005: Why 400?

On starting early, and doing extra.

#Commitment #goals #focus

A few days ago. I told you that I’m committing to write 400 newsletters about closing the Taste Gap.

Some readers have asked why 400?

Why not 100, 500, or 365?

Those are the ‘right’ numbers right?

Well the reason is actually trivial and just particular to me, but I thought it be worth writing about to maybe inspire you to think about what the right numbers are for you.

One reader committed to writing 10 newsletters and got started, and I think that’s great!

So why 400…

Every year I write some goals for the year, this year I’ve managed to achieve most of them, and decided I no longer want to pursue some of the others.

Not having goals weight heavily on me because there are so many possibilities of what I could be doing. But rather than split my energy to hundreds of activities, I want to concentrate them on a few, I picked the top goals.

One of the goals was to articulate for myself the gap between where I am and where I want to be in my art. And since I’m going to be doing that thinking, I might as well write about it.

And since I’m going to write about it, I might as well share it with you. Knowing I’ll be sharing it with you will sharpen my thinking, and give this newsletter some needed focus.

The reason it’s 400 is that it’s next years goal, and I’m staring about 50 days early, so a year and a bit extra is 400. I’m starting next years goals now.

365 + extra

I’m not trying to peddle toxic productivity (which is a thing) . I get the most work done early in the day between 4 and 8 am. Because it gets noisy and distracting later in the day. It’s the same with starting a new year. There will be parties and distraction hardly the right conditions to reflect and plan.

Close the gap

Start early, do extra.