Nearing the end of the Pentathlon, I see the impact of incremental, focused action.
- Set a daily performance objective. Aim low. Make it easy to accomplish.
- Just a few.
- Do it daily for two weeks. Remember: a week is 7 days. Does your life exist only Monday to Friday? No.
- See traction.
- See the mindset spillover.
The Pentathlon asks you to set targets in sleep patterns (lights out time and waking time), fitness, daily planning, concentrated work on your most important project, and nutrition. Only in fitness did I set a semitough target.
“Decision made, action taken”. That is the positive loop that I have experienced in the last two weeks.
The way the targets are defined is binary: either I was in bed with lights out at 10:30 pm or I wasn’t. 10:31 pm is a fail.
This is a useful way to approach actions. It’s clear, unambiguous. What’s interesting is that I am using binary judgments to move forward on analog objectives: getting better, and there is no binary scoring of whether I’m better or not.
Via negativa showed up in my nutrition goals: don’t eat any of the free snacks in the kitchen at work. This probably removed 600 – 800 calories a day from my food intake.
Daily planning is interesting. I’m at the stage where I cheerfully admit that I’m a failure at it, yet I make a plan daily and maybe accomplish half of what I list on paper. Right now all I am trying to accomplish is the act of daily planning. The accomplishment of tasks comes later.
The Pentathlon runs a couple more days. I plan to do it again, alone, for another two week cycle.
Lessons:
- Modest goals.
- Just a few.
- Goals focused on removing rather than adding. Simplifying, not complicating.
- Binary metrics. I did or I did not hit the target.
- Honesty. Don’t lie to yourself about hitting the target when you didn’t.
- Again and again. Sameness, repetition. There is power in boredom.