Most people use to-do lists to plan their days. To-do lists are great for prioritizing, tracking progress, and, most importantly – not missing out on something important.

Despite that, almost all of us miss out on including an insanely important task in our to-do lists. This task is called “leveling up.”

I was as ignorant of “leveling up” as anyone else until I heard it from Daniel Scrivner, the CEO of Flow. According to Daniel, putting a “level up!” task box on his daily to-do list reminds him to do something out of his comfort zone, something that’ll push him to go beyond his normal limits.

The next logical question is, when do you check this box? What do you actually need to do to say, “I leveled up today”?

Here’s what Daniel has to say on that, “I can only check that box if I feel I have gone above and beyond myself and done something great. For example, I tick off that box when I have a difficult conversation despite not wanting to do it as it's so hard. Other examples are days when I do something special for my wife or finding time to work out on a hectic day.

“Yesterday evening, I was thinking, ‘I'm not going to check off that box today.’ Then I went home and figured something out that I was grappling with for a couple of days. Then I was like, ‘yes, I did it!’. It’s always an incredible feeling to check off that box.”

This idea is brilliant because we are so closely attached to our to-do lists that anything that’s not on the list doesn’t get our attention. “Leveling up” ourselves is something we can’t afford to ignore, and there’s no better way of giving it more attention than by putting it on our daily to-do list.

So the next time you are making your to-do list, make sure to include a “level up!” box in your list.

In our entire conversation, Daniel talks about his experience at leading Flow, observing bubbles in our heads, using paper as the operating system of life, when and how to say ‘no,’ why it’s important to have difficult conversations, protecting the mornings for output and writing self-addressed memos. 

You won’t stop getting amazed by Daniel’s ideas throughout the conversation; that’s a promise. Let’s dive straight in!

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How to get in touch with Daniel?

He tweets on and off, but people can find him on Twitter at @danielscrivner. You can also visit danielscrivner.com; that’s where you can find all the interviews that he does for the Outliers podcast. They release a new episode every week on Tuesdays, or you can also visit outliers.fm.

If anyone wants to get in touch with him by email, he is at ds@danielscrivner.com. Lastly, for anyone wishing to check out Flow, visit getflow.com, 30 days free, no credit card required!

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