Month: November 2018

3 strategies for forming new habits

On By MarishaIn Habits, Organization & Productivity2 Comments

The main strategies for habit formation are implementation intentions, habit stacking, and environment design.

In his book Atomic Habits, James Clear discusses the basics of habit formation as well some more advanced techniques. There are three main habit formation strategies he outlines.

1. Implementation intentions

Having an implementation intention refers to making a plan for when you will do a certain action.

“When situation X arises, I will perform action Y.”

For instance, “On Tuesdays at 15:00, I will go swimming for 1 hour.”

Or, “When I wake up, “I will meditate for 10 minutes.”

This is one of the most researched types of habit formation. Numerous studies show that people who have specific plans for when to do an action are much more likely to carry out that action than people who only have a vague intention to do so (thus, implementation intentions).

This also refers to the simple recommendation of putting the activity on your calendar. This is why fitness instructors, music teachers, and other types of coaches often say, “Make a date with yourself for when you will do the activity. And then keep the appointment.”

2. Habit stacking

Habit stacking is a similar but slightly different idea. The idea is to pair an activity you’d like to do with an activity you already do. For instance:

“When I get home from work, I will play the piano for 5 minutes.” You get home from work every workday, so it’s an easy trigger to get you to play the piano.

“While I brush my teeth, I will think about 3 things I’m grateful for today.” You brush your teeth anyway, so you might as well pair it with an activity you’d like to do, in this case incorporating gratitude into your life.

The key is that the trigger activity needs to be something that is already set in your routine, meaning that you do it on most days. And then the activity you pair with it (the one you’d like to add) needs to be something small and manageable. Playing the piano for 5 minutes is easy to fit into your routine; playing it for 1 hour is not.

3. Environment design

Very often we carry out certain actions because the environment triggers us and not because we choose to. This is often discussed in relation to healthy eating. If there is junk food in your house or in your office, you are more likely to eat it. If water is being sold in a cafeteria, people are more likely to buy it. If you put your guitar in an easy-to-see place, you are more likely to play it.

Try to design your environment as much as possible to fit the behaviors you’d like to engage in. If you’d like to eat more healthy foods, keep those types of foods in your house and throw away junk food. Or at least put healthy foods in visible and accessible places and place junk food in an out-of-reach drawer.

If you’d like to drink more water, place a glass or bottle of water in front of you. If you’d like to play the guitar more, put it in a prominent location in your living room. If you’d like to read more, place a book on your living room table or next to your bed.

Similarly, at work, if you’d like to avoid being distracted by your phone, put in a hard-to-reach drawer or on top of a high shelf. If you’d like to avoid being distracted by people walking by, turn your desk to face the window or the wall. If you’d like to drink more tea than coffee, place some nice teas on your desk.

Have you used one of these techniques to transform your habits? What works best for you: implementation intentions, habit stacking, or environment design? Let me know by commenting below or on Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn.

Focus on habits instead of goals

On By MarishaIn Habits, Organization & Productivity2 Comments

To achieve long-lasting behavioral change, emphasize habits instead of goals.

I am currently reading the book Atomic Habits by James Clear, and I am greatly enjoying it. It covers habit formation and behavior change from the basics to more advanced techniques.

James begins by discussing focusing on goals vs. habits. After all, most of the time we focus on achieving goals because the goal is the important, motivating factor. For instance, if you’re trying to get a job as a computer programmer, what ultimately matters is whether you get the job or not.

Focusing on goals postpones our happiness

But with goals we have an either-or mentality: either we achieve the goal, or we don’t. We either succeed or fail. We don’t pay much attention to the progress we’ve made or to what smaller things we’ve achieved in the process. If you don’t get the computer programmer job, you may feel disappointed and not take into account how much you’ve learned about programming in the process.

Also, with a goal-focused mentality, happiness is postponed to the future. We think that when I get that job, then I will be happy. I am not and don’t need to try to be happy in the present moment. This is a huge problem because if we always put off our happiness until later, that moment of happiness will never come. Even when we get the job, there will be something else to do, e.g., renovate the house, before we can be happy.

