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It’s first thing in your workday, and you open up your email. There’s a host of messages, old and new, asking for your attention. You also open up other inboxes in social media and the like. You quickly go through them and get a picture of what you need to get done right now.

But where do you start?

You begin one task from an email, but then quickly have the urge to see if there’s something else more important you should be doing. And this problem repeats itself — every time you sit down with one thing, the dozens of others on your mind (and the many potential urgent items that might be coming in as you sit there) are grasping for your attention.

Is there ever any certainty that you’re doing the right thing right now?

Does the worry that you’re doing the wrong thing ever go away?

This is something I’ve grappled with myself for years — I sit down to write (this post, for example), and the nagging feeling from the back of my mind pesters me, asks me to check email or my financial accounts or the calendar or various social media. Quieting this feeling isn’t always easy.

But still I get the important things done (usually). This comes from a small set of steps I take that help keep the forces of worry at bay.

I’ll lay out those steps in a moment — for now, let’s talk about where this worry comes from.

The Source of the Worry

Why does this worry come about in the first place? Why can’t we just be confident that this is the exact thing we need to be doing right now? That would be nice.

When we were kids, most of us had someone to tell us what to do. A parent or a teacher, who would give us a chore or assignment, and we knew this was what we should be doing. Of course, it wasn’t always what we wanted to be doing, so there was that. But there wasn’t doubt about what we should be doing, because it was laid out by an authority.

Then came adulthood, where things became not-so-clear. We became the boss of ourselves — even if theoretically we have a boss, in reality we have the ability to choose between a bunch of tasks and projects and communication tools, not to mention having to do personal stuff like laundry and cooking the healthy meals that we’re all obviously cooking for ourselves and picking up the kids. We are making choices all day long, with no one to tell us that these choices are correct.

We see other people pounding out the productivity, and imagine them to be rock solid in their choices, always sure they are doing the right task.

I’m here to tell you that this is an illusion. No one is sure, no one is free from the worry.

The worry comes because we want to be doing the perfect thing, and we also want not to mess up. This would be nice: no messing up a project, or our jobs, or that pesky little thing called life.

So we have the desire: not-to-mess-up or do-the-perfect-thing, and we have the fear (worry) that it won’t happen. This dynamic is present in every moment, in everything we do, unsaid and unnoticed most of the time, present only as background noise but also by nagging worry and urges to run to something else.

We can beat it by shining the light of our awareness on it, and digging in our heels against it, and being OK with it being there in the first place.

Steps to Deal with the Worry

OK, Leo, you say to your computer as you read this (I imagine you staring at the screen of a Macintosh Performa 5200) … just tell me what to do to defeat the forces of worry!

Right on:

1. Shine the brilliant light of awareness: Notice the worry as you sit down to do a task, or to contemplate what task to do. It’s there in the background. Turn your attention to it, and just notice it. Don’t fear it, don’t hate it, don’t worry about it. Just notice.
2. Accept it as a friend: It’s always there, and will always be there with you. This worry will go through life with you, much as your consciousness of your own existence does, for as long as your heart shall beat. Don’t fear it, don’t try to kill it. Instead, give it a hug. Embrace it. Accept it. Get used to it. You’re together for the long haul.
3. Welcome it along on an important task: Pick one task to do now. It can be anything, but choose something that feels important to your life and work. Something that you know will help others and yourself. There might be a bunch of them, so just choose quickly on gut instinct. Don’t worry, it doesn’t have to be the “perfect task”. Notice the worry coming along with you. That’s OK. Put your arm around its shoulder, and go along the path together, happy in your newfound friendship.
4. Set an intention to stick with the task: Before you actually start the task, make an agreement with your friend worry. You’re going to stick with this task, at least for 5 minutes, without switching or following the urge to check other things. For these glorious 5 minutes, you will be sure of one thing: you will do this task, no matter if it’s the perfect task or not. Because actually, my friends, the perfect task doesn’t exist, and the search for it is but a grailquest. Instead, focus on this one task, and be sure you’re going to stick with it.
5. Stick with the task: You probably saw this coming from the last step. The worry will come up — notice it, smile, embrace it like that friend you have who’s always doing crazy things, and then … stick with the task. You’ll be fine. It’ll be great, in fact. Triumphant and exultant.

And if you do these steps, you’ll get your task done, and then breathe. And smile. Because you came a long way, and you might have a long way to go, but you’re here. You’ve arrived. And it’s a lovely place to be.

The Worry That You’re Doing the Wrong Thing Right Now was originally posted on Zen Habits on 6/10/13.

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Our days fill up so fast, and are so rushed and filled with distractions, that they seem to be bursting.

It’s a huge source of stress for most people, and stress is perhaps the most important factor determining whether we’re healthy or sick.

