How’s Your day?
How many times have you gotten that question? 100. 1,000. More like 10,000+
Most people answer, “fine,” “okay,” “boring,” “meh.”
The more truthful you are with others the better relationship you will be able to form.
It got me thinking what are the elements of a Great day.
If you knew what it would take to make a great day, that makes it infinitesimally (big word!) easier to make it a reality.
Just imagine. If you knew what you what it took to create your own great day, you can do it as often as you’d like.
I wrote down what my great day looked like and wanted to share:
- Have a good nights rest (7+ hours)
- Honest and insightful breakfast with a friend. Delicious coffee and a conversation that left me feeling more energized after it was over.
- Set out a productive to-do list and accomplished all my items.
- Allowed / enabled myself to work on things that are fun for me.
- Healthy lunch at Koriente with Laura Roeder (obviously not everyday:P ). Includes new insights about myself and able to share some widsom to her as well.
- The ability to be vulnerable to my business partner Chad and have a productive conversation.
- Went for a jog. (I’ve learned a lot from running…)
- Promoted a great product (one that I love and use) on AppSumo and the sales did well.
- Text with some girls I like.
- Happy to control / do / change what I can in my environment relating to work. Making things better / improved vs waiting around for changes to happen..
- Congruency and clarity of thought and actions throughout the day.
- Empowered the people around me to be better
- Had a great balance of energy level throughout the day
- Ate a delicious home-made Jerk Chicken and quinoa. Bonus if I created a new smoothie with my Vitamix that tastes amazing.
- Double Bonus if I can share this over a great conversation with a close friend.
One of the things I do every morning is ask myself what would make today great.
It doesn’t have to be a big thing. It can be lunch with friends, making a smoothie, eating a taco or accomplishing something at work.
(When I don’t have great days, I have 36 ways to deal with depression.)
What does your great day look like? How do you make a day great?
21 responses to “How to Make a Great Day”
Wow, this is so good Noah. You’re truly changing my life, one blog at a time.
One thing that will also help is to VISUALIZE your perfect day. Since I suck at visualizing, I just grabbed all the perfect images off of Google image search and put em in a nice detailed blog post. Check it out! https://medium.com/p/482c8ed9fea3
I did my perfect day yesterday, it was great! I didn’t know that you wrote this post until today. I heard you mention it in the “sumo slump” video.
I think everyone should have index cards with different variations of perfect days. Workdays vs. weekends. Relaxation day vs. health day vs. productivity day ect.. Also another one for good and bad weather.
When you wake up, grab a card figure out what kinda day it will be. hybrid days are cool too! The point is to know what you’re aiming for.
Really good stuff Noah. Please do not stop.
-Chris
I personally like to keep mine simple.
Night before:
– Read 30-60 mins before sleeping (helps me unwind)
Morning:
– Wake at 6:23 (I’ve found that an odd number works better than a more rounded number when setting an alarm time)
– Read a chapter of an intellectually stimulating book in bed with a glass of grapefruit juice
– Have a high protein breakfast… on top of two wholemeal pancakes
– Play! (For 10 -15mins)
– And my favorite part… I have a reminder from my Commit app that asks “Did you have a great day today?”. I answer Yes before I step out of my front door and this sets me up for a great day!
Muchos Loveos
Huw
A great day for me is all about how I feel. So at the beginning of my great day, I’d
-wake up feeling energized and peaceful
-focus by setting intentions for what I’d like to do, be, have and give
-do a few check-ins throughout the day to stay focused (I like the idea of the phone alarm)
At the end of the day I’d
-Review the day with appreciation for what manifested and what didn’t
-feel love, gratitude and satisfaction
I appreciate you for making me think more intentionally about my great day.
BTW, I think you meant to use the word “infinitely” in your post. “Infinitesimally” means a really, really small amount. 🙂
Noah,
There’s an above comment about what your daily routine consists of, where you responded what you do in the morning. I’m curious, though, what did you do when you weren’t successful? I can’t help but think of how you got to this moment of your life. I’m wondering if anything changed from when you weren’t successful, to now. I could be wrong, but I kind of imagine you as a laid back guy who doesn’t have to worry about things financially as much as myself, and has a slightly carefree life.
Thanks, wonderful article.
John
I suscribed to this blog after reading a random facebook-article about you, and thought I would read about technology and apps and stuff like that…..This blog is not what I thought it was. It’s way better! I believe I will be a frequent visitor here. Thank’s for a great read! Have a great day!
For me, an amazing day includes:
Spending at least 30 min on the following:
– Working out
– Kicking ass at school (for hopefully more than 30min 🙂
– Doing something social (rock climbing, going out with friends, facebook, whatever)
– Study
– Working on side project
– Read, listen or watch something that makes me learn something useful.
