The Needs of a Day

What does a day need to become a good day? I asked myself this recently. Only I didn’t have a clear answer. Instead of knowing the type of things that I should pursue, I’ve just been floundering in the general direction of my goals. Without a clear understanding of what I need to do to have a good day, I haven’t been able to prioritize those things.

Kittens and Alligators

So I started looking at the last few good days that I had. What exactly did I do that made them good? I felt in control of myself, and I made progress towards my goals. What did I do on all of these days? I exercised, and ate healthy food. I worked towards my goals in the morning and during the evening.

But was that enough? Were there any days where I did these things (or at least started doing them) but didn’t have a good day? Yes, there were many. I could start out well, but turn my good day into a bad one in a lot of different ways. A frustrating meeting would work. Or a steady stream of interruptions. Or avoiding an important task with less important ones.

That reminded me of an article I read a while ago. The basic idea is that life has alligators (things that make you miserable), and kittens (things that bring you joy). If you have both you’ll always focus on the alligators, so you should try to get rid of those first.

What are my alligators?

This insight changed my question a bit. What actions could I take that would inevitably lead to a bad day? I took out a sheet of paper and wrote down all of the ways I had made myself miserable recently. For some items, I didn’t write down a specific action (e.g. poor diet). In those cases, I listed the specific actions I most often took to cause that result (overeating junk food, over snacking). Then I condensed them into two major themes: personal hygiene (sleep, exercise, diet), and acting intentionally (confronting problems instead of avoiding them, focusing on my goals).

And my kittens?

I now have a list of ways that I can use to ruin my days. Or more accurately, a list of things to avoid doing in order to have a good day. So I rewrote their opposites as specific actions. So ‘overeating junk food’ became ‘purchasing small portions of junk food,’ and ‘avoiding important tasks’ became ‘start on your most important tasks.’

What about you?

What things cause you to have a bad day most often? What specific action can you take to make sure that this does not sink your days?