Check out my book – Attention! The Power of Simple Decisions in a Distracted World.
I coach business leaders and executives helping them gain clarity, focus, and make better decisions. You can schedule a Discovery Call to learn more about it here.
Click here to subscribe to the Simple Decisions series.
Transcript
Hey there, it’s Rob hatch and welcome to simple decisions in my book. Attention. One of the things that I talk about that’s super helpful for setting up my day is the concept of last night guy. And tomorrow guy, we’re gonna talk about last night and tomorrow first. And when we’re gonna expand this out last night guy is the guy that takes care of everything that I need him to take care of.
So that tomorrow guy has a great. The example that I like to share is that if my spouse, my wife, in my case or significant other, if someone you knew and loved was going to have a very busy day or very busy morning had important things to get to, they were gonna be having to wake up early. One of the things you might do is help them get prepared the night before you might help them make sure that their laundry is done.
Make sure that everything they, you know, have everything they need. Is all set and packed. If they’re going away, you might make the coffee for them, all these little things to make their day getting out and starting their day. That much easier. The thing is we don’t do that for ourselves. We don’t always take care of our own needs in the same way.
So one of the things that I like to do is like to think about what tomorrow guy needs. And I actually have a list each night around eight o’clock last night guy. Tonight guy in this case gets a reminder with that list, a link to that list. I use Google keep to keep my list. I’ll tell you why in a minute, but I, I get my little list.
It’s what I call an action stack. And I go through that list to make sure the things that will make my morning better are all set and prepared so that when I wake up, I am ready to go. One of those things might. reviewing my day before I enter it. I don’t want to do that first thing in the morning.
And as I’m getting ready, I want to know that everything’s set. I there’s. The other thing on my list, that’s really simple is just making sure the coffee’s ready. I’ve clean out the coffee maker put in new grounds or whatever, and just take care of that. So just these little acts to make sure that tomorrow guy tomorrow, Rob.
Is taken care of and has an easier day of it. We get to choose how we want to enter the day. We don’t have to react to everything. We don’t have to pick up our phones. We don’t have to. There’s so many things we don’t have to do, and we can kind of set the stage for ourselves the night before. you can expand this idea and, and think about what is next week guy gonna need, what is next year guy gonna need?
What is retirement guy going to need? And what this does is takes us out of the moment where we are making decisions and often bad decisions. And we think with an element of compassion for tomorrow guy or next week guy, or next year guy, And help set the stage, have little reminders to do things make sure you’re saving enough money for your retirement or whatever it may be that you want in the future, whatever you think future Rob is going to need.
You get to decide now before you find yourself in that predicament, before I enter the day tomorrow, I’m gonna be sure that everything is ready. So that’s it. That’s your simple decision for the day. Take a moment. It’s afternoon. Whenever you have some time and write down some of the things that would make your day, that much easier, make a little list for yourself.
Again, I use Google keep, I like when I check off the boxes, it crosses it out and then I can restore the whole list. So it helps me move through the list pretty quickly but make that list for yourself. And what would make your day easier? Choose just three things or five things that you can get done to in the evening.
At night to make sure that tomorrow you is gonna have a great start to their day. That’s it. I’m Rob hatch. And this has been simple decisions.