The Focus Course

Assignment

Tonight, before you go to bed, set out your clothes for tomorrow.

That’s it.

I usually check tomorrow’s weather and calendar while I’m brushing my teeth before bed. Then, I pick out an outfit that will be appropriate.

Why this?

A few reasons:

1. This is something simple and easy to do at the end of your day that will make your future life a little bit easier. It’s the current you helping the future you by removing something from your task list for tomorrow morning. You’re going to do something today that will make your life better and easier tomorrow.


2. Setting out your clothes the night before is a way to help strengthen your independent will — your personal integrity. You are making a commitment to yourself about the outfit you’re going to wear tomorrow. When you follow through with that commitment, it’s a small step toward building your personal integrity, and I believe deep personal integrity is at the bedrock of living a focused life.

What’s the big picture?

The reason this is our first day’s assignment is because setting out your clothes the night before is an easy way to peer through the window of “routinization” (it sounds way more dull than it actually is).

Pre-deciding and placing routine around some of the trivial, everyday choices of life will give you more energy in your day-to-day to tackle difficult problems, do meaningful work, spend time with friends and family, rest, and more.

If you wanted, you could take it further like Steve Jobs or Albert Einstein did. They wore the same outfit every day: Jobs with his black turtleneck, jeans, and New Balance sneakers; Einstein with his sweatshirt.

Even President Obama wears only gray or blue suits. In an interview with Michael Lewis for Vanity Fair, Obama mentioned how the simple act of making decisions degrades one’s ability to make further decisions. In the interview, he said:

You’ll see I wear only gray or blue suits. I’m trying to pare down decisions. I don’t want to make decisions about what I’m eating or wearing. Because I have too many other decisions to make. You need to focus your decision-making energy. You need to routinize yourself. You can’t be going through the day distracted by trivia.

In addition to outfits, there are other ways you can make things easier on yourself. I met a man who worked for the state of Texas, and he would eat lunch at the same restaurant and order the same meal every day. He had turned the trivial choices surrounding his lunch hour into something he didn’t have to think about so he could keep his mind free to solve other problems.