ColdShower #73🥶🚿 Minor setbacks, grading your week, and how to create viral LinkedIn content

It’s always a sunny day above the clouds.

Shower thought via Reddit.

The ColdShower: Weekly thoughts for better health, habits, and happiness. 

Brought to you by Leap Year

• Minor setbacks and getting back on track

• Planning Funnel Part 4 - Grading your week

• ⚙️How To Create Content With 1M+ Views On LinkedIn?

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Recharge: 🥶🚿Coldshower 🥶🚿

ColdShower: (noun), a daily recharge. Little bits of wisdom through life experience and cold water.

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What do we do when we fall off the horse?

We get an automobile….

We all know. We get back on. The horse needs reassurance that we’re okay and can keep riding.

But this is not a post about horses.

It takes how long to ruin a habit?

I’m not sure. But it sure feels like it can happen fast. As I write this I haven’t weight-trained in 15 days. I’ve traveled to 3 cities, been on vacation, and battled a cold and allergies. Somehow I still wrote this newsletter, but I feel the roots of my good habits being pulled from the dirt.

AND It’s only been two weeks….

It takes on average 30-60 days to build a good habit, but only a couple of missteps to lose one.

Saddle up

I know I am not alone. This is a familiar feeling. We all get thrown curveballs. We all get knocked down a bit from time to time.

It still feels like a crisis.

But it’s not. This past weekend, I “saddled up” and finished my weekly running miles (I’ve set out to do 20 miles per week). I have another opportunity to build a strong travel morning routine. And I’ll get back in the “gym”, wherever and whatever that means.

For anyone else battling back from injury, regaining a streak lost, or just now starting to put good habits in place; give yourself some grace in the process.

— Get back on the horse.

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Refine: 🗓️🌪️“planning funnel”🗓️🌪️

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Grading your week

Welcome to the 🗓️🌪️“Planning Funnel”🗓️🌪️, Part 4 - Weekly Planning. Need to catch up — check out the Prioritization Filter, Yearly, and Quarterly.

The glorious week. A manmade concept, not based on seasons or our trip around the sun.

How can we make the week work for us? — Moving from reacting to acting.

Following the 12-week plan, there are exactly 12 tries at planning and executing on the week.

Weekly Rhythm

The process is as follows:

• Every Monday morning (or at the start of your week), write down your top action items on paper. I use a separate sheet of paper for each quarterly goal.

  *This process forces you to revisit your quarterly goals each week, keeping what’s most important at the forefront of your planning.

• Rank in order of importance.

• Schedule big tasks out ahead of time on your calendar

• Grade your completion rate (tasks completed/intended) and reflect on your performance before starting the next week.

What I’ve experienced in practice

I’m on week 8. I’ve yet to get above 75% completion for any of my weekly plans. I hover around 50% 😭 most weeks. But I’m way more effective now than ever.

• I am completing more.

• I am doing more of the RIGHT things. The things that progress my quarterly goals.

• I can detect patterns in my work, better prioritize time, and more accurately forecast tasks.

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Rethink: 🚿😉SWSWAF🚿😉

SWSWAF (Save Water, Shower With a Friend): Collaborations with great writers, creators, and storytellers

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The Method

For over a year now I’ve been reading, The Method - a weekly newsletter helping operators get better at business. They’re entrepreneurs who bring real insight and value to every newsletter.

This week’s Rethink (via the method): ⚙️How To Create Content With 1M+ Views On LinkedIn?

Give it a read!

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Still On The Toilet?

• How Long It Takes to Break a Habit — and 7 Steps to Actually Do It

• Week origin & history

• The Method Newsletter

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THANK YOU for making it to the end!