When my friend Rosamund suggested we try a productivity technique of leaving each other a voice note every day, I immediately said yes – even if I suspected, deep down, that we might not keep it up for long. I was circumspect because we both lead busy lives, 3,500 miles apart. She lives in London and I’m based in Brooklyn. It is hard to keep in touch sometimes. Even talking on the phone feels tough, what with the time difference and our schedules. Adding another thing to do every day, even a small, two-minute task, felt like a challenge.
The technique is simple enough. You send a friend a voice note in the morning saying what you “did” that day. You always speak in the past tense for accountability. The theory is that once you tell a friend you have “done” something, you will be more likely to follow it through.
There is a manifesting element, too. Because, while making the recordings, we are also talking to ourselves. As a freelance journalist who works from home I’ve told Rosamund that I “went” for a walk even though I was on deadline, and felt so much better afterwards, and that I “wrote” a complex feature efficiently, without changing the intro 17 times. Once I have verbalised such saintly behaviours, I have discovered that I’m more likely to carry them out.
Hannah Marriott’s children, out and about in New York City. Photograph: Courtesy of Hannah Marriott
What has surprised me is that, for six months, it has stuck. For me, the technique works much better than a traditional to-do list, because I am forced to consider what is possible to achieve in one day before I express that to another human. It also encourages me to stick to my goals. When I explain each “completed” task with a few words about why I “made” the time, I remind myself why I should. I’ve sent messages saying that I “took” my kids for a walk even though it was freezing because I know how important exercise is. And that I “did” an interview and “found” a charming way to ask an awkward question. More often than not, I later get those tasks done.
For us, the technique has another big benefit: we get to keep in touch about the small, boring stuff. Because when you emigrate, as I did in 2022, you tend to miss out on your friends’ micro-news. Now I know all about Rosamund’s daily life. The new cafe on her street where she goes to work; the yoga class she really likes. Her excitement at taking her preteen son to the cinema in the evening, for the first time. The laugh she had at her daughter’s pirate-themed birthday party.
Anyone else who heard our voice notes would probably find them extremely tedious – and that’s fine by us. They’ve made us a bit healthier, a bit more productive. I now go to a weekly pilates class without fail and meditate more, having explained to Rosamund, so many times by this point, why I “went”. I have found myself completing complex tasks far more efficiently, having boasted about doing just that in my morning voice note.
It has proved quietly, modestly, life-changing. But the byproduct – the fact we know the small, boring things about each other’s lives again – really is the best part.
