I’m pretty sure no one has ever gotten up in the morning and said to him or herself, “I’m going to waste this whole day and maybe the entire week, too!” No one does it on purpose, but lots of us do it. And we don’t do it by making the grand decision to waste our precious hours. Instead, we go day by day making little decisions that don’t give us much to look back on later.

If you’re going to make the most of your life, you must concentrate on doing it every day. You don’t need a grand master plan or a Gannt chart that stretches into the next county. All you need to do is choose to make time for the most important things.

Here are four things you can do every day that will help you make the most out of the time you have.

Hang Out with People Who Make You Better

The people we choose to spend time with have a huge influence on the way we think and what we aspire to become. Pick your friends carefully. Cultivate your relationships with them. Make time for people who make you better.

Make A Little Progress

You don’t have to make grand, bold leaps to make things better. All you need to do is make a little progress every day. Do something that helps move a relationship forward. Do something that helps you master a skill. Do something that prepares you better for tomorrow and next year and next decade. Make time to make a little progress every day.

Improve yourself

It’s not so obvious when you’re in your 20s or 30s, but when you get older, you see that those evenings where you watch TV instead of reading a book, or those days when you chose not to go to an educational event add up. The learning that makes for a richly-furnished mind and a rich life is built up over countless daily decisions to get better. Make time to improve yourself.

Talk to People Who Matter to You

I’ve seen many partnerships in my life. Some were life partnerships, and some were business partnerships, and some were temporary partnerships to achieve a goal. I’ve seen partnerships that last and partnerships that came apart, sometimes in a very messy way. I don’t know if there’s any science behind this, but it seems to me that the partnerships that work and that last are the ones where the partners talk to each other. I’m not sure it matters even what they talk about, but that they talk back and forth. They talk, and they listen. Make time to talk with people who matter.

Bottom Line

Don’t make the mistake of thinking that a rich life is the result of one or two big decisions. A rich life comes from doing little, but important, things every day, and the results of that doing accumulate over time. So, hang out every day with people who make you better. Make a little progress in a task or relationship every day. Get a little better, learn a little every day. And spend time every day talking with people that matter to you.