The Power of The Daily Highlight
Daily highlights are powerful tools that everyone should be using to simultaneously motivate ourselves and get more things done. This game-breaking tool allows you to take control of your time and to do things that you really want to do.
What is the daily highlight?
The concept of the daily highlight comes from the book “Make Time“ by Jake Knapp and John Zeratsky. The concept is that each day, you decide on the single most important task you want to accomplish, set it into your schedule and then you make sure you do it. That’s all there is too it. The daily highlight brings clarity to your day and gives you something to look forward to amidst your busy day. The rationale is that if, for every day, you manage to accomplish only one thing that is important to you, you will be further along with your goals and ultimately be more fulfilled with your life. Your daily highlight should be important to you and it can be anything, it doesn’t have to be related to work. For example, it might be having lunch with friends, typing a paragraph in your assignment, phoning your parents to say hi, etc.
However, the daily highlight isn’t the only thing you’ll get done during the day; you’ll have other things to do. But if you can’t get to the other things on your to-do list, you can take pride in the fact that you got the most important thing done that day and feel good about yourself.
Why even have a daily highlight?
In our lives, we are constantly faced with distractions and overwhelmed with information from various sources such as social media and people. Knapp and Zeratsky describe the two opposing forces at play in everyone’s lives:
The Busy Bandwagon
Infinity Pools
The Busy Bandwagon is the societal expectation that we should always be busy. Taking a lunch break or sitting at your desk idly makes others view you as “lazy” while others who spend more time doing tasks, scheduling meetings, and running errands are perceived by society to be “productive” and “hardworking”. The thing is, people are given these labels based on how people perceive them; people could think someone is hardworking just because they are always at their computer typing, skipping lunch even if that person is just scrolling through emails. My point is, there is societal pressure to fill every waking minute with work and tasks to do, i.e. endless tasks.
On the other end of the spectrum, when we are overwhelmed from the forces of the Busy Bandwagon, Infinity pools lure us with their charms. Infinity pools take the form of binging on YouTube videos, frequently checking Facebook and Twitter for any new posts, playing Brick Breaker on your phone etc. They offer endless distractions and sap away the time we have for meaningful projects.
The purpose of the daily highlight is to provide clarity amidst the forces of the Busy Bandwagon and the Infinity Pools. The daily highlight gives you something to look forward to, something that you actually want to do, and to reflect on it fondly at the end of the day.
How to choose your daily highlight?
Knapp and Zeratsky propose that you ask yourself any of these three questions to help choose your daily highlight:
At the end of the day, what will bring me the most sense of satisfaction/accomplishment?
What is the most urgent thing that I have to do today?
When I think back to today, what will bring me the most joy?
Once you’ve chosen your daily highlight, slot it into your calendar, write it down and stick it somewhere where you have easy access to it throughout your day. This will serve as a reminder to get it done as you go about your day. Also, your daily highlight is not set in stone. Life happens and you are allowed to change it as you go about your day. For example, I planned to watch a movie with some friends but they suddenly cancel due to a personal emergency so I decide to treat myself by going out for dinner.
Also, a good guideline to follow is that the daily highlight should take between sixty to ninety minutes to complete as this is usually enough time to make substantial progress in most tasks.
Summary
A daily highlight is meant to empower your day and make you feel good about yourself. It gives you control of the time you have and allows you to be more intentional with how you spend your time. The daily highlight is completely personal as you decide what matters most to you.
Final Thoughts: Life update
Sorry for the lack of updates for the last two months. In mid-November, I had COVID (despite being fully vaccinated) but that thankfully it was only mild and I self-isolated at home. Then, just to be a bully, malaria decided to join the party while I was still recovering from COVID. Thankfully, I fully recovered from both and am back to writing blogs (though I still hate both COVID and malaria for bullying me)! It’s like, they had a deal to make my November miserable but couldn’t decide who would go first. Anyway…
I’m back! Expect more blogs and things to come from here on out.
Heri ya krismasi! Merry Christmas and happy holidays! Kuwa salama na kukuona karibuni hivi! (be safe and see you soon!)
