways for your time

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Speaker 2: to be valuable. But if you if you say, at

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Speaker 2: any point during the day, actually the last forty minutes

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Speaker 2: not that valuable, then you can make a little shift

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Speaker 2: and be like, oh, what do I want to do

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Speaker 2: differently for the next forty minutes, And so it's not

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Speaker 2: that long of a time that you have wasted, and

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Speaker 2: it gives you a little chance to reset. Perhaps.

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Speaker 1: Yes, I love that question, and I'm curious how often

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Speaker 1: do you ask yourself that question.

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Speaker 2: A lot of these kind of activities and practices I

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Speaker 2: kind of cycle between and I'll be doing one for

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Speaker 2: a while and then I'll do something else for a while.

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Speaker 2: For a long time, I was really into the five

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Speaker 2: goals thing. Do you know that whole model of like

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Speaker 2: you can only have five things, and you make a

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Speaker 2: list of your top twenty five, and then you choose

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Speaker 2: like the top five and then the other twenty or

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Speaker 2: not things you do on the side. There are things

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Speaker 2: that you absolutely must not do because they're keeping you

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Speaker 2: from your five. That's a whole like other rubric. I

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Speaker 2: was into that for a while, and so every day

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Speaker 2: for like six months, I would have like a paper

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Speaker 2: journal and I would write down like one, two, three, four, five,

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Speaker 2: like did I do that?

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Speaker 1: You know?

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Speaker 2: But this is not like a lifelong practice. It's something

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Speaker 2: that helped me for a little while and then I

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Speaker 2: kind of moved on. So when you say, like this

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Speaker 2: particular one, how often am I doing it? I think

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Speaker 2: I'm probably doing it a couple times a day. But

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Speaker 2: it's not like I have like an alarm setup, you know,

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Speaker 2: on my phone, and it's not like I have a

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Speaker 2: journal that It's like that's the old old Chris would

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Speaker 2: have would have like systematized it and had it, like,

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Speaker 2: I don't know, built some spreadsheet or something for it.

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Speaker 2: And thankfully I don't do things like that now.

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Speaker 1: I hope you enjoyed this little quick win with Chris.

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Speaker 1: If you'd like to listen to the full interview, you

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Speaker 1: can find a link to that in the show notes.

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Speaker 1: If you like today's show, make sure you get follow

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Speaker 1: on your podcast app to be alerted when new episodes drop.

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Speaker 1: How I Work was recorded on the traditional land of

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Speaker 1: the Warrangery People, part of the Cooler Nation