I like thinking in 90-day increments.
I think of 90 days as the far actionable future.
A year is interesting to think about.
Five years can be fun to imagine.
But you can actually do something about 90 days.
But you can actually do something about 90 days.
Looking through my journal from 1997, I found an exercise I used to do that I called a Five by Five.
I’d take a question, give myself five minutes, and write down five answers.
No overthinking.
Just get the ideas out of my head and onto paper.
Here are some of the questions I was asking:
What five habits would improve my performance most dramatically in the next 90 days?
What five things have I been putting off that would clear my mind if I got them done?
What tools or technology would improve my production capability?
That one made me laugh.
In 1997, one of the things on my list was a laser printer that could print 11x17 pages.
I wanted to be able to make little magazines and lay out full-page newspaper ads.
A color scanner was another big technological ambition. :)
But the question is just as useful today.
Then:
What are the five most important projects I could work on?
And one I especially like:
What are five things I’d like to do for fun?
Finally:
What would I like to learn in depth over the next 90 days?
Imagine what you could learn with 90 days of deliberate immersion.
AI. Meta ads. Copywriting. A language.
Anything that would have a meaningful impact on your life or business.
The interesting thing about these questions is that you probably already know most of the answers.
They’re in there.
But there’s something that happens when you sit quietly with a journal and give your mind permission to surface them.
Five minutes.
Five answers.
One question at a time.
You may be surprised how clearly you can see the next 90 days when you finally get them out of your head…
and onto the page.