This really struck me. As a goal-oriented, driven person, I have experienced this multiple times. While working hard on a goal, for instance on getting into university, I told myself that it didn’t matter how I felt at that time. As long as I got into university, everything would be okay and I would be happy. But then when I did get into university, that didn’t magically bring me happiness. I was quite confused because I had achieved my goal but still hadn’t gotten happiness.

With this in mind, James Clear proposes focusing on habits instead of goals. Emphasizing habits forces you to bring your attention to what you are doing today, tomorrow, or this week. Your focus is not on some faraway point in the future but rather it is very close to the present. Completing a habit can give you an immediate sense of satisfaction, so your happiness is not postponed until some vague point in time.

Habit change is identity change

What’s more, habit change is identity change. When you adopt a new habit, you become a person who does this new thing. If you choose to go swimming twice a week, you become somebody who swims. If you were focusing on a goal, e.g., swim freestyle for 1 km, you’re a wanna-be, somebody who hasn’t achieved anything yet. And the moment you achieve that goal, you set the next one, so you become another wanna-be, somebody who now wants to swim freestyle for 2 km.

Instead, if you focus on your new habit, your identity shifts immediately. Once you become “someone who swims,” your identity begins to drive your actions and choices. You go swimming because that’s what a swimmer does. Motivation begins to come from within and not from the outside (the external goal). Then it is much, much easier to sustain a habit because there is much less resistance, and the desire to maintain the activity comes from within yourself, from your sense of identity.

It’s important to remember that identity is not static. Generally, you want to change your behavior and achieve goals in order to become a better person. But focusing solely on goals is like trying to achieve something new and big while being the same, old person.

While when you adopt a new habit, you change your identity. Little by little, you become that “improved” person who swims or is a good computer programmer. And you don’t do so by achieving mind-blowing goals but by doing an activity repeatedly and consistently and getting better at it gradually over time.

Are you usually goal-oriented or habit-oriented? How do those two work for you? Let me know by commenting below or on Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn.

Do focused work and be responsive to external demands

On By MarishaIn Organization & ProductivityLeave a comment

We are expected to quickly respond to things such as email and personal messages, but we also need to do focused work, for instance when we need to write an important document. We can manage to do both if we set up our day so that it fits our activities and our rhythm. Follow these five steps to find out how.

Do you also get drawn into the craziness of being available all the time? A study by Jackson and colleagues shows that the typical person checks email every five minutes and then, on average, it takes 64 seconds to resume the previous task after checking the email.

This leads to worse performance for almost all of us; a study by Watson and Strayer shows that only 2% of the population can pay attention to two things at the same time. When we hear this, most of us think we belong to that 2%. Sorry to break it to you, but we probably don’t.

As much as our culture idolizes multitasking, for almost all of us trying to do many things at the same time leads us to perform worse. It looks like we’ll need to put our beloved multitasking to rest and focus on one thing at a time, the old-fashioned way.

We can do both: allow time for focused, uninterrupted work and also respond to external demands. Here’s how.

1. Do one thing at a time

Since we’re not good at multitasking, we need to do what we do well: do one thing at a time. Choose one task to work on for the next 30 minutes of one hour. And commit to it. Set a timer and begin.

Make sure you eliminate distractions during this time. Also close your email app, close any messaging apps, put your phone on silent and out of reach. Close the extra tabs on your browser; they attract your attention, and you may find yourself clicking on them without even noticing. If you habitually open your browser and end up distracting yourself, you can turn off the wifi on your device or even turn it off in your house if you’re working at home.

Observe yourself and learn about your own tendencies. What attracts your attention? What distraction is so irresistible that you end up pursuing it? If you notice what distracts you, you know what you need to address, and then you can come up with a way to minimize it.

2. Set aside blocks of time for certain activities

Make sure you’ll have time for all those other things that are calling your attention. If you keep wondering what’s in your email, schedule time to look at email after you’ve worked on your important task. If you want to check social media, make sure you give yourself 10 minutes to do that after your focused time period is finished.

One way to do this is to schedule specific time blocks for certain activities. For instance:
20181116_153537.jpg

Image credit: Marisha Manahova

Another way is to pair two activities: after you’ve completed the first one, you can do the second one. For example:

“After I’ve worked on my article for 45 minutes,
Then I will look at social media for 10 minutes.”

