How to Have a Good Day Quotes

“What’s the smallest first step you can take to move things forward?”
― Caroline Webb, How To Have A Good Day: The Essential Toolkit for a Productive Day at Work and Beyond

“I look at all the things on my plate and say, ‘Okay, what really needs to happen by the end of the day?’ That clarity can be quite de-stressing.” What if there are multiple urgent things to do? “If I ask myself honestly, there’s always one thing that’s really top priority, usually because other things depend on it or there’s really more at stake in the longer term. And the other things can be deferred or delegated or dropped if I really analyze it.”
― Caroline Webb, How To Have A Good Day: The Essential Toolkit for a Productive Day at Work and Beyond

“Unfinished tasks are like screaming kindergartners—much easier to handle when you get them to sit down quietly.”
― Caroline Webb, How To Have A Good Day: The Essential Toolkit for a Productive Day at Work and Beyond

“when you’re estimating the amount of time a task is going to take, balance your brain’s natural optimism by imagining a scenario where things don’t go entirely your way. Then plan for something close to that.”
― Caroline Webb, How To Have A Good Day: The Essential Toolkit for a Productive Day at Work and Beyond

“another reason so many of us often feel overloaded is because of something called the planning fallacy.1 This describes the fact that we typically expect tasks to take less time than they actually do, because we base our estimates on one standout memory—our best past experience—rather than the average time it’s taken us to do similar tasks in the past.”
― Caroline Webb, How To Have A Good Day: The Essential Toolkit for a Productive Day at Work and Beyond

“Robyn also uses a quick reflection practice that she invented, which she calls “DATE,” an acronym that reminds her to think back on her day and recall what she’s discovered (“which could be an interesting fact or lesson learned, or perhaps something I’ll do differently tomorrow”), something she achieved, one thing she’s thankful for, and something she wants to remember that she experienced, whether in her work or beyond.”
― Caroline Webb, How To Have A Good Day: The Essential Toolkit for a Productive Day at Work and Beyond

“There’s a car racing metaphor I find helpful when I’m trying to remind myself to look up from my laptop and take a break. When I was a child, I visited the maintenance pit of the famous Silverstone Formula One racetrack, and of course it was fascinating to learn about the tire switches and refueling that mechanics were able to do in just a few seconds. But what stayed with me most was the idea that success was determined not only by the car’s speed on the track, but also by the “pit strategy”—the race team’s scheduled pit stops. Each stop was a tactical investment in performance, a deliberate slowing down, to enable the car to speed up afterward. Pit stops are not wasted time—they’re an essential part of an efficient, well-planned race. And your brain is like that race car. Downtime is as important to your work as every other part of your day, and you need to make sure you get enough of that time throughout the day. Plan for it, protect it, respect it.”
― Caroline Webb, How To Have A Good Day: The Essential Toolkit for a Productive Day at Work and Beyond

“René Marois, director of the Human Information Processing Laboratory at Vanderbilt University, showed that people doing two tasks simultaneously took up to 30 percent longer and made twice as many errors as those who completed the same tasks in sequence—findings that have been replicated time and again by other scientists.”
― Caroline Webb, How To Have A Good Day: The Essential Toolkit for a Productive Day at Work and Beyond

“But I discovered that when I was struggling to stay on track with the intentions I’d set in the morning, it really helped to literally remove everything from my desk. Clear the space, and I suddenly feel clearheaded. The effect is nothing short of miraculous.”
― Caroline Webb, How To Have A Good Day: The Essential Toolkit for a Productive Day at Work and Beyond

“In a third study, where volunteers were given a test to measure their concentration, those who were asked to wear a lab coat made half the number of errors of those who wore their street clothes”
― Caroline Webb, How To Have A Good Day: The Essential Toolkit for a Productive Day at Work and Beyond

“people are far more likely to achieve their goals if they think hard about both the outcome they want and the obstacles they’re facing, and plan for both.”
― Caroline Webb, How To Have A Good Day: The Essential Toolkit for a Productive Day at Work and Beyond

“But there are some to-do list essentials that we should all know if we want to help our brains navigate the day, based on the science of working memory, motivation, and goal pursuit. I don’t always see people applying these brain-friendly essentials, so here’s a checklist for you to consider: Write it down as soon as it comes to mind. Never waste your brain’s precious working memory by trying to hold your tasks or ideas in your head. Use your intelligence for getting things done, rather than trying to remember what you need to do. That means having a process for capturing to-dos as soon as they occur to you, even if you then end up transferring them to a master list. Only keep today’s tasks in view. You might have a grand list of tasks you’d like to complete in the coming weeks or months. But once you’ve decided what you really need and want to get done today, work off that list, and hide the rest. As long as your longer-term items are visible, they’ll use up a little of your brain’s processing capacity—and may even depress you a little if your long list is very long. Make it satisfying to check off. If you’re online, give yourself a box to check, and a ping or a swoosh to hear. If you’re working on paper, give yourself the satisfaction of a big bold line through everything you’ve done. The more rewarding it feels to track your progress, the more your brain will tend to spur you toward getting things done. Be realistic about what you can do in a day. Progress feels good to your brain’s reward system; failure doesn’t. Do you have five things you’d like to tackle today, but know you probably only have time for three? It’s better to feel great about nailing three tasks. If you succeed and find you’ve got more time, you’ll be flushed with motivation to seek out one or two more tasks. Include mind-body maintenance. Put exercise, rest, and other physical health goals on your list alongside your other tasks. If you take a moment to put “take a walk” on the list, you’re way more likely to build it into your day rather than let it be crowded out by other demands—just as defining goals for anything makes it more likely you’ll get it done.”
― Caroline Webb, How To Have A Good Day: The Essential Toolkit for a Productive Day at Work and Beyond

