I bought Sebastian Marshall‘s book, Ikigai, when it first came out. His is one of very few blogs that I read regularly, so I had high expectations for the book. And, hey… even if it’s not great, I like supporting people I respect.
As soon as I bought the book, I read the first chapter. It was the blog post that I mentioned in the isolation post. Oh, I thought, I guess this book is just a bunch of blog posts that I’ve already read. I stopped reading.
That was six months ago. These days I read about 2-3 books per week, which means that I have a really tough time keeping my reading list full. Last week I was searching through my Kindle to see if I had any half-finished books I’d forgotten about, and I decided to give Sebastian’s book another shot.
Man, am I glad I did. I’m not sure I’ve ever read a book with lessons that can be applied so quickly for such immediate results. Ikigai is one of the top few books I’ve read in 2012.
The focus of the book is rational and efficient productivity. Or at least that’s what I got most out of it. If you’re into that sort of thing, definitely read it.
I now plan my day every morning. Sebastian shares his daily planning routine, which I used as a rough template for my own. Every morning I record the time I went to bed the night before, the time I woke up, the time I brushed my teeth, the time I finish planning, and the time I finished writing a blog post (I’m writing one every single day, but not posting them all).
Recording the time you finish these things is a bit of subtle genius from Sebastian. When you record the time you finish something, you tend to do it earlier. Today I woke up and had two immediate phone calls that had to be made, which pushed my whole schedule back. As soon as I saw the time, I started doing my few morning things, including writing this post. Morning used to be my least productive time of day, but now I jump right in and start producing.
The rest of day planning consists of making a todo list for yourself. You’re supposed to create a list that you believe can be completed to 70%, but I’ve completed 90-100% every day, despite trying to make the list harder each time. It’s amazing how much you can get done when you have a plan and start early.
I use the tasks feature of Google Calendar for my todo list. It’s not amazing, but it’s good enough and keeps me looking at my calendar, which makes me more likely to schedule things and see when they’re happening.
At the end of the day, I do a quick five minute summary, as prescribed by Sebastian. I record whether or not I flossed, reflected on the possibility of death, and played my violin. I write down my key accomplishments for the day, my top life goals, a quick analysis of the day, and my top priority for the following day. Last, I record how many minutes I wasted, how many minutes I worked on SETT, and how many minutes I spent writing. RescueTime helps me come up with a rough estimate of these things.
There’s a lot more than planning your day in Ikigai, but that was the big value that I got from it. He also spends a lot of time covering the same sort of strategy and philosophies that I’m a big fan of and write about here.
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The great Alaska trip starts next Saturday. A few friends and I will be riding our motorcycles to Alaska for no real reason at all.
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