Every time you say “I’ll deal with that later,” you’re assigning work to an employee who already has plans: your future self.

A short reflection on procrastination, Future You, and the difference between scheduling something for later and simply dumping it there.

The question to take with you:

What's something you've been repeatedly assigning to your future self that one of you is eventually going to have to do?

"Today, Remember This" is a short, daily reflection for a steadier, more intentional life.

When something isn't working, what are you supposed to do?

Sometimes the answer is obvious: stop, change course and try something completely different.

But sometimes the answer is almost exactly the opposite.

Keep going.

Find the bottleneck.

Maybe even do more of what you're already doing.

I’ve been thinking about this because one of our cats, Emmy, developed a habit of pooing directly beside her litter box.

We tried changing the litter, cleaning more often, removing smells and questioning the entire setup.

The thing that finally worked? Putting a second litter box directly beside the first one...

The question to take with you:

What's something that finally worked — not because you completely changed your approach, but because you figured out the one thing stopping it from working?

"Today, Remember This" is a short, daily reflection for a steadier, more intentional life.

I have this bad habit of trying to permanently solve tiny problems.

If the same inconvenience happens twice, apparently I need a system.

A new process.

Maybe something from Amazon whose sole purpose is ensuring I never have to think about this problem again.

My morning coffee has become a ridiculous example. I’ve carefully optimized the kettle, grinder, scale and pour-over itself — and yet every morning I reach the end holding a wet filter full of coffee grounds and wonder what exactly I'm supposed to do with it.

Eventually I started wondering: maybe I don't need to permanently solve this.

There’s a difference between a problem that repeats and a problem that’s actually expensive to repeat.

And sometimes the system we build to eliminate a tiny recurring inconvenience costs more time, money, and mental energy than simply dealing with the inconvenience again.

The question to take with you:

What's a tiny recurring problem you've spent more time trying to permanently solve than it would take to just keep dealing with it?

"Today, Remember This" is a short, daily reflection for a steadier, more intentional life.

I have a bad habit of making plans for the absolute best version of myself.

Peak Neil wakes up rested. He's motivated. He makes sensible decisions. He sticks to the plan.

Unfortunately, his attendance record is pretty terrible.

Lately I've been getting up at 6 a.m. to work out, edit these videos, take care of plants, or just enjoy an hour of silence before the kids wake up (...!). Some mornings it's fantastic. Other mornings I make it halfway through and crawl straight back into bed.

I used to treat those mornings as failures. Now I'm realizing that if a routine only works when I wake up feeling unusually motivated, the problem might not be me. It might be the routine.

Ordinary tiredness, stress and lack of motivation aren't glitches. They're part of the average.

The question to take with you:

What's something in your life that works brilliantly for Peak You — but keeps falling apart for Regular You?

"Today, Remember This" is a short, daily reflection for a steadier, more intentional life.

Sometimes finishing what you started is perseverance.

And sometimes it's just letting a version of yourself with less information keep making decisions for you.

I’ve been thinking about this after forcing myself through far too much of a book I hated, repeatedly trying to enjoy Ted Lasso, and — more significantly — realizing that a five-year journal I once loved has gradually become another tiny daily obligation.

The time we’ve already invested in something can make stopping feel like a waste. But spending more time on something doesn’t get the old time back.

Sometimes you haven't failed to follow through.

You simply know more now than you did when you started.

The question to take with you:

What's something you've kept doing mostly because you've already been doing it for so long?

"Today, Remember This" is a daily short reflection for a steadier, more intentional life.

Sometimes the best way to stick to a rule is to deliberately make room for an exception.

Case in point: I eat vegan almost all the time. But every Saturday morning, I make the same decidedly non-vegan pancakes I’ve been making with my kids for years.

I’ve tried substitutes and different recipes. They’re...fine. But eventually I decided that maybe this one tradition doesn’t need optimizing.

And, strangely, giving myself permission to be 99% consistent makes the other 99% easier.

In this reflection, I’m thinking about perfection, deliberate exceptions, and why building a little slack into the things we value might actually make them more sustainable.

The question to take with you: Where in your life might giving yourself permission to aim for 99% make it easier to keep going?

"Today, Remember This" is a short, daily reflection for a steadier, more intentional life.

Every meaningful decision costs us something: all the other possibilities we could have chosen instead.

This week marks twelve years since I moved from Scotland to the United States. I’m glad I made that choice—but every now and then, I still wonder about the version of my life where I stayed.

The trouble is, the lives we didn't choose have an unfair advantage. We experience every boring Monday, unexpected bill, and compromise in the life we actually live.

The alternatives get to remain pristine in our imaginations.

I think making the right choice doesn't mean never wondering about the roads you didn't take. I think that's simply part of what choosing costs us.

The question to take with you: what's a version of your life you sometimes wonder about, even though you're glad you chose the one you have?

"Today, Remember This" is a series of short reflection for a steadier, more intentional life.

Somewhere in the world, someone remembers a version of you that doesn't exist anymore.

An old friend might still picture you at seventeen.

A former coworker remembers the person you were ten years ago.

And somewhere, someone may have an extremely outdated mental picture of your personality, your priorities — or even your moustache.

The strange part is that we're doing exactly the same thing to everyone else.

A reflection on the outdated versions of people we carry around in our heads, how people silently change, and why sometimes we need to let the person standing in front of us surprise us.

The question to take with you: who from your past do you still picture exactly as they were when you last knew them?

"Today, Remember This" is a short, daily reflection for a steadier, more intentional life.

Some of the things you do all the time right now, you’ll eventually do for the last time — and chances are, you won’t know it when it happens.

With my son starting kindergarten this week, I’ve been thinking about firsts, lasts, and all the ordinary little chapters of life that end without ceremony.

The last time you carry your child upstairs.

The last night in your childhood bedroom.

The last conversation you didn’t know would be the last.

Maybe the point isn’t to somehow catch those moments before they disappear. Maybe it’s simply to notice, every now and then: this is a special part of my life right now.

How do you know how much you can handle?

Usually, only by being forced to handle it.

After an unexpectedly painful barefoot walk around a scorching Texas water park, I started thinking about the limits we assume we have — and what all the difficult things we've already survived can actually tell us about them.

Every challenge you've made it through has established only a *minimum*. You know you're at LEAST that tough. You just don't know yet how much further the limit goes.