5 Simple Ways to Make Every Day Count

We all believe that we are immortal.  And frankly, when I woke up this morning, I felt fairly immortal!  I’d had a good sleep, and I got out of bed feeling quite fit.  And yet, the reality is that regardless of how healthy I feel today, I’m not immortal.  There’s an expiry date on my life.  There’s an expiry date on your life too.  And as a result, we need to remember that our days on this earth are finite. And, therefore, we should be making every day count.

Now I’ll concede that what it means to me to have a “well-lived” day may be very different from what it means to you.  We all value different things.  And we all enjoy different activities.

For instance, I have no desire to run around, going from one activity to another during my day.  Rather, I prefer a peaceful lifestyle.  My perfect day is a day spent either writing, reading or puttering around the house or the yard, making things just a little bit nicer.  I’m a quiet and contemplative sort of person.

By contrast, there are plenty of people who would find my perfect day to be quite boring!  So, the key is to figure out what’s a perfect day for you.  And then you need to intentionally make ensure that your days count by spending your time doing those things that matter most to you.

Below are 5 ways to make every day count.  If you follow these approaches, not only will you make every day count, but you ultimately will have a life that is well-lived.

Have a Plan for Each Day

It’s easy for the day to get away from us.  Without a plan, we end up spending the day working, doing chores, and meeting the needs of others.  Then, by the end of the day, we’ve accomplished nothing that actually matters to us.

That is why it’s critical to take control of your time.  That means starting each day with a plan.  If you don’t have a plan, you’ll end up wasting your day doing nonsense, like watching tv or surfing the Internet.  Or, worse yet, other folks will hijack your time.

For example, I spent many years of my life having my time hijacked.  Much of my time was spent doing activities that I had no desire to do.  So, while most people look forward to the weekends, I dreaded mine.  That’s because my weekends were consumed with meeting the needs of others.  As a result, by the end of every weekend, I was exhausted and irritated because I didn’t spend my weekend doing the things that I wanted to do.

But at a certain point, I decided to take control of my life and my time.  So, I stopped allowing others to hijack my time, and instead, I decided to spend my time doing the things that matter to me.  The good news is that these days, I love my weekends.  I spend my Saturdays and Sundays doing only the activities that I feel like doing. As a result, I’m able to relax on my weekends and be happy. 

To make your days count, you need to make yourself a priority. And that starts with creating a plan for each day.  Each night, you should have a plan as to how you want to spend the next day.  Give yourself a list of things that you want to accomplish.  And realize that list of accomplishments may very well include “one hour sitting, reading a book and drinking a cup of tea.”  Self-care is an accomplishment!  The point is to make a plan to spend the next day doing things that serve your mental, emotional and physical needs.

Now, that may sound selfish – but it’s not!  You only have one life to live, and you need to cherish each day by doing those things that are important to you. 

Do One Meaningful Thing Each Day

If you want to make each day count, you should do something that is meaningful every day.  Now, what is meaningful to me may be very different from what is meaningful to you. 

For instance, it’s important to me to have time for personal reflection.  When I take time to think and reflect by myself, that allows me to go out into the world and operate as a better human being.  By contrast, I know folks who finds socializing to be highly meaningful.  We’re all very different.

The good news is that if you do at least one meaningful activity each day, you’ll end up living a life that reflects what matters most to you.  And that’s when you begin to live a life that is truly authentic.

Be Fully Present

I shudder to think how much of my life has been spent not being fully present in the moment.  Rather, I’ve often been doing one thing, while thinking about something else. 

Frankly, we all do that from time to time.  Instead of being present in the moment, we may mull over our regrets about the past, or we may worry about the future.  And both are equally stupid activities. 

Realize that the past is over and done with.  There’s nothing that you can do about the past. So, there’s no point feeling badly about what you wish you might have done years ago, or how you wish things might have been.  Similarly, the future also is outside of our control.  Yes, today we can make good choices so that our futures are as promising as possible.  But it’s hard to predict what the future will hold, and fretting about it won’t make your life any better.

