I forget how I stumbled upon this inspiring article (https://www.inc.com/peter-economy/this-navy-seal-says-doing-just-1-daily-chore-is-far-more-inspiring-than-you-know.html) about productivity and the magic of making your bed, but I’m glad I did. Thanks to Peter Economy for writing it and for Admiral William McRaven for speaking the words you’ll hear in this video.
How can you have a more productive day? Simple, says Admiral McRaven, a retired Navy SEAL. Make your bed. Delivered in 2014 during commencement at the University of Texas at Austin, this suggestion elicited friendly laughter from the audience. And yet it makes a great deal of sense. If you make your bed, then you can move on to the next task, and the next, and the next. At the end of the day, you’ll be able to look at a track record of accomplishments—some minor, some more significant—that will make you feel good and say something about you as a human being. As the admiral points out, if you can’t accomplish the small stuff, you’ll be unlikely to do the big stuff either.
And if you’ve had a bad day, then at the end of it, you can take comfort in a made bed—a bed that you made yourself—and the hope of a better day tomorrow. Parenthetically, I remember reading a book on simplifying your life that advocated against making your bed each morning. The author’s message was, “If it was good enough to get out of, it’s good enough to get back into.” (I liked a lot of her ideas, but this is one with which I vigorously disagree.)
In his article, Mr. Economy quotes business writer Charles Duhigg in his book The Power of Habit, which I plan to pick up sooner rather than later. Mr. Duhigg looks at the science behind habit and, like the admiral, believes that actions such as making your bed can “start chain reactions that help other good habits take hold.” The seemingly simple can be really profound, and I have a better idea, now, of why making up my bed in the morning is an unalterable routine and why it sets the tone of the whole day. Thank you, admiral, and thank you, Mom.
Image: Dmitry Kalinovsky – 1234rf.com
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