We often overestimate what we can do in a day and vastly underestimate what we can do in a year.

The hours in a day pass quickly. Our focused hours are few — a healthy number being 2 per day, up to 4 if you're lucky. Beyond that, focus is dispersed by energy spent.

Locating our best hours is massively helpful for making progress at the pace of months and years towards bigger goals. Ensuring that each day focused hours are spent on the highest priority tasks leads to rapid progress in those tasks. I emphasize focused as key — focused hours are much more valuable than unfocused hours. Focus is primed by the time of day and baseline conditions like sleep, diet, and exercise. They are also defined by intent and scope — the intention to drop into a focused state to address a particular, well-defined task or problem is what allows focus to emerge.

Spending focused hours day after day is what leads to project completion. I know this has been true for my albums, preparation for shows, and completing software problems. Two focused hours are better than eight unfocused hours, and leveraging them over time is the vehicle to meeting big goals.