As a result, the best way to make your days count is to be fully present in the here and now. Practice being fully engaged in whatever you’re doing in this moment, whether it is working, making meals, or having a conversation. Realize that if your mind is elsewhere, you’re missing out on the beauty of this moment.  Whether it’s the sound of a loved one’s voice, seeing a bird outside your window, or watching the leaves fall off the trees.  Being fully present turns ordinary moments into rich experiences.

Learn or Reflect Daily

Socrates said, “The unexamined life is not worth living.”  Socrates’ point is that we need to engage in introspection.  And critical thinking.  We need to look at our beliefs and behavior and question them.  If you don’t question those two things regularly, you will not grow.  Instead, you’ll stay in a place of intellectual and emotional infancy.

Introspection requires us to take a hard look at our beliefs and ask, “Is that true?”  And it requires us to take a hard look at our behavior and ask, “Did I do my best in that situation?  Could I have behaved in a kinder, wiser or more decent manner?”

I’ll concede that those are challenging questions.  To answer those questions, you have to critically evaluate yourself and your ideas about the world. 

For example, the two years before my mother passed away were very difficult.  During that period, I had to make sure that she was cared for through both her health issues and dementia diagnosis.  Like many adult children of aging parents, I was in uncharted territory.   I had to learn while going through the experience.

After my mother passed away, I took a great deal of time to reflect.  In fact, I’m still reflecting on that experience.  And I what I can say is that during that experience I did some things well.  And there were some things that I regrettably did not handle the right way.  Certain experiences that we have in life are humbling, and helping an elderly parent through the aging and dying process is one of them.  It’s hard to know how to handle that situation perfectly, and there are many things that I wish I’d done differently.

While reflecting on that experience has been uncomfortable for me, I’m not shying away from it.  The unexamined life is not worth living, and I choose to face the discomfort and examine my own life.  Because even though reflecting on difficult situations is hard, it’s necessary if you want to grow into a more mature and thoughtful individual.   You can’t grow unless you analyze what you’ve done well in life, and where you’ve failed, or at a minimum, where you could have done better. 

Of course, the point of self-reflection isn’t to be hard on yourself.  Rather, the point is to learn from your experiences, so that you can become a wiser individual.

So, make self-reflection a daily activity.  If you engage in self-reflection each day, not only will you make each day count, but ultimately, you will become a wiser and more insightful person.

Prioritize Making Emotional Connections

I’m a somewhat introverted person.  My stamina for large social gatherings is limited.  I have about a one-hour tolerance for a party.  After one hour at a large social gathering, I just want to go home. 

But I do enjoy the company of one or two other people.  So, I make intimate social gatherings a priority in my life.  I like to get together with one or two friends to chat over dinner or coffee.  And I regularly exchange text messages and chat on the phone with friends who offer me their thoughts on everything from the current political situation to some of life’s biggest existential questions. 

What I find is that when you relate to others individually, you make meaningful emotional connections.  And it’s critically important to make those kinds of emotional connections with others on a daily basis. 

The reality is that we all need to connect on an emotional level with others regularly, whether they are other human beings or animals.  Why?  Well, because we feel better about ourselves and our place in the world when we have kind, gentle interactions with others. 

We all know this intuitively.  For instance, if you have an angry or negative conversation with someone else, unless you’re psychotic, you’ll feel badly about it.  In fact, you’ll likely feel badly about it for days. By contrast, if you have a positive conversation with someone else, you end up feeling great!  Positive, daily interactions are very good for us, both emotionally and mentally.

So, make having positive interactions with others a daily priority.  You truly can make each day count if you make the effort to have a great interaction with one person (or an animal) every day.  Those kinds of interactions truly feed our souls.

Remember that each day is so very precious.  As a result, consider following the approaches above and make every day count! (To read about making your words count, click here.)