I promised to report back today on the success of my 4-day win, which I shared earlier this week on Martha Beck's blog in Death to procrastination: Use the 4-day win to get your goals moving.
I encouraged readers to share their own goals and we got some specific
examples from Mike, Andy, Latarsha, Rosalind, Billionaire Strategies,
Glenda, Kizla, Jan Marie and Judy (see comments on the original post).
My 4-day win involved working on a book proposal, a task I have
tried to accomplish in the past (without success, and with great
consternation). My specific goals and rewards are in this worksheet
(click to enlarge):
I had fun using the tool and reported on my lessons learned here.
If you were doing the experiment yourself, please let me how it went by leaving a comment.
Turtle steps rule.
(Speaking of which, I heard a silly joke that made me laugh today, in the spirit of making slow progress:
Question: What did the snail say when it hitched a ride on the back of a turtle?
Answer: Weeeeeeeeee!)
Progress is relative, isn't it?
FYI the link to her site is dead. Has she moved?
—
Sorry – she did move platforms, so this link didn’t work. Fixed now!
-Pam
This has been a great exercise for me – and not an easy one. I still have a tendency to choose goals that are too large. My old habits are hard to break. 🙂 This week, I’m breaking my goals down even smaller. Looking forward to a reward has been motivating. The experiment continues…..
The 4-Day Win is a great way to make change fun and satisfying — I use this approach on a daily basis.
The beauty of small, specific tasks is that 1) you build up momentum (the kiss of death to procrastination!) and 2) you know when you’re done.
For me, the key is coming up with “ridiculously easy” tasks to overcome inertia. If I’m procrastinating writing my monthly newsletter, I tell myself all I have to do is open up a new Word document doc and save it. There’s no shame in starting with ridiculously easy if it gets you started! 🙂
Pam,
Another great book and method that is similar to this is the concept of 10 minute tasks, presented by the book Take 10! How to Achieve Your Someday Dreams in 10 Minutes a Day. The book you recommended and this one are great books because it makes it really easy to get motivated to do something!