Set upper and lower bounds

Smart rules can encourage sustainable progress

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of I Heart Radio.
Good Morning, This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast.
Today's tip is to set upper and lower bounds. When
you set guidelines on what makes for a good amount

(00:24):
of progress, you will keep yourself from burning out or
failing to get things done. Today's tip, like another one
this week, comes from Greg McEwen's new book, Effortless. The
book is about how to make actions that matter easier.
He notes that when we embark on big projects, we

(00:46):
often fail to pace ourselves. We can be very excited
at the beginning and bite off more than we can chew,
which then leaves us unmotivated to tackle the task at all.
After a bit, a few days of nothing start to
add up, and then it is hard to get restarted. Fortunately,
there's an alternative, As Greg writes, we can establish upper

(01:11):
and lower bounds simply use the following rule. Never less
than x, never more than Y. So, for instance, if
you are aiming to hit certain sales numbers for the month,
you might decide that you will never make fewer than
five sales calls a day, and you will never make
more than ten sales calls a day. Now, sure in theory,

(01:34):
you might feel like you could make fifteen on some
good day, maybe twenty, But by leaving a little bit
on the table on the good days, you can feel
motivated to hit the lower bound. On the bad days,
you are never completely tapped out, so you can muster
the effort to get over the bar. Same with writing

(01:57):
a book. You might decide that you will never write
fewer than five words on a work day, and you
will never write more than a thousand. When you keep
this promise to yourself, you will be able to map
out exactly when you will hit your word targets within
a range, because you know there won't be long days

(02:18):
of nothing that you will have to work unsustainably hard
to recover from. Setting an upper bound can also keep
things from being draining. If you aim to call a
certain extended family member every week, and some of those
conversations can be a bit too you know, intense. You
might decide that a call is never less than five minutes,

(02:40):
but it is never more than sixty minutes. That rule
gives you permission to sign off when the time is
done and limit the total time while still keeping your commitment.
Finding the right range keeps us moving at a steady
pace so we make consistent progress. Greg writes, the lower
bound should be high enough to keep us feeling motivated

(03:03):
and low enough that we can still achieve it even
on days when we're dealing with unexpected chaos. The upper
bound should be high enough to constitute good progress, but
not so high as to leave us feeling exhausted. So
think about a big goal that you'd like to make
regular progress toward. Figure out what would be a good pace,

(03:26):
what can you commit to hitting even on the worst days,
and what feels like maximum sustainable progress for the upper bound.
Figure this out and you will stop making excuses and
just get stuff done in the meantime. This is Laura.

(03:48):
Thanks for listening, and here's to making the most of
our time. Hey, everybody, I'd love to hear from you.
You can send me your tips, your questions, or anything else.
Just connect with me on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram at

(04:08):
Before Breakfast Pod that's b E the number four then
breakfast p O D. You can also shoot me an
email at Before Breakfast Podcast at iHeart media dot com
That Before Breakfast is spelled out with all the letters.
Thanks so much. I look forward to staying in Touch

(04:32):
Before Breakfast is a production of I heart Radio. For
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