The idea of marking off a calendar to record daily progress on a goal came way before the No More Zero Days concept, but reading about it did help get things kickstarted and put into practice.

For the longest time, there was a sort of nervousness pervading the day-to-day - something which was probably the result of multiple factors, including dissatisfaction with how WFH flexibility was (not) being taken advantage of, dealing with the creative’s curse, and that niggling sense that one is not, in fact, doing absolutely everything that one could to achieve one’s dreams.

In other words, the overall trajectory of life was getting a little bleh.

Now that these things have been resolved with the end of the hurricane that was 2021, one can write about it.

It has been an incredibly eventful year, on multiple levels. Even so, considering the number of to-dos and bucket list items that have hung around since pre-pandemic times, it shouldn’t have taken over half a year into this fiasco to really get started on major personal projects. But life has a way of - well - getting in the way, and taking up precious idle thinking time. With cautious hope do we get back on course.

Like many newly minted bread bakers and gardeners, I credit the pandemic’s push for WFH with helping me find my latest raison d’être.

Such passions come rarely, so it might be a good idea to reflect on them. Finding that One Big Thing that you want to work on above all else, that Thing that is and for the foreseeable future will be the background radiation of your life - it’s both suffocating and freeing. (Well, it was more suffocating at first, I’m inclined to think more kindly on it now that we’ve gotten used to each other.)

Although the original No More Zero Days concept is rather more holistic in its approach, I mainly wanted to track my progress on the One Big Thing. This was because regardless of how productive the day had otherwise been, as long as there was no progress on the One Big Thing, it felt as though the day had been wasted.

Well, “wasted” might be a bit much, but certainly it was unsatisfying. The One Big Thing is a beast that needs constant feeding, and even though it doesn’t always make sense to track progress on a daily basis, the gnawing fear couldn’t be shaken. A zero day on the One Big Thing felt like a slippery slope towards Another Abandoned Project.

That catchy line from Hamilton about writing comes to mind…

I’ve worked on the One Big Thing while tired and unmotivated, while absolutely furious, in the throes of melancholic despair, and also while hotly ablaze with inspiration (you know, the whole palette of human emotions), and some of that can certainly be attributed to subscribing to the No Zero Days philosophy.

Maybe it sounds a bit extreme, to not stop and catch a breath even when the whirlwind of life flings a metaphorical cow at you. But in comparison to taking cheat days, I’ve never regretted making myself work on the One Big Thing.

Looking at the calendar, you can see a good number of unmarked days (especially before summer) - and even though I’m the sort of person who can’t remember what they had for lunch that day, I can recall the reasons for not working on the One Big Thing for nearly every one of those unmarked days. I think that makes them fairly good reasons.

Conclusion

Not the most formal self-experiment, or one conducted under very stable conditions, but overall I think it did help. If nothing else, it’s quite satisfying to mark the calendar, and observe one’s commitment thus far.

Will be continuing this practice for 2022 and track multiple new goals.

Update: 2022 has ended and I’m reporting back here now on how it went, with the whole calendar-marking thing. In short, good! Working on the One Big Thing finally became a habit that was neither scary nor even all that exciting to pick up, just… routine. I’ve also had more zero days with cavalier reasons, which is nice. I’ve calmed down, I think, is what I’m trying to say.

Despite being very frustrated with the quality of work I’m producing, I still don’t regret making a solid effort on my life goals. Even if I don’t need the calendar anymore, I still like marking it off. Think we’ll continue this practice for the foreseeable future.