Make Your Bed: Little Things That Can Change Your Life…and Maybe the World, by Admiral William H. McRaven, was quite popular when it was published in 2017. McRaven extols the virtues of daily discipline as the foundation of a better life. He says,
“If you make your bed every morning, you will have accomplished the first task of the day. It will give you a small sense of pride and it will encourage you to do another task and another and another. By the end of the day, that one task completed will have turned into many tasks completed. Making your bed will also reinforce the fact that little things in life matter. If you can’t do the little things right, you will never do the big things right. And, if by chance you have a miserable day, you will come home to a bed that is made—that you made—and a made bed gives you encouragement that tomorrow will be better. If you want to change the world, start off by making your bed.”
There’s no better way to encapsulate my desired outcome from the Saturday Habits experiment. I sincerely hope that little things, practiced faithfully, will lead to big outcomes. There is no morning that I can’t invest two minutes in making the bed, and that’s all it takes!
It’s also not surprising that the habits I’m starting with occur at the beginning of the day. Each of these disciplines is a brick in the foundation of each day, creating a strong base on which to build. Even on days where this foundation doesn’t create all of the outcomes I want, I can still look back and say that I accomplished something useful.