Why you should plan each day

Planning your day is the foundation habit.

Not because it’s the most important thing you do. It’s not. In fact, it’s probably less important than most of the things you will do in the day. And if you did them whether you planned the day or not, that would be great.

It is the foundation habit because it is the foundation of your other habits.

Planning the day forces you to think about what you’re going to do today. It also naturally makes you think about what you did yesterday.

By doing that, you have the first habit, the one that lets you build other habits.

Each day you will think about whether you did what you hoped to do.

Each day you will plan to do the things you want to turn into habits.

Right now I’m working on building about ten habits, from daily exercise, journal writing, and reading to working on a my hobby project (Minecraft), working on a side project for income, and flossing.

I’ve slowly built up this list, and it started years ago by building the habit of planning my day. Without that habit, I would never have made it as far as I have on the other ones.

So maybe you’ve got something you really know you need to start doing, like lifting weights or starting a side project.

Turn that something into a daily habit, and start planning each day. You won’t magically develop these habits over night, but months from now, you’ll look back and see that just planning each day made the difference you needed to get started.