The Idea of “Zero Days”

I struggle often to carve out time to do the things I enjoy — especially writing. By writing, I mean working on my novel. I started this novel in grad school, way back in the summer of 2013. Sure, it’s gone through a lot of changes. Sure, the pandemic has really dampened my creative tendencies. And yes, life gets in the way a lot.

Are these just excuses? Partly yes, partly no. However, getting this novel finished will never happen without at least a small amount of work done on it every day — I know that much. Small, incremental progress is a must, and while it sounds like such a simple, easy-to-accomplish-thing, most days, it just isn’t.

I recently came across this article from Lifehacker. Or, came across it again, I should say, because of course I saved it, but never read it — hence, my re-discovery of it. It talks about the concept of “zero days” and explains how incorporating this into your a daily workflow can help you achieve long-term goals in an easier, less-stressful way.

According to the article:

Zero days are any day where you don’t accomplish anything toward a goal, which mean non-zero days are any where you do accomplish something, even if it’s small.

Sounds pretty simple, right? 

The article also says:

By acknowledging that any work, no matter how small in comparison to the overall project, is important and meaningful, you can be more motivated and build toward bigger accomplishments bit by bit, stopping you from getting overwhelmed.

I realized as I was making my way through the article that I’ve already adopted something similar when I talk about how much little victories matter to me. But I’ve made the decision to go all-in on this approach. I know it isn’t new or novel. I know it sounds simple to others. But for someone with ADD Brain™, it’s a way for me to accomplish things and still feel good about my progress — even if it is a small amount.

Little victories, you know?

The idea of accountability is always at the front of my mind with approaches like this, of course, but this time, it’s fairly simple. 

Write down your long-term goals.
Write down your short-term goals. 
Write down what you did to move toward those goals.

My plan for this is to establish a folder for it in Obsidian, then develop a simple template there as well. I’ll likely set that template as my Daily Note Template, as that’ll make it easy to bring it up and get things written down. I haven’t developed a template yet, but am hoping to get that done in the next couple of days.

I’ve also been considering posting my daily notes here on my blog. I’m not sure if I’ll do that quite yet, but I’ve got a little time to think it over, I suppose.

But here’s to the “Zero Day” approach!