Ideas for Impact
Time passes faster when you divide a big chunk into lots of smaller chunks. So, if you’re on an inescapably boring path, break it into units. And, for each dreaded task, ask yourself, “What’s the most fun way I could do this?” Work at a coffee shop? Listen to your favorite music? Reward yourself upon its completion?
As Mary Poppins pleaded, “In every task that must be done there is an element of fun. You find the fun and snap! The job’s a game.”
Sure, self-discipline is an asset. Plenty of successful people evidently benefit from having truckloads of it. However, strengthening willpower may not always be easy for the rest of us.
You can increase productivity and contentment simply by altering your environment. Make it easier for you (and others in your life) to confront temptation and adopt the habits you want.
Use stimulus control to shift your behavior:
You’re more likely to start change when you put the stimulus for action into your environment.
Idea for Impact: Don’t get bogged down by thinking that lifestyle changes are entirely about willpower. In a world so heavily baited with pervasive cues and craving-inducing stimuli, the more you can tweak your environment to better condition yourself into your desired habits, the more likely you are to meet your goals.
The best way to catalyze significant change is by relying on highly specific habits and routines and making time for them amid the busyness of life.
Habit formation relies on consistency. Here’s a simple trick to prevent good intentions from slipping.
Suppose that you want to start a daily walking habit. You set a target to go for a walk for at least an hour a day. But some days, this habit might not be doable.
To prevent slipping on your daily goal and beating yourself up about it, establish two targets: one for the “good” days and one for the “tough” days.
Set the bar very low for when it’s not possible to dedicate an hour to walking. On the tough days, when you’re exhausted, hungry, feeling lazy and unmotivated, or you’re simply not in the mood to walk, you can go for a quick walk. And on good days, when you have more time and energy, go for longer walks. Average out the tough days with the good days.
Make it so easy that you can’t say no to maintaining your habit on the tough days. You’ll decrease your skipped days and sustain the habit’s consistency by lowering your expectations.
Another benefit of having easy-win targets for the tough days is that you nudge yourself into action. Let’s say you target reading an hour a day. On tough days, when you set out to read for just ten minutes, you’ll perhaps get engrossed in more of the task once you get started and find your way into the text. Action begets momentum, and you’ll find it easier to keep going at it.
Habits take a long time to create, but they develop faster when you do them more routinely and repeatedly. The more days you skip, the harder it is to get back into the habit. Set the bar low for the tough days and build deep-seated habits.
An “exercise snack” is a short little bite of physical activity you can do anywhere, anytime. You don’t even need to change your clothes. Try 10 push-ups, stair climbing, or a brisk walk or jog around the block.
Exercise snacking increases the amount of activity in your day, and breaks up sedentary time, which is increasingly being linked to chronic health risks.
It may not seem like much, but several scientific studies show that interleaving brief fitness routines a few times into your day not only encourages your body to feel better, but also contributes to meaningful gains in fitness and overall health. It improves your mood, stimulates creativity, and enhances focus, making it an all-around win for your health and productivity. Best of all, exercise snacking removes the pressure of committing to a long, once-a-day sweaty session.
Quitting something you no longer care about is more straightforward than something you’re spirited about but isn’t working.
To avoid quitting a passion too soon or too late, a basic rule of thumb is to give up when the outcomes aren’t improving, even after ample effort to turn things around.
That is to say, when things get difficult in school, business, relationships, or a project, increase your efforts and get help to improve it. If the results are still unacceptable after an adequate interval of much effort, maybe it’s time to throw in the towel on that course of action or rightsize your expectations, if not abandon the pursuit altogether.
While it is helpful to be motivated and get into the right mindset to, say, exercise, it’s far easier to just show up at the gym and get started on a small quest, even when you don’t really feel like doing it. You’re likely to habituate to new behaviors in a way that circumvents your innate resistance to change.
Minor adjustments can add up and make a big difference. As Harvard psychologist Susan David writes in Emotional Agility: Get Unstuck, Embrace Change, and Thrive in Work and Life (2016,)
Traditional self-help tends to see change in terms of lofty goals and total transformation, but research actually supports the opposite view—that small, deliberate tweaks infused with your values can make a huge difference in your life. This is especially true when we tweak the routine and habitual parts of life, which then afford tremendous leverage for change.
Idea for Impact: Waiting for the right mindset to “show up” can be a losing strategy. Taking action is often easier than controlling your mental state. Don’t overly focus on the very thing that’s harder to control. Take the next baby step forward.
American entrepreneur and blogger Derek Sivers popularized the “Hell Yeah or No” mental model (YouTube Synopsis): unless you’re super excited about something, don’t commit to it.
If you’re ready to say ‘yes’ to the things that aren’t that great, you won’t have time, energy, and focus for the “hell yeah” stuff in your life. Sivers has summed up,
We tend to say yes to too many things. And because of this, we’re spread too thin. We’re so busy doing average things that we don’t have time for the occasional great thing.
So instead I propose raising the bar as high as you can, so that if you’re feeling anything less than, “oh, hell yeah, that would be amazing,” then just say, no.
By doing this, you will miss out on many good things, but that’s okay because your time will be quite empty. So then by saying no to the merely good things, you’ll have the time and the energy and the space in your life to throw yourself in entirely when that occasional great thing comes up.
Recommendation: Read this insight-dense book. The “Hell Yeah or No” mental model will reframe how you control impulses and consider life’s big decisions.
You may have heard of the notion of lilies and leeches. The lilies are the people—and situations—that bring out the best in you. The leeches just grind you down.
Learn to say ‘no’ to relationships or situations that don’t work for you. Life’s too short to waste time on anything that can suck your happiness and energy. Avoid those emotional leeches, productivity leeches, and financial leeches.
Idea for Impact: A little-cited key to a rewarding life: choose to surround yourself with those who elevate you. With those who are caring, supportive, and nonjudgmental, and who make you feel loved, appreciated, and respected.
Mindful eating for wellbeing isn’t just about what foods to eat but also about establishing and maintaining a healthy relationship with food.
Idea for Impact: Building wellness begins with really paying attention. Change behavior with simple nudges.
Since the dawn of time, the world has venerated early birds and propagated the notion that getting up with the lark makes you healthy, wealthy, and wise. The internet is full of references to the early-to-rise habits of Tim Cook, Michelle Obama, or some celebrity du jour. Those who struggle with mornings are slandered as slothful.
Even the wiser productivity gurus often fail to acknowledge that “4 a.m. is the most productive hour” not because of some configuration of the planets or some scientific phenomenon but simply because there are fewer distractions at that hour.
Night owls, no need to force yourself into a mold that doesn’t work for you. No need to completely adjust your life and feel weary and less productive throughout the day.
Overhauling your sleep times may not have much effect. Ultimately, productivity isn’t about the time you wake up. It’s accommodating your most challenging tasks when your brain is working at its peak.
Idea for Impact: All of us are born predisposed to function better at certain times of the day. The more you understand your chronotype and adapt your work around your naturally preferred times, the more productive you’ll be. Experiment with your sleep schedule, but don’t push too far out of your natural preference. Stick with what works.