Daily Highlight

What if you could plan the highlight of your day, everyday?

A cartoon

A thought

Returning to work has been way more challenging than I expected. The external pressures on my time have quickly ramped up. Luckily I’ve found a gem that is helping me stay sane - in the book Make Time - How to Focus on What Matters by Jake Knapp and John Zeratsky.

These guys are a refreshing breed of tech bros who work in Silicon Valley, rejecting the hustle and grind of always-on.

They outline 87 different tactics they have experimented with to develop a different relationship with their time. For me, one bold idea has stuck out and I’ve been able to adopt it effortlessly.

It is the Daily Highlight. In the morning or the night before, you decide what the highlight of your day will be - ahead of time. You plan your day to allow an hour or so to experience this highlight. It ensures that you spend time on what matters to you most and don’t lose the entire day reacting to other people’s priorities. It can be something fun, something fulfilling or something urgent - a thing, that at the end of the day will make you feel like it was a day well spent. As an example, in a day that included admin for tax returns and hours at the computer on reports, I scheduled an afternoon tea with my partner - I looked forward to that all day. On another day, when I was going to be busy with the kids, my highlight was 1.5 hours in the morning to clear an urgent quote, freeing me to enjoy the rest of the day and feeling the satisfaction of having got an important thing done.

I love the doability of this idea and the flexibility of the three categories (Urgency, Satisfaction and Joy). It is a beautiful way to feel like you have some control and some balance while allowing plenty of space for the chaos that usually erupts.

If you are a bit of a time nerd like me, Make Time ditches traditional time management and helps you make a personal plan for getting to the things most important to you - recommended!

Glimmers and sparks*

My glimmers for today are:

• The satisfaction of a work project going smoothly with a lovely outcome.

• A facetime call with my son from San Francisco, getting an update on all his adventures.

• Getting my Substack Summer Winter Recap. The rest of my family is way more into listening to music than I am; I’ve watched, slightly jealous as they compare their Spotify Wrapped each year - mine reads something like, you listened to 5 songs this year (I kid you not). But Substack introduced a seasonal recap! Yay - that is more my style!

Oh my! That is a lot of words! Fun to see my three favourites are solid gold Aussie authors. There is so much food for thought in

This is Precious

, Sarah Wilson’s courageous sense-making book serialisation. Brooke at

The Tortoise by Brooke McAlary

has been friendly voice in my ear for quiet, slow living for years, walking her talk to the extent that she recently stopped writing on Substack. Kemi’s

The Harvest with Kemi Nekvapil

is an infusion of her joyful, grounded outlook on life. Delighted to be able to share the journey with these wonderful women.

Li’l bean is your reminder to pause and ask: What are your glimmers for today?

From your friend and your small, steadfast companion,

*Drawing Li’l Bean helped me navigate out of a period of depression in 2023. A good friend 13, 595km away, helped, too, through a ritual of swapping daily glimmers via text.

A glimmer is a tiny spark of hope, enthusiasm or joy that lifts your heart. By helping me find three glimmers each day, she gently helped me see the joy and beauty already around me.

I’d like to share this practice with you and invite you to reflect on your glimmers for the day when you read this. Think of Li’l Bean as a reminder to notice the glimmers and sparks in your life. We’d love it if you would like to share your glimmers in the comments or by hitting reply (if you don’t like sharing publicly).