A Surefire Way of Increasing your Everyday Happiness

This exceedingly simple system can change your life for the better.

Photo by Diego Lozano on Unsplash

I want you to do something right now. Open your journal (if you don’t have one — a blank sheet of paper will suffice), pick up your pen, and write down that one daily task you keep telling yourself that you’ll get to, but somehow never do. This might be a workout routine, writing 1000 words of your book/screenplay, studying the market to pick the best stock picks, or that long-promised meditation practice.

It must be an activity that you’ve convinced yourself you need to do to change your circumstances for the better, but can never get around to because life gets in the way.

It shouldn’t require too much thought. You’ll know what it is because it occupies your daily thoughts. Your failure to act creates feelings of guilt that pervades your resting hours, your lunch breaks, and even happy hour at the local watering hole. Weekends become a struggle between forcing yourself to work on this activity and enjoying some well-deserved time off.

Have you figured out what the activity is and written it down? Good — it’s time to act.

Set your morning alarm two hours earlier than usual.