The Daily Design
Write tomorrow in the past tense, send it to someone, then score it out of ten.
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Time to result
- ~weeks to results
- Steps
- 7
- Confidence
- 94%
Jackman does a daily design every morning: he creates, in the past tense, an account of what the day had been. The dreams in it can be crazy and can be wild. The past tense is the whole trick — as he puts it, it is already happened, there is no really hope, no 'I think', no 'I hope I'm going to try', no 'I will'. His example is characteristically relational rather than professional: today my son and I had the best hour together laughing and talking, and we connected on some of the most elemental things in ways we have never connected. He writes it every morning as a text and sends it to his life coach Lauren Zander, because as she says, we all need to be accountable to someone. Then either that night, or the next morning if he is too tired, he reads it back and scores it out of ten — and he is honest that plenty of days come back as a four, where it did not turn out like that at all. He is candid that he came to this sceptically: his wife has always been into manifestation and he was not sure that was the way to live, wondering whether it was better to be open and present and deal with what comes in a stoic way. What converted him was the Greatest Showman episode, where the same mechanism applied to a project rather than a day.
Origin
Jackman has worked with life coach Lauren Zander for four years, having found her through Dr Mark Hyman. The daily design is her practice, sent to her by text each morning as the accountability mechanism, and it converted a sceptic who had previously dismissed his wife's interest in manifestation.
Core principles
- 01Writing the day in the past tense removes hope from the sentence — there is no 'I hope' or 'I'm going to try', only what happened.
- 02The design should be specific and relational, not a task list — the best hour with your son, connecting on something elemental, not three deliverables.
- 03Dreams in the design can be crazy and wild; the past tense is what makes ambition writable.
- 04Accountability requires a recipient — we all need to be accountable to someone, so the design gets sent, not filed.
- 05Scoring the day out of ten afterwards is what converts the writing from wishful thinking into a feedback loop.
- 06A four out of ten is information, not failure; the practice depends on being willing to write it down.
- 07The same mechanism scales from a day to a project — Jackman wrote a film's intended outcome down every single day of principal photography.
- 08Naming your reasons a project might fail is often the sound of building a safety net, and the net is what makes the fall likely.
How to run it
- 1
Write the day in the past tense
Create an account of what the day had been, as if it has already happened. Jackman is emphatic that this is not hope, not 'I think', not 'I hope I'm going to try', not 'I will' — it has happened.
Pro tip The grammar does the work. Change a single sentence to future tense and the whole entry deflates.
- 2
Make it relational and specific
Jackman's sample line is that his son and he had the best hour together, laughing and talking, connecting on some of the most elemental things in ways they had never connected. Note that the design specifies a quality of connection, not a task.
Pro tip Specificity is what lets you score it honestly afterwards.
Watch out A design made only of deliverables converts the practice into a to-do list with unusual grammar.
- 3
Let the dreams be crazy
Jackman explicitly says the dreams can be crazy, can be wild. The past tense is what makes it possible to write something ambitious without immediately hedging it.
Watch out Pre-shrinking the design to what you are confident of removes the only reason to write it.
- 4
Send it to someone every morning
Jackman writes it as a text and sends it to Lauren Zander every morning, on her principle that we all need to be accountable to someone. Tim immediately notes that any two people could do this as accountability partners.
Pro tip Tim's suggested structure: text in the morning, then check in and score against each other at 5 or 6pm.
Watch out An unsent design is a diary entry, and diary entries do not get scored.
- 5
Score it out of ten
Either that night, or the next morning if he is too tired, he reads it again and scores it. He is blunt about the bad ones — reading it back and going wow, that was a four out of ten, that did not turn out at all like that.
Pro tip The four-out-of-tens are the data; a run of nines usually means the designs are too safe.
Watch out If the score becomes a stick to beat yourself with, the practice will be quietly abandoned within a month.
- 6
Scale it to a project when the stakes justify it
For The Greatest Showman, Jackman sat down for about an hour and imagined what the movie was going to be and the effect it would have and why they were doing it, wrote all that down, and then wrote it down every day until principal photography finished — then had to recommit again during editing.
Pro tip Expect to have to recommit at each phase change; the first commitment does not carry the whole project.
- 7
Audit for the safety net
Watch for the moment you start assembling external reasons a thing might not work. Lauren Zander's diagnosis to Jackman was that he was preparing to choke — laying the safety net so that when it failed he could point at the budget, the writer, the impossibility of original musicals.
Pro tip Her forcing function was a 24-hour deadline to get on or get off, with getting on meaning a hundred percent in.
Watch out Jackman's own gloss: do not insure yourself for failure. The insurance policy is what makes the claim.
In the wild
Jackman was on the fence about The Greatest Showman, and so was the studio — he was not sure the script was in the right place and had lots of reasons for that. His coach Lauren Zander texted saying she needed to slap him, then told him she thought he was preparing to choke: laying the safety net for the film not to work, thinking of all the reasons outside himself why it would not, and giving him 24 hours to get on or get off, with getting on meaning a hundred percent in. He hung up the phone a little stunned, sat down for about an hour, imagined what the movie was going to be and the effect it would have and why they were doing it, wrote all of it down, and then wrote it down every day until they finished principal photography.
→ A completely changed intention toward the project, which Jackman calls a big turning point and his best career example of the daily design — while crediting director Michael Gracey, who for eight years never deviated from saying it would be the most successful musical of all time.
Jackman writes the design every morning and reads it back either that night or, if he is too tired, the next morning. He describes the honest reaction plainly: reading it again and going wow, that was a four out of ten, that did not turn out at all like that. He also admits he came to the whole thing sceptical — his wife has always been into manifestation and he was not sure that was the way to live life, wondering whether it was better to be open and present and deal stoically with what comes.
→ A working feedback loop rather than an aspiration file, and a sceptic converted by his own scoring data rather than by belief.
Jackman notes that because he sends the design to Lauren every morning, his and Deb's relationship goes to new levels of honesty and intimacy — he says their family life is the most successful part of his life, but he wants more, there are new levels, and there must be things he is keeping hidden or is ashamed of that he should share. The design is where that gets named.
→ A daily mechanism that keeps pushing on the part of life he already rates highest, rather than only on the parts that are failing.
Common mistakes
Writing it in the future tense
Jackman is precise about this: there is no really hope, no 'I think', no 'I hope I'm going to try', no 'I will'. Future tense reintroduces the escape hatch that makes the design unscoreable.
Never sending it to anyone
Lauren Zander's premise is that we all need to be accountable to someone, and Jackman texts the design every morning. An unsent design has no cost to abandoning, which is why private intention-setting decays.
Skipping the score
Without the evening read-back and the out-of-ten, the practice is pure visualisation. The score is what makes the next morning's design better calibrated rather than merely more optimistic.
Building the safety net before you start
Jackman's version of preparing to choke was listing why the film could fail — the money, the writer, the impossibility of original musicals — so the fall would not be far. His conclusion is blunt: do not insure yourself for failure.
Is it for you?
Best for
Anyone without a boss or external structure who needs a daily forcing function — founders, performers, freelancers — and anyone whose relationships keep losing to their calendar.
Not ideal for
People who will use the daily score as another instrument of self-punishment rather than as feedback, without support to hold it lightly.
From the transcript
“i do a daily design every day i create as if in the past tense of what the day had been”
“today my my son and i had the best hour together laughing and talking”
“i think you're preparing to choke i think you are laying the safety net for the greatest showman to be to not work”
“don't insure yourself for failure”
From the episode
#444: Hugh Jackman on Best Decisions, Daily Routines, The 85% Rule, Favorite Exercises, Mind Training, and Much More