“Attitude: “I admit that I’m feeling grumpy and tired right now. I can’t make myself”
― Caroline Webb, How to Have a Good Day: Harness the Power of Behavioral Science to Transform Your Working Life

“Aim: “What really matters to me is to help the team get off to a strong start with our new clients, by encouraging a collaborative tone and helping everyone feel good about the prospect of working together.”
― Caroline Webb, How to Have a Good Day: Harness the Power of Behavioral Science to Transform Your Working Life

“Aim: Think about each of the most important of today’s activities—the people you’ll meet, the work you’ll do. What really matters most in making them a success? That’s your real aim. Attitude: As you think about the upcoming workday, take a moment to notice and acknowledge the concerns that are dominating your thoughts or your mood. Do these concerns help you achieve your real aim—and if not, can you set them aside for now? Attention: Given your real priorities, where do you want to focus your attention? Figure out what you want to see more of, and then make sure you look out for it.”
― Caroline Webb, How to Have a Good Day: Harness the Power of Behavioral Science to Transform Your Working Life

“They had such a strong presumption that the banana would be yellow that their brains decided it actually was.”
― Caroline Webb, How To Have A Good Day: The Essential Toolkit for a Productive Day at Work and Beyond

“As we change our intentions, our brain’s filters change, and the facts can appear to change with them.”
― Caroline Webb, How To Have A Good Day: The Essential Toolkit for a Productive Day at Work and Beyond

“We’re each living through our own private reality, a reality shaped by our hardworking automatic system’s attempts to allocate our attention to the right things.”
― Caroline Webb, How To Have A Good Day: The Essential Toolkit for a Productive Day at Work and Beyond

“So it really is possible to get up on the wrong side of the bed. Our perceptions of the world can be strongly influenced by our starting point, good or bad,”
― Caroline Webb, How To Have A Good Day: The Essential Toolkit for a Productive Day at Work and Beyond

“volunteers who’d been forced to skip their lunch went on to see food-related words more clearly and quickly in a word-recognition test.”
― Caroline Webb, How To Have A Good Day: The Essential Toolkit for a Productive Day at Work and Beyond

“Now, we can’t switch off our automatic system’s filtering function—by definition, it’s automatic. But we can adjust the settings, by being more proactive in defining what our brain sees as “important” each day. If we do that, we can affect what our conscious brain gets to see and hear. It’s one of the most powerful ways to steer our day toward the reality we’d most like to experience.”
― Caroline Webb, How To Have A Good Day: The Essential Toolkit for a Productive Day at Work and Beyond

“Why is exercise so immediately helpful to us? Partly because it increases blood flow to the brain. But it also stimulates the release of the neurotransmitters dopamine, noradrenaline, and serotonin, which serve to boost our interest, alertness, and enjoyment.”
― Caroline Webb, How To Have A Good Day: The Essential Toolkit for a Productive Day at Work and Beyond

“The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.”
― Caroline Webb, How to Have a Good Day: Harness the Power of Behavioral Science to Transform Your Working Life

“What really matters most right now? (It may help to revisit your intentions for the day.) What really has to happen today, if nothing else? Project forward to the end of the day. What will you be most glad or relieved to have done?”
― Caroline Webb, How to Have a Good Day: Harness the Power of Behavioral Science to Transform Your Working Life

“To see this switching cost in action, try this basic exercise: Say “abcdefg,” then immediately after that say “1234567.” Notice how long it takes you to do this. Perhaps even time yourself. Then, interleave the two: say “a1b2c3d4e5f6g7.”
― Caroline Webb, How To Have A Good Day: The Essential Toolkit for a Productive Day at Work and Beyond

“our chances of having fun and being brilliant are higher when we’re using at least one of our strengths as a springboard.”
― Caroline Webb, How to Have a Good Day: Harness the Power of Behavioral Science to Transform Your Working Life

“It’s generally hard for any of us to walk away from all the time, effort, or money we’ve already sunk into a situation that has little prospect of improving.”
― Caroline Webb, How to Have a Good Day: Harness the Power of Behavioral Science to Transform Your Working Life

“The more we place boundaries on the uncertainty—by acknowledging what we know for certain—the more manageable the remaining ambiguity feels to our brains.”
― Caroline Webb, How to Have a Good Day: Harness the Power of Behavioral Science to Transform Your Working Life

“Even with the worst that life can throw at us, we have a remarkable capacity to adjust to new circumstances and get back to our former levels of happiness.”
― Caroline Webb, How to Have a Good Day: Harness the Power of Behavioral Science to Transform Your Working Life

“It’s just very difficult to come up with anything smart when you’re upset, angry, or tired. You can’t work when you feel under threat.”
― Caroline Webb, How to Have a Good Day: Harness the Power of Behavioral Science to Transform Your Working Life