Knowing that you will get to the activities that are attracting your attention puts your mind at peace. Even if you’re not responding to your emails right now, you will get to them in a hour.

3. Figure out when you have the most energy

It is also important to figure out when is a good time for you to do focused work. Till Roennenberg, author of Internal Time, developed a useful way to figure this out.

On a free day, at what time do you wake up? This doesn’t refer to the day after you’ve been out all night. Rather, if you’ve had a few days when you could go to sleep and get up whenever you wanted, what does your wake up time end up being?

That is your natural wake up time. After that, the body has some sleep inertia (i.e., remaining sleepiness) which lasts for 2-3 hours. Once the sleep inertia has lifted, then your peak energy starts and lasts for about 4 hours. To illustrate this, let’s take an example:

20181116_153910

Image credit: Marisha Manahova

In order to take advantage of your peak energy, you should schedule your main task for the day sometime in that peak energy window. Other tasks, such as email and administrative tasks, can be left for other parts of the day.

4. Set your main task for the day

According to James Clear, author of Atomic Habits, each day should have a main task, also known as an anchor task. This is the most important (and often most difficult) thing you need to do that day. It should be prioritized over other tasks, and you should devote uninterrupted time to it during your peak energy window.

5. Prepare for the next day
At the end of each workday, spend 10 minutes planning the next day at work. Look at your calendar and at your tasks for the next day and decide what would be the best time distribution. What will your anchor task be? Schedule 1.5-2 hours to work on it during your peak energy window. What other 1-3 tasks will you need to work on? These are smaller tasks (i.e., not your anchor task) that still need to get done but are not as important and don’t demand as much attention as your anchor task. Schedule time for those either during your peak energy window or outside it.

Also, schedule time for email, messages, and other external demands. It usually works well to have two time blocks scheduled for that, for instance, one hour right before lunch and one hour at the end of the workday.

Putting it all together

To put this all together, you can take the following steps:

  • Start by figuring out when your peak energy window is;
  • For each day, decide on an anchor (i.e., main) task;
  • Schedule time to work on the anchor task during your peak energy window;
  • Schedule time to work on smaller tasks during other times of the day;
  • Schedule blocks of time for email, messages, external demands, social media, or whatever else tends to call for your attention.

Once you’ve planned out your day, all you need to do is set the timer and get going.

Have you tried this? What did you find? Let me know by commenting below or on Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn.

How I un-freaked myself out about planning my own wedding

On By MarishaIn Family Time & Project Management, Mindset & Well-being, Organization & ProductivityLeave a comment

I was seriously freaking out about my wedding. But once I figured out what was important to me and how to put that into practice, it became much easier and less stressful.

When I mentioned I am planning my wedding, many of my friends made jokes: “You love organization, so this must be heaven for you!” Everyone knows planning a wedding is stressful, but people assumed it was easy for me.

The truth is, it wasn’t heaven at all. I was freaking out. Completely! What kind of event should we have? Where should it be? How should we do it exactly? I had no idea.

Also, there are so many expectations around weddings. They are supposed to be gorgeous, elegant, fun, romantic, delicious (the food), entertaining… I felt like there was no way I’d be able to fulfill all these expectations and that the guests wouldn’t enjoy the event for one reason or another.

Whenever I shared this concern with friends, they said, “But you don’t need to worry about that! It’s not about the other people, it’s about you. This is your day!”

“Really?” I thought. “This is supposed to be my day? But if it really were my day, I would do it very differently.” But this was a strange thought because I had an idea of what weddings should be like, and that didn’t particularly attract me.

 

002201222567466706330096813.jpg

Photo credit: Logan Zillmer

I was fortunate enough to have multiple people around me consistently ask, “What do you want?” The truth was that I didn’t know what I wanted. I had never thought about it, and I had no clue.

In the end, it all came down to identifying my priorities. What’s important to me and what do I enjoy? I am not much into ceremonies and formal rituals, but I enjoy being in nature and being together with friends and family. (Fortunately, my fiance has the same priorities.) Once I identified these things as the most important, instead of expectations based on past experiences, things became clearer in my mind.

I also had to battle FOMO (the fear of missing out). What if, at some point in the future, I regretted not having a formal wedding? What if it turned out this was something I wanted?

