Progress Equals Happiness: 3 Powerful Questions To Guarantee Daily Business Progress

Welcome to Impact Thinking

Hi, I’m Peter. I’ve run a one-person strategy consulting company since 2019. Before that, I worked in finance & strategy at Harvard. This newsletter helps you become an impact thinker. Ditch the noise, spot the signal, and think with impact.

Read time: 4 minutes

Happiness hides in a simple question: “How was your day?”

It’s not apparent because the question sometimes serves as small talk. You may respond with vague statements or highlight specific events of the day, but the real answer you want to share requires you to zoom out. You want to be able to say with confidence:

“I’ve made progress.”

Since you play every role in a one-person business, it’s easy for time to slip away.

Knowing you could have made better progress will stick with you. It leads to anxiety, guilt, and recursive thinking patterns in times when you should be resting. Progress is made when you do important work.

Over the 3 years of building my one-person strategy company, I noticed a pattern: 

No matter how excellent my morning was, I felt I made less progress if my afternoon was iffy.

It’s easier to see progress when you zoom out.

But it’s sometimes hard to do so at the end of the day. Your energy and vigilance are low. And how you feel is closely tied to recent events (recency bias), so the afternoon dramatically impacts the question: “How was your day?”

So I did what the best professional sports coaches do: I implemented a halftime-adjustment framework.

3 simple questions to stay disciplined, structured, and focused on the important work for the afternoon:

1. Have I completed or made valuable progress on the day’s most important work?

2. Did an urgent item come up that is important and must be addressed?

3. Would continuing the work from the morning benefit me more than the work I planned for the afternoon?

Let me save you the trouble and give you the 3 powerful questions to guarantee daily business progress.

Question #1: Have I completed or made valuable progress on the day’s most important work?

Aim to do your most important work of the day first thing in the morning.

It doesn't always work out because life happens. It’s possible that something prevented you from achieving it, or the work wasn’t as important as you first believed it to be. Be honest with yourself.

If you didn’t get to the important work in the morning, do it in the afternoon.

Question #2: Did an urgent item come up that is important and must be addressed?

Not all urgent items are important, but some are.

If ignoring the urgent matter will impact the progress for tomorrow, then do it today. Reposition the item as important and get it done.

Plans can change, so adapt your day to maintain focus on important work.

Question #3: Would continuing the work from the morning benefit me more than the work I planned for the afternoon?

It’s OK to the one thing for the entire day.

While you might feel more productive doing more things, you might only scratch the surface necessary to make an impact. Don’t fall for false productivity. There will always be an infinite amount of work.

Continuing the work from the morning may be the right strategy.

Pro tip: Pair your halftime adjustment with a simple end-of-the-day routine to supercharge daily performance. Read this proven framework adapted from an Olympic skier.