The most productive and successful made [the activity] a smaller part of their daily routine than the others, so that it was much more feasible to keep going with it day after day.
Oliver Burkeman
No matter what your “work” is you can build a better work routine by practicing patience.
In Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals, Oliver Burkeman shares how facing our finitude, our understanding our limitations, can help us to use our time more wisely.
What I found most interesting was how he connected our impatience and our tendency to avoid uncomfortable feelings with our desire to speed things up. He suggests instead radical incrementalism, or the notion that we should make small progress more frequently.
Part of this also requires stopping:
Stopping helps strengthen the muscle of paitnece that will permit you to return to the project again and again.
This helps to explain why my motto works!
One baby step is far better than leaps not taken.
The Lighthouse Method®*
Making small increments helps us to have the patience to keep going! And when we have that patience, we can build better routines.
Gardening notes
I love growing dahlias. To encourage more growth, they say you should cut the blooms. This allows my family and me to enjoy them indoors. The dahlia pictured here is a decorative David Howard.
Want more time management tips?
Check out my mini-course.
Learn more about Stacy’s Book Notes.
Sign up to receive a monthly digest of book notes via email.
*Some of the links on this page are “affiliate links” where I receive a small commission from any purchases at no cost to you. Some of these funds will be donated to organizations supporting women and girls.