So how can we simplify our days? It’s not incredibly hard, but I’ve found it’s best done in steps.

These are the steps I followed, though of course calling them “rules” means we should test them and break them as needed. No rules should be followed blindly. I’ve found these to work really well, though.

See below for my June Challenge to help you implement a simpler day.

9 Rules for a Simpler Day

These are the rules I suggest:

1. Know What’s Important. The simple version of simplifying is “Identify what’s important, and eliminate the rest.” So take time to identify the most important things in your life (4-5 things), and then see what activities, tasks, projects, meeting and commitments fit in with that list. Also take time each day to identify 1-3 Most Important Tasks (MITs), at the beginning of your day. Or the night before, for the next day.
2. Visualize Your Perfect Day. This is not so much because this “perfect day” will come true, as it is to understand what a simple day means to you. It’s different for each person — for me, it might mean some meditation and writing and spending time with my wife and kids. For others, it’s yoga and painting and a hot bath. For others, it’s time to focus on the important work, but still get other things done later in the day. Take a minute to visualize what it means to you.
3. Say No to Extra Commitments. Now that you’ve identified what’s important, along with the “perfect day”, you need to start saying “No” to things that aren’t on your important list, and that are standing in the way of the perfect day. The biggest thing you can say No to is a commitment — membership on a committee, involvement in a project, coaching or participating in a team, going to an event, being a partner in a business, etc. List and evaluate your commitments (professional, civic and personal), and say No to at least one. It just takes a call or email.
4. Limit Tasks. Each morning, list your 1-3 most important tasks. List other tasks you’d like to do. Say no to some of them. See if you can limit your list to 5-7 tasks per day (not counting little things, which you’ll batch). Limiting your tasks helps you focus, and acknowledges you’re not going to get everything done in one day.
5. Carve Out Un-distraction Time. When are you going to do your most important work? Schedule it with a block of time (1 hour, 2 hours, 4 hours, whatever works for you). Make this your most sacred appointment. Become incommunicado. Close the Internet, all notifications, hold all calls. Just do the most important task, then the next one if you have time.
6. Slow Down. We rush through our days, almost in a single frenetic anxiety-filled non-stop movement. Instead, slow down. Life won’t collapse if you aren’t rushing from task to task, email to email. You can pause, take a moment to reflect, smile, enjoy the current task before moving on.
7. Mindfully Single-task. Stop multi-tasking. One task at a time, with full focus on that task. Practice mindfulness as you do the task — it’s a form of meditation. Watch your thoughts wander to what you need to do later, but then return to the task at hand. Your day will be much simpler, and much more enjoyable, when you practice being present with your current task.
8. Batch Smaller Tasks, Then Let go. Email, paperwork, little things at the bottom of your task list (create a “small tasks” section at the bottom), minor phone calls, etc. … these shouldn’t get in the way of your important tasks. But they still need to be done sometime (unless you can let them go, which is best whenever possible). If you need to do them, batch them and do them in one go. It’s best to do these later in the day, when your energy is lower and you’ve done the important tasks for the day. Don’t let the small tasks get in the way of the big ones. When you’ve done a batch of small tasks (including processing email), let them go, and get out. You don’t want to do this all day, or even half a day.
9. Create Space Between. We cram our tasks and meetings together, and leave no spaces between them. The space between things is just as important as the things themselves. Leave a little space between meetings, even tasks. Take a break to stretch, walk around, get a glass of water, perhaps do some simple breathing meditation for a minute or two. Enjoy the space.

9 Rules for a Simpler Day was originally posted on Zen Habits on 5/29/13.

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Have you ever had a long amazing conversation with a friend, that took all kinds of turns neither of you could possibly have expected when you started the conversation? Wasn’t it awesome, to riff off each other, to explore unforeseen territory, to be free to wander and enjoy the time together?

What if, instead, you had a definite goal for how the conversation should go when you start out? A definite path and outcome of how you want the conversation to turn out? Let’s say you have an agenda, and every time one of you wandered off the agenda, you forced yourself to get back on it.

Would the conversation be better or worse, with a set outcome? Is it better to be free to wander, or to be set on one predetermined path?

I submit that the wandering is much better, much more amazing.

This is the goal-less path.

Why Work Without Goals?

For many years I was fixated on goals, but at the same time was also simplifying my work life and working on being more content. I realized two things:

1. Goals (wanting to improve) are not consistent with contentment (being happy with where you are).
2. Goals are not necessarily necessary (I thought they were for a long time, but they’re not) — and so using my minimalist philosophy, they should be ruthlessly eliminated.

And so I decided to experiment, and see whether goals were really necessary. I found out that they weren’t.

