The problem with daily blogging is that it’s so much easier to just not. 

Why would I actually go ahead and do the work if I can just think about it, mean to do it, but never actually do it and walk around formulating a half-dozen amazingly-world-changing content ideas in my brain instead?

See, it’s day one and I’m already doubting the wisdom of my own decision.

However, because I know myself, I prepared in advance for this contingency. In an effort to not have a fruitless day, or a day that I didn’t learn anything, or a day in which I wasted the opportunity of the city that surrounds me, I’ve come up with an elaborate, high-tech, fool-proof plan. 

Ready for it?

Okay.

In order to make the next six months as valuable and as high-growth as possible (personally and professionally), I’ve decided to do one thing every day. 

That’s it.

That’s the plan.

There’s not one magic thing that I’ll be doing every day (other than blogging, obviously). Rather, it’s the idea of doing something every day. 

Some people have the tendency to be so overcome with new-ness that they hunker down in routines in order to maintain some sense of familiarity around them. I would be one of those people (maybe I’m the only one of those people, who knows).  

Sometimes that small little safety net of a routine can turn into a big ole rut that you’re stuck in and without even realizing it six months have gone by without ever experiencing the world around you. (Not speaking from experience or anything, why would you think that?)

The other thing that I’ve noticed is that even in periods of time where I’ve undergone immense learning, I’ll oftentimes not even realize what I’m learning because there’s just so much information (or so many experiences or places or people or fill in the blank). 

So that’s why I’m going to do something every day. That can be any of the following (or something else that I come up with on the spot to fill the quota for the day, let’s be real):

• Eat something (or somewhere) new
• Go somewhere new
• See something new
• Meet someone new
• Learn something new

That sums up pretty much everything there is to experience in life, so I think this should be easy enough? 

(We all know famous last words when we see them, right? Right.)

Anyway, starting things off strong, here’s the thing I learned today!

Did you know that to strikethrough text on a Google Doc, you can’t just press Ctrl + S?

I knew that.

I’ve Googled it a million times. 

And I always forget. 

I don’t know why my brain continues to think that it has the correct solution when it definitely does not.

So today at work I Googled it for the last time, because this time I finally wrote down the correct steps to produce those fancy words with lines running through them. And that magic formula is: Alt + Shift + 5

(In the doc where I’m writing this, the last phrase is strickenthrough [I guess that’s a word now] but I think it might not carry over to WordPress so please just laugh at my attempt at a joke and we can all go on our merry way.)

That’s all. 

It was a pretty un-adventurous day other than that little piece of now-lasting knowledge. 

Hopefully it’s going to transform the life of some poor soul who’s been going all the way to the Format button to strikethrough their text.

[Update: I just went to the Format button to double-check that you can even strikethrough text from there and I discovered that the keyboard shortcut is literally right there in the dropdown menu. It’s been there this whole time.]

Well.

I think the real lesson I learned today was to stop trying to make shortcuts if you’re not even willing to do things the real way, because sometimes doing things the real way will actually save you lots of time and energy and heartache in the long run. 

Also, don’t be condescending and call other people poor souls when you’re the real poor soul who apparently doesn’t know how to use Google Docs. 

So anyway, thanks for tuning in for tonight’s installment of Life Lessons With Dana! We’ll be back tomorrow with more shining examples of my questionable judgment and very painful learning process.