I’ve been playing a game with myself for the past week or so. As part of a goal-setting exercise, I had to picture my ideal day in my ideal career. If I had everything I wanted, what would my typical day be like?

And then it occurred to me that there was nothing stopping me from having that kind of day now, so I started pretending that I was already a bestselling author. The book I’m writing now got published and was a huge bestseller, so I was pretending my writing was the sequel. What would bestselling author me do differently from the way I work now?

That’s been a surprisingly effective way to get stuff done. Bestselling Author Me would have a lot more confidence about promoting her work, so instead of overthinking opportunities, I’ve made myself jump at them. An author working at bestseller level would be diligent about getting work done. She’d put in a full day’s work on writing, business, and marketing and not get sidetracked by random things.

But my ideal life also has time for life beyond work. I may put in a day’s work, but I then give myself time to rest and relax after work. I do yoga, spend time reading and knitting, maybe listening to music, a little TV time. My back had been complaining after I overdid it with some gardening work and contorting myself to reach raspberries, but a week of doing yoga daily and I felt a lot better. I’ve also been sleeping better.

In my ideal life, my house is clean and organized and stays that way. I haven’t achieved that yet, but I made good progress in some trouble spots. I’m fine-tuning my office. One irritation is the rug in my office. My office chair’s casters are meant for use on carpet, and I don’t want to scratch up my wood floors (which are original to the house). The rug I bought was for a different chair when my office was set up differently, and the chair keeps rolling off it or doesn’t want to roll smoothly. I got fed up with that, and since Wayfair was having a sale, I found a new rug that should fit better. That’s coming later today.

One odd thing that came up from this exercise is that I seem to do better when I dress for work. Not that I’m putting on a suit and makeup, but on a hot day last week I wore a light linen dress instead of my usual summer uniform of shorts and a t-shirt, and I felt a lot more adult and professional. I felt a bit like a glamorous bestselling author. So, I picked up a few cheap t-shirt and tank-style dresses. They’re actually more comfortable than the t-shirts and shorts because there aren’t any waistbands, and I feel like I’m at work when I’m dressed up a bit.

Of course, not every day can be an ideal day. I’ve had days when I was slipping — like this Monday when I got sidetracked by online shopping for office rugs and yesterday when I couldn’t seem to focus at all — but then the next day I start the day by thinking of how my ideal day would go. On the non-focus day, my “what would Bestselling Author Future Me do?” approach meant that I took care of a lot of other stuff instead of wasting time and doomscrolling. I did some brainstorming and planning, some research into marketing opportunities, and took care of a lot of little admin and life tasks that I’d been procrastinating.

It feels really good to get to the end of a work day and be able to look back on what I’ve done and then relax with no guilt because I met my goals for the day. That makes it easier to go into the next day chasing that feeling. I’m trying not to think in terms of having to do this every day, forever, but I do try to start each day with the goal of living it as though I’ve already been successful with the things I’m going to do that day.