This exercise will help you rapidly create priorities for the day, week or month. Whichever timescale suits at any given point.

Marginal gains are just as important as the big ones.

Here's how to do this.

• Grab a big sheet of paper.
• Draw a vertical line down the middle.
• Create your own titles - you can use 'more of/less of' or 'move towards/move away from', maybe.

Once you've listed a number of points on each side, decide which ones you'd like to focus on for the time being. Change is inevitable. Goals will morph as time passes. According to the psychology of motivation, it's much better set a direction of travel rather than a fixed goal. If we know we're heading roughly in the right direction, things feel OK. If we measure our progress by specific goals we risk feeling like we are failing/not achieving enough.

Softly, softly. Review often. Give yourself a big pat on the back for all progress however small the step might be,