Have a nice day, we’re told.
Have a nice day, Stereophonics were once wished by a grouchy San Francisco taxi driver.
What would a nice day look like to you if you wrote it down on a piece of paper, play by play?
I don’t mean what would it look like if money was no object and you didn’t have obligations to your work, your family and friends. I mean what will tomorrow look like if it’s not incredible, but simply nice?
Not, as SpongeBob would put it, the best day ever.
I’ve been trying to nail down exactly what a simply nice day looks like for me. What’s the bare minimum for a nice day and also in my control?
Play by play, in a journal, I’ve been writing iterations of what a nice day would be if it really happened…
Wake up early, Get straight up, Make your bed, Open the curtains, Drink some water, Make some coffee, Sit outside and sip for a while, Do some exercise
By breaking it down in a granular way as I have above, it feels quite boring. But when a day doesn’t start like this, it very rarely becomes a nice day. The day continues:
Make some more coffee, Speak to family and friends, Write morning journal, Drink some more water, Start work with your priority task, Get outside at lunchtime
…assuming the nice day is a work day, I have to think about how it can be nice and also productive. I set a priority task. A single task that I will get done today, no matter what. The one thing, as Gary Keller would put it, or the ‘daily highlight’ as it’s outlined in the excellent Make Time.
What about the evening wind down?
Socialise, Drink some beer, Write evening journal, Drink some more water, Get to bed on time
I’m not describing a great day. This is simply a nice day. I’ve set out small, achievable hurdles that will make me feel good. Once I’ve written out this nice day, item by item, I’m left with a list of instructions. If I can just follow these instructions, as a minimum, I can have a nice day, any day.
I’ll keep iterating in pursuit of the nice day. But this seems to be a good exercise. To define a nice day, to set a minimum benchmark and to know that even an average day can feel accomplished.
Coffee shop of the week
Saint Frank Coffee, San Francisco
Man, this coffee shop ticked all of my boxes. Friendly staff, a mixture of seating for solo drinkers, groups and laptops, a bright and airy decor, great coffee and a very solid merch shelf.
This particular branch of Saint Frank in the Russian Hill area of San Francisco (they have two others further afield in Menlo Park) is handily located near the very picturesque Lombard Street (pic below, right) and crucially, near the top of its very steep incline which I discovered the hard way. The shop itself, which I assume is the original branch, feels clean and comfortable and is the perfect spot for meeting a friend or getting a bit of work done. The counter space is notable for its lack of espresso machine, which is instead hidden under counter (pic below, left), which I thought was pretty cool.
Saint Frank Coffee is both a small chain of shops, a procurer of green coffee direct from producers and a roaster. You can also rest assured when visiting that they have a cooperative and transparent relationship with the coffee producers they work with. They publish a transparency report on their website and detail the relational sourcing ethos that guides their interactions with coffee producers and the communities around them.
In their own words: “We don’t select new exciting coffees each year from trending producers, we commit to people and communities where exciting coffees are developed and created”.
Insta: @saintfrankcoffee
That’s all for The Mosaic this week. Have a good day and a good week and feel free to share this post if you liked it.