🚀 30-Day Productivity Challenge -Day 2
👋 Hey Friends,
Welcome back to the 30-Day Productivity Challenge. Today we have day number two, and I am excited to both finish my 1,000 words of writing (800 words left at this point) and learn more about productivity with you.
Yesterday was all about committing ourselves to this 30-day challenge, and I started with a public commitment by sharing my ideas within this post. Reflecting on this, I can say that I am a bit frightened that these blog entries will not bring any value to you guys. Therefore, I asked myself the following question:
Would I still do this if it failed and would help absolutely no one?
My answer would be yes since this provides fundamental value to myself and bringing value to you guys is a great addition. So let’s jump into what Ali has to say for day number two:
In the first week of this challenge, Ali wants us to think about our goals in life. A great quote by Seneca, an ancient Stoic philosopher, is used to resonate that idea:
“If a man knows not which port he sails, no wind is favourable.”
In hindsight, this means that no matter how great your systems of productivity are, you will never reach a certain destination if you haven’t set a destination.
When you launch a space probe out to explore the solar system and its planets you have to set a certain destination, for example, Mars. If the space prob wouldn’t have that destination, it would potentially be effective and efficient at covering large distances in a short amount of time. But it would never reach its goal, since no goal can be reached.
To bring this metaphor back into reality, it can be said that no matter how efficiently you work, your work is useless if you have no destination or goal you want to hit.
🚀 Setting good goals
In the past year, I struggled with setting good goals. My usual goals looked something like this:
- ❌ Improve my health.
- ❌ Read more books.
- ❌ Become a better teacher.
- …
What is the problem with setting such goals? They are simply too vague and don’t cover all areas of life. If I want to set a precise goal that is manageable, I need to pursue meaningful objects and use clarity to my advantage. This way I can transform my 2023 goals:
- 🏃Run a half-marathon in under 2 hours and 30 minutes by August
- 📚 Read 5 science books, 2 philosophy books and 1 fiction book in the first four months of 2024
- 🧑🏫 Learn about complex analysis and teach about it twice this year in your newsletter.
- ⛹️♀️ Meet with friends at least twice monthly.
- …
The Difference now is that the new goals cover different parts of my life and are all defined with numbers to be trackable. The last thing I want to cover today is briefly thinking about my goals for 2024.
Ali puts this into perspective as to great a broad overview of our goals so that we can zoom in over the next couple of days. My goals for 2024 could look something like this:
| Career/ School | Health | Learning | Relationships | Personal Growth |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stay at current score | Continue running | Learn Stoic philosophy | Improve family relations | Learn about my fears |
| Have fun | Improve spirituality | Read Feynman I | Go on more dates with my girlfriend | Strengthen my writing |
| Extra credit work | Continue Push-Ups | Read relationship books | Meet with friends | Reflect on my actions |
These goals do not fulfil the criteria I have mentioned before, but that isn’t the goal here. With this exercise, we only wanted to get an overview of what’s important to us so that we can later look at this table and transform the ideas that are most important to us into actual goals.
Try it yourself and I will see you tomorrow! 😄
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Thanks again and I'll see you soon.
Victor (@observethecosmos)
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