+ having an awesome time and share that with whomever I am around during the day 🙂
Great post Noah,
Your great day sort of reminds of mine
1. Wake up and read post-it note by bed, “What are you going to do today to make your life better.”
1. Breakfast with the lady. (Coffee has to be part of this combo)
2. Listen to business audiobooks on the way to work.
3. Create daily to-do list
4. Empower clients.
5. Listen to dance/euro/trance music, fist-pumping all the way back home.
6. Read business related book (one chapter)
7. Healthy homemade Dinner with the lady.
8. Come up with 5 more business ideas.
9. Take action validating aforementioned business ideas.
10. Photoshop the heck out of my friends and colleagues.
11. Read other post-it note by bed, “What have you done today to make your life better.”
12. Smile, knowing I’ve done just that.
Please tell us more about this jerk chicken and quinoa…. sounds delicious.
Also, I’d also be interested in hearing more about what you meant by this: “The ability to be vulnerable to my business partner Chad and have a productive conversation.”
I imagine you have some wisdom to impart on the topic of business partner dynamics?
1. Get up early, just before sunrise.
2. Caffe Latte. Taste the delicious heat just before it burns.
3. Watch birds feeding sunflower seeds in morning fog.
4. Hug with sleepy kid on couch. Nose in sweet smelling hair.
5. Sail through “Getting Ready For Kindergarten” without stress and anger.
6. Drive to work singing slong some hits on radio.
7. Spread good vibes among colleagues.
8. Take some good decisions.
9. Be efficient, spontanious and chaotic at once (it is possible).
10. Please somebody.
11. Buy a pair of shoes.
12. Move and strech and have a run in the woods.
13. Read a good book.
14. Come across an inspiring blog post (like this one).
15. Soundly sleep 7+ hours.
Hey, you know what? I had a lot of them lately, now that I think of it :). Thank you world!
Great post, Noah.
Waking to sunshine makes me automatically know it’s going to be a great day. Consequently, I feel I function at a higher level. More productive. Healthier actions. More meaningful interactions.
Vince, I think you mean “infinitely,” not “infinitesimally”( microscopic, exceedingly small).
great day:
(i might need to lower my standards)
-plenty of sleep, 7 hours+
-waking earlier than needed for any commitments, 7am
–eat protein breakfast, devos, light workout, newsmap.jp, review what i want to accomplish
-get a coffee, zero in on one or two creation things
-read at least 20-50 pages of a business book
-clean my office/work space/desktop
-inbox zero
-helping people, apply devotion if possible
-eat lunch with a friend, go for a walk
-watch an hour of a show i like, or look up latest tech news
-another timed block for any client work, agreed work
-go for a run, workout, fitocracy, 4hb stuffs
-cook dinner, or eat out with wife
-talk/video chat with friends, watch tv, play games, read fiction, drink wine
-watch wife play ipad games until i doze off
those things constitute an everyday good day for me. failure to find motivation/accomplish any creative work, or progress on agreed work and instead just shuffle stuff around not really accomplishing anything usually makes the day feel eh and starts a cycle to try and make up for it somehow, usually killing the next day from potentially being great.
waking earlier than needed greatly increases the chances everything else will happen.
cool exercise!
I don’t do it often enough but I try to set an alarm at 6:28am and take a minute or two to appreciate the day before I get up. In a sense, a great day is every day that I wake up and am not dead yet.
Hey pal,
Great seeing you write more and more about inner stuff.
I wanted to share my motto: “Your life is today” which at first doesn’t say much, but to me it has a deep meaning.
It’s break down goes:
Enjoy (Smile/Connect/Laugh), Read (Learn/Grow), Exercise, Meditate, Connect, Visualize to have an awesome day.
Hope it adds to the conversation 🙂
Gonzo
P.S. Noah, maybe you want to try Disqus comments, they’re much more friendly to interact and build community among people you reach. Just a thought.
Good day for me:
-sleep
-get my todo list done at work (hopefully most of it is fun)
-exercise
-eat a good dinner
-read
-be productive on side biz
-good conversations with friends and fam
Loving these new blog posts infinitesimally my man… keep them coming! Something I’ve started doing is setting regular interval alarms on my phone for routine check. Asking myself Qs like ‘Are you being productive? How can today be better?’. I find that it helps bring back some focus as the day wears on
Love that idea. May try it out!
Usually snuggling with my wife and my toddler makes me feel all warm and fuzzy in my chest area.
Good post! What I’m trying to personally master these days is when you get out of bed and you think it will be awesome but then disaster awaits. Trying to stay positive throughout the day dealing with the disaster or catastrophe and knowing that tomorrow will be better than today definitely helps.
But luckily difficult situations get slightly more easier to deal with over time.
Hey John
Glad you lost your comment virginity with me 🙂
Be happy to do a future post about that!
Simply:
1- Make bed
2- Eat same breakfast: oatmeal, protein smoothie, egg whites + veggies + ham
3- Read
4- Brush teeth
5- Meditate
Certainly not the most banter-y thing to say – but in all sincerity, this is the first comment I’ve left on a blog. Just wanted to say thanks for saying something so simple, yet so meaningful. Gives me pause to wonder what my ideal day looks like (certainly with some cheeky drink plans from texting those girls 😉 ).
Out of curiosity – do you have any sort of daily routine? Would be curious to see if such a thing helps encourage “gread days.” i.e. if you can almost make great days a habit, by first forming a bunch of smaller habits…
Cheers Noah.
John