Productivity hacks often revolve around making complicated to-do lists every morning and finding a way to do “deep work” for longer periods of time throughout the day. Such heavy tasks are important, yes, but finding a way to make small, incremental progress is just as good if that’s what works for you. For long-term goals, consider adopting a “no zero days” mentality.

Zero days are any days where you accomplish nothing toward a goal, meaning non-zero days are any days where you accomplish something, even if it’s small. The idea of working a little every day isn’t exactly new, but the concept of “zero days” comes from a decade-old Reddit post that sparked a small movement online.

In the original post, the author says that even if you do nothing all day when you have an essay due in the future, writing one sentence at 11:58pm counts as not having a zero day. Recognizing that every piece of work, no matter how small compared to the overall project, is important and meaningful can help you stay motivated and work toward greater accomplishments little by little, preventing you from getting overwhelmed.

The first step to not having zero days is to simply commit to them. If you find it difficult to complete a lot of tasks in a day, this could be the solution for you, provided you set long-term goals. Completing small tasks counts as a non-zero day, of course, but this method is especially useful if you have something big coming up and are dreading it. Breaking it down keeps it all manageable.