It’s hard to believe, but there are just 100 days left in 2025.

Because of our cultural obsession with New Year’s Resolutions, most people will wait until January 1 to start making the positive life changes that will compound into their future.

But these final 100 days of 2025 represent an incredible opportunity.

Most people overestimate what they can do in a day and underestimate what they can do in 100 days.

So, with that in mind, join me in this year-end sprint to make the most of that opportunity.

Here are 25 ideas to win the final 100 days of 2025…

Keep your phone on Grayscale Mode for 90% of the day. It makes your phone dramatically less addictive and reduces your tendency to procrastinate through the little “just checks” of social media and messages during the day. (Note: You can find Grayscale Mode setup instructions ​here​!)

Use the Young and Old Test to make key decisions. When facing a decision, choose the path that your 10-year-old self and 80-year-old self would be proud of. Your 80-year-old self cares about the long-term compounding of the decision, while your 10-year-old self reminds you to have a little bit of fun along the way.

Conduct a leverage audit to identify the best uses of your time. For one week, color code activities on your calendar according to whether they were high leverage (your unit of input creates multiple units of output) or low leverage (your unit of input creates one unit of output). This exercise will create an awareness of the types of activities that are likely to create outsized returns in your life. It will help you identify ​the point of highest leverage​ (which is where you want to deploy most of your time and energy).

Go for a daily 15-minute tech-free walk. No phone. No music. No podcasts. No articles. No audiobooks. Just you, your thoughts, your gratitude, and the fresh air. It’s a simple reset that will change your perspective.

Identify (and close) your Say-Do Gap. If an outside observer watched you for a week, how serious would they say you are about achieving your goals? There are two types of priorities in life: The priorities you say you have and the priorities your actions show you have. Identify the gap between what you say and what you do. Then work to close it.

Practice your public speaking while engaged in light cardio. When you get nervous during a talk, your heart rate starts to rise. You aren’t prepared to deliver your talk in an elevated heart rate condition, so you spiral. Cardio practice sessions fix that. You'll be ready for it. It’s a weird hack, but it works.

Use my New Opportunity Test to say no more effectively. Assume the new opportunity takes twice as long and is half as profitable as you expect it to be. Would you still want to do it? We tend to be overly optimistic when taking on something new. Force a degree of rationality into the decision. If the answer is no, say no. If the answer is yes, take it on.

Every Sunday evening, create a Weekly Win Card. Write down the ~3-5 things that, if accomplished, would characterize real progress on the most important priorities in your professional life. Use the card to keep your focus on the bigger picture during the week.

Default to 25-minute calls and meetings. Reject the 30-minute standard. The first 5 minutes usually get wasted on banter about the weather, anyway. Take a simple walking or breathing break during the 5 minutes you got back. A ​Microsoft study​ showed that the 5-minute breaks had a profound impact on stress levels and performance.

Try my 5-5-5-30 morning routine. When you wake up, do 5 push-ups, 5 squats, 5 lunges, and a 30-second plank. You can do it while making coffee or right when you get out of bed. It’ll jumpstart your energy and give you a winning feeling to start the day.

Carry a small notebook everywhere you go. Make a habit of writing down any interesting ideas or thoughts you have during the day. It makes the ideas stick and sparks creativity. If you’re with someone and they say something interesting, write it down. It’s more polite than taking out your phone and makes it easier to follow up for relationship purposes. It also has a funny effect of subconsciously encouraging the other person to say more things worthy of being written down.

Try my 1-1-1 journaling method every night before bed. Write down one win from the day, one point of stress or anxiety, and one point of gratitude. It creates clarity, reduces stress, and helps you fall asleep faster.

Create (and stick to) a Power Down Ritual. It’s a fixed set of actions and behaviors that mentally and physically mark the end of your professional day. It might be something like: Check email for any final requests requiring action, do 15 minutes of prep for priority tasks of the next morning, and close down all applications and technology for the night. Create your own and stick to it.

Use my Right Now Test for taking control of your time. When deciding whether to take on a new commitment, ask yourself, "Would I do this right now?" Think of right now as today or tomorrow. The aim is to eliminate our tendency to say yes under the assumption we’ll have more time in the future. If the answer is no, say no. If the answer is yes, take it on.

Read 10 pages per day. It doesn't have to be personal development, it can be anything you enjoy. Do it first thing in the morning or in bed to help you fall asleep.

Invest 30 minutes per day in your vision for the future. Write, build a prototype, meet one new person, learn a new skill. 30 minutes is just 2% of your day, but 30 minutes per day for 100 straight days is 3,000 minutes of accumulated effort, which is enough to make dramatic progress in literally anything.

Swallow the frog for your boss. Observe your boss. Figure out what they hate doing. Learn to do it. Take it off their plate. It’s a clear way to add value, put up a win, and build career momentum.

Send a cold email (or DM) to someone you admire. Keep it short, personalize the delivery, and create a clear call-to-action at the end. There’s very little downside (a few minutes of your time) and significant upside (it sparks a new relationship).

Seek out rooms where you feel like the dumbest one in the room. It’s a small hit to your ego, but a huge boost to your growth.

Use the Feynman Technique for learning anything new. Try to teach the thing to someone uneducated on the topic. Make a note of where the other person gets confused. You'll get an immediate sense for your level of understanding of the topic and where you need to dig in more. Teaching is the highest form of learning.

To fall asleep fast, try the 4-7-8 Method. Breathe in through your nose for a 4-second count, hold your breath for a 7-second count, and exhale for an 8-second count. It activates your parasympathetic nervous system, which is responsible for rest and recovery. You’ll feel an immediate calm. Trust me, it works.

To reduce stress immediately, use the Physiological Sigh Technique. Double inhale through the nose. Long exhale through your mouth. Repeat 2-3x.

Use a rubber band to break a bad habit. Wear a rubber band on your wrist. Snap it lightly on yourself each time you do the thing you’re trying to stop. It creates a forced awareness (attached to a little sting) that really helps. I used this trick to stop complaining about things I couldn’t control. Every time I felt the urge to complain, I snapped it.

Use the photo memories feature on your phone to stay in touch with people. Look at it each week and send the photos to the people who pop up in them. It always prompts a quick catch up with people from your life and gives you a low-friction way to regularly stay in touch with old friends.

Use the Bought Status Test to avoid playing stupid games. Would I buy this thing if I couldn’t show it to anyone or tell anyone about it? Asking this question cuts through the noise to determine if the item itself provides happiness or utility, or if its sole purpose is to signal your success or achievement to others.

Yesterday You Said Tomorrow…

There’s an old Chinese parable that I love:

“The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is today.”

So, let’s get started today:

Choose one (or a few) ideas from the list. Commit. Finish.

Your entire life can change with 100 days of focused, daily effort. It’s time to prove it.