Every night I take out an index card and write my schedule and to-do items for the next day. It starts out with meditation and my gratitude journal and it continues with the most difficult and mentally stressing task of the day.
After that, the mental tasks decrease in their importance and difficulty until I am doing a few menial "nice to have" tasks by the end of my work day. It may seem like military discipline that isn't "for me" according to many cultural creatives.
But discipline isn't about preventing play. It can actually work hand in hand with play in order to enhance your experience.
Discipline is Freedom
It may seem like a counterintuitive principle, but having discipline equals freedom. As Jocko Willink, Navy Seal veteran of the Iraq war, says having discipline in a situation can be extremely freeing.
When I put together my index card, I schedule in play from certain periods. This might seem regimented, but it is freeing because there is nothing else that can interrupt you during that time. When you have put in the time to complete other work or self-care, you are free to mentally enjoy the fruits of your labor in the play period.
One friend of mine described his routine in a similar way. He wakes up in the morning, drinks a butter coffee drink for focus and concentration, and then starts working on the hardest task of the day. By the time lunch roles around, he is ready to go outside and play in some way with peace of mind that the work is done.
In his famous book "The One Thing", author Gary Keller and Jay Papasan discuss how effective one can be when focusing on a single thing. For your life, this might mean, focus on one thing per day, make sure it is finished with all of your mental energy, and then you can play.
All the highest performers do this in one way or another. One car wreck lawyer, Chris Stoy, works on legal cases that fetch up to $27million in settlements. When I asked him how he maintains such elite performance in an already elite field he told me daily routine. "Sometimes I wake up as early as 3 am to get working in the early hours of the morning. There is nobody trying to get my attention so I can put all of my effort on my legal cases."
Adding More Discipline so Your Play is Better
These experiences aren't to make you more focused on your work and play less. Exactly the opposite. With this information you can easily learn how to get better work done and feel more free while you are playing. Here are a few tricks you can use to ensure you have discipline in your life:
- Wake up at a certain time - it doesn't have to be ultra early, but waking up at a certain time is going to make a big difference for your body's internal clock. It is also an act of discipline that grows over time.
- Make your bed - this is trivial and very military-esque, but if you make your bed, it is a small win in the morning to keep the momentum going in your favor. Now you have made your bed after waking up at the same time. Take this momentum forward.
- Clearly create space for play and work - it doesn't have to be an index card, but if you clearly separate the time you are dedicating to work and the time you dedicate to play, it will be better off for you.