“Homework for Life” is the brain child of Matthew Dicks, primary school teacher, author, and storyteller extraordinaire.
The concept is simple: Take 5 minutes at the end of every day to answer the question “if I had to tell a story from my day today, what would it be?” – and record it.
The easiest is to do it in an Excel spreadsheet with two columns: one for the date, and one for the sentence or few words about the story.
Why take the time to do Homework for Life?
It turns out that this exercise is brilliant for a few reasons:
- Over time, you’ll get better at noticing meaningful moments that may have otherwise gone unnoticed
- You’ll start accumulating stories from your life (as a writer that’s priceless, but it also makes for fun dinner conversations and more)
- Long forgotten memories will start surfacing (no, really, I promise)
- Your level of appreciation and gratitude will skyrocket
As a bonus, if you do Homework For Life every day for three months, you can email Matthew Dicks and he’ll send you a little surprise.
How is this a life and writing hack?
Personally, I was amazed when I first tried Homework for Life. The above isn’t just marketing – after all, the exercise benefits noone but yourself! – but it really works.
The first few days or weeks, it feels a bit forced to be identifying a story each day, even on days when nothing stands out.
But, with practice, it becomes easier, the moments you pick become simpler yet richer, and you’ll start appreciating them in the moment more, too.
It’s almost as though you’re rewiring your brain to pay attention and appreciate small things that are in fact beautiful, meaningful, special.
As Matthew Dicks puts it, you develop a “lens” for these stories, and it will probably make you a better person.
Why wouldn’t you try Homework for Life?
Ok, I know, it’s not that simple.
Life gets busy. Just five minutes for this, 10 minutes to meditate, 10 minutes to learn a new language, half an hour to read… it ads up. And maybe adding one more thing feels impossible or exhausting.
And that’s your call.
But here’s the thing: Life is what you make of it. So here’s a bit of tough love: if you want to try doing Homework for Life, stop making excuses, and make it work!
I absolutely love movies and TV shows, but after my daughter was born, I didn’t get back on Netflix for nearly a year. And I realized I didn’t miss it as much as I thought, because all those hours got reallocated to reading, writing, and sleeping. I am a much happier person for it.
The point is, if you’re intrigued or curious, you can do this! Go set up your Excel spreadsheet – I do mine on Google docs so I can make my updates from my phone in bed at the end of the day.
And just try. See what happens.
It’s OK if you skip a day here or there. Keep at it, and with time, watch the magic unfurl.
One Response
This post was really inspiring 🙂 These days I am so busy with work I don’t take enough time for the small moments. Thanks for sharing I’ll have to try this!