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This week: Thoughts on consistency and opportunities, one by me and another by a Jazz legend, plus, the “trapeze strategy” for making changes in your life.
Tomorrow Hasn’t Happened Yet
We live in a frantic world, and no productivity tactic can prevent shit from happening. A flat tire, a bug in production, a sick kid home from school; there’s an infinite number of events that can get in the way of our plans.
Last week, we talked about the “don’t break the chain” tactic and how its value is not in how long your streak gets but in how many overall red crosses you can draw on your calendar. It bears repeating: It doesn’t matter if you break the chain, only how many reps you accumulate in the long run.
It’s okay to falter, to fail. You and I are real people, not the idealized infallible human that so much productivity advice is directed to.
Tomorrow hasn’t happened yet. Maybe you ate a slice of cake while on a diet, or your child kept you up at night, and you were too tired to wake up early to work on your side project. As we say in Australia, no dramas! Today might not be going to plan, but tomorrow is ripe for opportunity.
Don’t let a bump in the road stop you from continuing to add red crosses to your calendar.
Miles Davis on don’t break the chain
There’s a quote attributed to Jazz legend Miles Davis that summarizes the message of my recent meandering on “don’t break the chain” and consistency:
When you hit a wrong note, it’s the next note that makes it good or bad.
Trapeze Strategy
Changing topic, in the previous Mindful Meandering issue I wrote about my plan for the current 5 weeks iteration.
While I was writing that issue, I was reminded of Scott Pape’s trapeze strategy, as featured in the book The Barefoot Investor: Don’t let go of the bar (your secure paycheque) until you’re safely holding the next one (your successful business).
The advice can seem obvious when considering our income stream, but there are other areas of life in which we might go all in too quickly. The trapeze strategy can be generalized to any change you want to make in your life.
Test things out before going all in. Take a swing on the trapeze, and see how things are on the other side, but only jump there once you are sure about them.