Early Edition

Here’s an idea I’ve pitched to a few friends who have had some success with it. It’s not something I do because it doesn’t really address an issue I face myself. But you may find it beneficial.

Similar ideas may already exist in the self-help literature, but I don’t read much of that sort of thing so I don’t really know.

Here is the idea as I wrote it up in an email to my friend.

Here’s what you should do. Get yourself a blank notebook and every night before bed you should write a diary entry in it. So, for example, your entry might look like this:

July 15th

Woke up in a great mood today.

Ran three miles before work.

Got lunch with Tim and we went over some really strong ideas for the next season of the show.

After work I practiced guitar for a half-hour.

Then grilled up steaks for Kim and the girls and after dinner we went out for ice cream.

Afterwards I worked on the new book for a little bit and banged out a couple pages before relaxing for the rest of the evening.

Now, that might look like a pretty standard, even bland, diary entry. It doesn’t really delve too deep into your hopes and dreams or whatever. But that’s not the important thing about it. The important thing about it is that you write it on July 14th.

Get it? So it’s not a record of your day, it’s your intention for what the next day will bring, but you write it as if it already happened. So it’s part to-do list, and part intention-setting visualization exercise of what you want to get from the next day.

I suspect you will find your days will end up looking very similar to what you write.

So that was the idea I gave him—and some other people since then—and it seems to be working well for them.

Now, the people I suggest this to are people who have issues with anxiety or getting the things done that they plan to or people who find themselves entering into situations with a negative mindset. I don’t know the psychology of why it works (if it even does work, generally). But I’m guessing if you go into the day and you’ve already seen it in your mind being a success, then you’re more likely to get that outcome. And writing it down in the past tense just reinforces the strength of that process, I would imagine.

I would only write things in the book that are within your control, like your emotions and your actions. Don’t write things like, “And the yankees won. And I found a $100 bill. And a pretty lady said I’m the handsomest man she’s ever met.” It’s not supposed to be a book of your special wishes. It’s intended to be a book that focuses your mind for the coming day.

(Long time readers will recognize a similarity between this concept and something in The JAMM #12. It’s not quite the same idea, but it’s similar.)