Tony Edwards
I beat the sun up

I beat the sun up

- 1 min

For the first time in a long time, I beat the sun up.

But only because of the beeping.

You know the kind of day. Immediately upon waking, you reside yourself to the fact that the day ahead will be what it will be. You’ve just gotta get through it and control what you can control.

To help facilitate a life where this is the focus, I’ve been using Todoist. Starting with just a handful of repeating habits initially, it’s turned into a foundational part of managing a grown-up life. These are the processes that I want to trust.

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then is not an act but a habit.”

Will Durant, summing up Aristotle’s thoughts on excellence in The Story of Philosophy.

So I set about knocking tasks off the list before the sun had reared its warming head.

Make a healthy food choice. That glass of water upon waking counted. Check.

Wash face. Floss every other day. Check. Check.

Process Todoist. Well. There is a bunch of things there that simply cannot be done today. With a rescheduled and reorganised list, this get’s checked off too.

And it went on.

Read a page of a philosophy book. Read a page of non-fiction. Another healthy food choice. Do some german. Daydream. Message a friend. Make a wise input choice. Another healthy food choice. Be bored. Learn something new.

I followed the process over the day. Come the peaceful moment where the sun had fallen beneath the horizon, it had been whittled down to just those that I simply didn’t feel like doing, or were a lower priority than getting myself up to speed with a new job. Which itself is challenging on a day like today.

But it was a success, and a satisfying moment when I knocked off the last item I would before falling asleep.

Have a positive day. Check.

It’s amazing what you can do from a hospital bed when you trust the process.

This post contains affiliate links. If you click one and buy something, Tony may earn a small commission at no cost to you. Think of it as your way of supporting independent publishing. Thank you 🤗

rss twitter github youtube instagram linkedin stackoverflow mastodon