gifts to our future self

In Friday Favorites last week, we talked about Gifts to our Future Self.

A gift for your future self is something you do today that makes your life easier, or better, at some point in the future. It is something that our present self does, with our future self in mind.

For example, a couple of weeks ago, a girlfriend and I discovered a shared habit: before leaving town for any period of time, we clean and tidy the house. A clean and tidy house is a gift that we leave for our future self—the version of us who will walk back through the door at some point in the future. Cleaning and tidying the house isn't necessarily enjoyable for our present selves, but it is something we know our future selves will appreciate.

A gift to our future self could include:

• Prepping the coffee the night before, so that it is waiting for us in the morning

• Filling up the car with gas on our way out for errands, so that we don't have to do it afterward

• Giving ourself five quiet moments in the morning to plan out our day

• Peeling ourselves away from our computer to do a quick midday walk or run, so that we have more energy for the rest of the afternoon

• Setting aside a few dollars per week or month in a secret account that our present self doesn't even see

• Taking 30 minutes at the beginning of each week to plan out our touch-bases with each of our team members, so we are sure we'll have preserved time with each of our direct reports before the chaos of the week takes over

For members of the Zing Collaborative community, examples include:

• Emptying and reloading the dishwasher before leaving for work, to avoid coming home to a pile of dishes (and getting up a few minutes earlier in order to do so)

• Prepping food on weekends

• Syncing calendars with a partner

• Going to bed early

• Picking out work clothes the night before and hanging them in the bathroom

• Filling up the car with gas on the weekend for the week ahead.

• Journaling and planning out the week on Sunday afternoon/evening.

• Touching base with my direct report on Monday morning

• Switching to a vegetable-forward diet

• Washing the sheets and towels before leaving town

• Getting out on training runs for a big event

• Chopping extra onions and throwing them in the freezer

Gifts to our future selves might also include Type 2 Fun: things that are fun afterward, but perhaps not during. Here, we might think of a hard workout (or, for that matter, a workout of any kind); a backwoods or a winter camping trip.

Leaving a gift to our future self requires us to zoom up ever-so-slightly in the moment to consider what will best serve us in the future, whether that future is in five minutes or five years.

What do you think? Are there any gifts you like to leave for your future self—or any strategies you use to keep you future self in mind during the present moment?