The Better Life · Life & Growth

Most of us start the day reacting. The alarm goes off, the phone lights up, and before we have had our first cup of coffee, other people’s priorities have already moved into our heads.

Over the years I have found that a few minutes of deliberate thinking at the start of the day changes everything that follows. Not a complicated routine. Just three questions. They are the heart of The Morning Three, the daily briefing I write for this site, and they fit on the back of an envelope.

1. Life: What matters most today?

Not what is urgent. Not what is loudest. What matters. It might be a difficult conversation with your teenager, finishing a proposal, visiting an elderly parent or simply getting your exercise in.

Your attention is one of your most valuable resources. If you do not decide where it goes, someone else will. Naming the one thing that matters most gives the rest of the day a center of gravity.

2. Leadership: Who needs me to listen?

Leadership is not only for people with a title. Every one of us influences someone: a colleague, a customer, a spouse, a child, a friend. The question is not “Who needs my advice today?” It is “Who needs me to listen?”

Think of one person and decide to give them your full attention when you see them. Ask a real question. Put the phone away. Listening is not the absence of leadership. Often, it is the beginning of understanding, and the start of better decisions.

3. Solutions: What is the next useful action?

Big problems paralyze us. We look at the whole mountain and decide we cannot climb it. But nobody climbs a mountain. They take the next step, and then the next.

Pick the problem that has been sitting on your mind and ask: what is the next useful action? Not the final answer. The next step. Send the email. Make the call. Write the first paragraph. A difficult problem becomes more manageable the moment you identify the next useful thing to do.

Turning questions into priorities

Once you have answered the three questions, turn them into three priorities for the day and write them down. Three is enough. A list of twelve is not a plan; it is a source of guilt.

If you need a starting point, try these:

• Do the most important thing first.
• Have one meaningful conversation.
• Make progress on a long-term goal.

At the end of the day, look back. Did you do them? If you did one out of three, that is still a day with direction. If you did none, ask why, without beating yourself up, and try again tomorrow.

At the end of my day, I usually take a moment to reflect and cherish the moment that makes me who I am and who I will be tomorrow.

Why it works

These questions work because they move you from reaction to intention. They take two or three minutes. They cover the three areas where most of us lose our way: our own life, the people around us, and the problems in front of us.

Ask them tomorrow morning. Then the morning after. In a month, you may find that your days feel less rushed and more meaningful, not because you did more, but because you did what mattered.

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Colin Beharie is a Jamaican-born author, business leader and speaker who has lived in Norway since 1987. Read The Morning Three every weekday, and join The Beharie Letter every Sunday.