Here are the results of my (mostly) goal-less experiment:

• We often think goals are necessary to achieve something, but in reality they’re not.
• Goals, as I define them, are having a set outcome … but why is that outcome the only good outcome? There are many, many great outcomes, and being fixed on one is very limiting.
• Goals are completely made up, with not a lot of information about what will happen in the future as we work on them. We invent them, out of some fantasy of how we want the future to go, but in truth they’re not realistic. And we can’t predict or control how the future will go, so setting goals is a useless activity.
• When we fixate on goals, we shut ourselves off to new opportunities that open up in different directions — opportunities that we couldn’t have foreseen when we started out. But because we’re fixated on the goal, we don’t allow ourselves to go in this new direction.
• When we fail to reach this fantasy outcome (which is often), we feel bad. But if we let go of the fantasy, we can just enjoy the work.
• When we are fixated on achieving a future outcome, we are not looking at where we are, nor are we happy with where we are. We can’t be, because we are looking at the future goal, and this is what motivates us (not enjoying the moment).
• When we have a future-oriented mindset, it doesn’t end if/when we achieve the goal. We achieve the goal, then immediately look to the next goal.

That’s just the start of the discussion — I could go on and on about this, but essentially this is a big illusion that our society believes in.

The 4 Principles

So how do you work without goals? Do you just do nothing? No, of course not … people who love what they do will wake up wanting to do something fun, something that benefits the world. I know this because even without a set goal, I am always excited to work on something.

How does this work? Instead of working with a fixed outcome (goal), work from moment to moment, using principles that work for you. Each moment, don’t ask “am I doing something to move me to my goal?” but instead ask, “Am I doing something right now that’s based on one of my values or principles?”

Your principles will differ from mine, but here are the ones that I’ve found work for me:

1. Love what you do. This seems obvious, but so often people do things that they’re not excited about. I try to find things that I love doing, and if there’s some mundane task I have to do for some reason, I either eliminate it or find a way to enjoy the hell out of it.
2. Help others. I am strongly motivated by the desire to do things that will help people — my readers, my friends, my kids, people in need. And so this principle guides everything I do, including all of my writing. I highly recommend it.
3. Build relationships & trust. Each thing you do, personally and for your business, should be building a relationship. I build relationships with my readers by being authentic and trying my best to help, and build relationships with friends & family in the same way. Being trustworthy as much as humanly possible is a great way to build relationships, so these two go hand-in-hand.
4. Be curious. When you’re curious about other people, and about life in general, you tend to be a better listener, a better friend, more informed, and have fun each step along the way.

Those four principles work well for working with no goals. They also work well for having a goal-less conversation, or wandering the world, or collaborating with people.

So wake up in the morning, and instead of figuring out how to further your goals, ask what you really feel like doing right now. What will make you happy now, instead of some distant time in the future? I submit that long-term goals, some nebulous fantasy in the future, aren’t that motivating — we’re more motivated by something that can pay off now, which includes things that make us happy as we do them.

As you figure out what you feel like doing right now, consider these four principles. And then take action, knowing that you’re helping people, building trust and relationships, making yourself happy, and satisfying your natural curiosity about others and the world.

Then repeat that, each step along your daily journey. Each step along the way, you’re doing something you love, something in line with your principles. You’re not just lining yourself up with some predetermined outcome, but you are already there.

Questions & Answers

Some common questions I get asked a lot:

Q: Isn’t having no goals a goal?

A: It can be a goal, or you can learn to do it along the journey, by exploring new methods. I’m always learning new things (like having no goals) without setting out to learn them in the first place.

Q: So how do you make a living?

A: Passionately! Again, not having goals doesn’t mean you stop doing things. In fact, I do many things, all the time, but I do them because I love doing them.

Q: Isn’t it easy for you to give up goals now that you’re successful?

A: Sure, that might make it easier, but really it’s not the success that has helped me give up my goals … it’s my contentment with who I am. I know that I’m a good person, and am happy with who I am, and know that I’ll be OK no matter what outcomes turn up. That’s true for pretty much everyone reading this, no matter how much “success” you have.

Q: Don’t you really have goals when you do something, like write this article or try to follow your 4 principles?

A: Sure, you can call them that if you want. The terminology isn’t that important — the principles are. My definition of goals is having a predetermined outcome (something you want to happen in the future), and most people don’t call “write an article” a goal. Their goals are more along the lines of “get a lot of readers” or “make a lot of money” or “complete X”. So if you want to say I have goals, that’s fine, but just realize that for me, the process itself is the goal.

Q: How do you start down the path of no goals, if you’re used to having goals?

A: Just start following the four principles (or your own principles) right now. Like, in this very moment. When you find yourself coming up with a goal (and I do all the time), recognize that, and realize that it’s a fantasy, and let it go, gently.

Achieving Without Goals was originally posted on Zen Habits on 4/24/13.