Education / People / Social · January 19, 2020

No Zero Days

I have been wanting to write this article for a couple of weeks but never knew how to write it. I wanted to discuss a new method that should help in reaching those goals. It’s called “No Zero Days” and it was started from a Reddit thread way back in 2013. Reddit user ryans01 gives four pieces of crucial advice. I’ll cover the rest in time. I want to focus on their first piece of advice.  

So what is a No Zero Day? Plainly put, a Zero Day is where nothing happens. That is to say, nothing was done to further or accomplish any goals or achievements. Either work was too much, things popped up, too tired, etc. Point is that a day went by and no progress was made. A No Zero Day is where something was done to get closer to that goal. To quote u/ryans01. 

What this means is that even if one things gets done, a small thing. It is still counted as working towards your goal. No one is expecting you to take great big leaps or to do whatever goal you set out to do in a week or a month. No, small steps. Take a famous new year’s resolution, “start going to the gym”. Ok, sign up. There. Day one has been completed. Next day, go to the gym on your own time and stay there for 30 minutes. Can’t go to the gym, do one workout at home. Now you have gone through two No Zero Days. 

The idea is to keep going. Like running a marathon, one doesn’t just do a full sprint. They keep a pace and slow down as needed, but never stop. Same concept.

Another way of looking at this is to think of what happens when nothing gets done. Depression or the realization sets in and it leads to more zero days. That’s called a negative feedback loop. What we’re trying to do is create a positive feedback loop. One small thing leads to the next, which leads to the next, and so on, and so forth. 

It is perfectly okay to have multiple zero days in a row. We are, after all, only human. Start small. Smaller if you have to. Keep going.

This article will be published by end of January. Set a goal and see what you can do in 12 months. Reach out and let me know what you did. 

If this helped you, consider helping me out on Ko-fi. 
[kofi]