I had to think about something Gretchen Rubin said: “If it’s right for us to throw something away, we should, even if someone else would pick it up.” In my case, it might be right for someone else to have a formal wedding, but it’s not the right thing for me. Why? Because it’s not what feels right right now. I have no idea what will feel important to me in the future, but I can try to figure out what feels right now.

Once I identified what my priorities are and what feels right to me, I knew what to do. As I described in the blog post about my system, I made a Trello board for our wedding, identified projects and tasks, and started getting stuff done.

Before, I had felt paralyzed and couldn’t start acting because I didn’t know what I wanted. But once I identified what I wanted and broke it down into manageable tasks, it became easy to act. It’s amazing how having clarity about what we want and why we want it can reduce our stress and get us going.

Have you been stressed about a major project you had to undertake? Did you find a way to reduce the stress and manage the project better? Let me know by commenting below or on Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn.

Find your peak energy window

On By MarishaIn Organization & Productivity3 Comments

By doing difficult or important work in your peak energy window, you can greatly increase your productivity and the quality of your work. Here is how to find out when your peak energy window is.

Have you ever been asked, “Are you a morning person or an evening person?” If so, what did you answer?

While this is a useful question in order to get to know yourself better, the truth is more nuanced than that. Till Roennenberg, author of Internal Time, developed a useful way to think about this. With a couple of simple steps, you can figure out for yourself when your peak energy window is.

Let’s say you’re on vacation; you don’t have to wake up early for work, and you also didn’t stay up too late last night. You went to bed when you got sleepy, and you woke up rested.

On that morning, at what time did you wake up? That is your natural wake up time.

After you’ve naturally woken up, the body has some sleep inertia which lasts for 2-3 hours. Once the sleep inertia has receded, your peak energy window starts and lasts for about 4 hours. To illustrate this, let’s take an example:

Natural wake up time: 8:00
Sleep inertia: 8:00-10:30
Peak energy: 10:30-14:30

In order to take advantage of your peak energy, you should work on the most important task for the day (or the most difficult thing for the day) in that peak energy window. Other tasks, such as email and administrative tasks, can be left for other parts of the day.

So if your natural wake up time is around 8:00 and you start work at 9:00, you’ll be trying to work in the middle of your sleep inertia. It’s not surprising, then, that you can’t get yourself to focus or be productive. You’d be better off doing some simpler tasks until about 10:30 and then starting on the important/difficult task.

You may have noted that lunch falls right in the middle of that peak energy window for most of us. This could be a bit of a waste since many of us experience an after-lunch dip. To minimize it, you may eat a medium-sized lunch instead of a big one since a smaller meal will make you less sleepy. Also, metabolizing carbs tends to make us more sleepy than metabolizing protein or healthy fats, so you may want to minimize carbs at lunch and include more at dinner, for instance.

If you’ve seen my previous blog post about swallowing the frog first thing in the morning, you may be confused: these two blog posts seem to give conflicting pieces of advice. This may very well be the case, and you need to figure out what works best for you. That’s why it’s best to try out both and see how you feel and perform with each.

For someone with an early natural wake up time, doing the important task first thing in the morning may be effective since it coincides with her peak energy window. For someone with a later natural wake up time, however, this would mean trying to work on something difficult during their sleep inertia period, which may not be a great idea.

My natural wake up time is early, so my peak energy window is approximately 9:00-13:00. Often I actually move my lunch to 13:00, so I’ve used all my peak energy time for focused work. In the afternoon, I can focus, but it’s more difficult (unless I have some green or black (!) tea). After 17:00, don’t count on me to concentrate well.

In contrast, I know people who are only really awake from 14:00. A colleague of mine knows this about himself and has purposefully switched his working hours to 12:00-20:00. He does his best work 14:00-18:00. He used to try to work in the mornings, but he ended up not delivering results because half of his days were wasted.

This is why it’s important to figure out when you do your best work and, if you have the possibility, try to adapt your schedule to that. I realize that not everybody has such a flexible schedule, but for those of us who do, it’s a shame not to use such a simple tool.

What is your natural wake up time? Do you experience sleep inertia? When is your peak energy window? Are you able to focus in the afternoon/evening? I’m really curious, so please let me know! Comment below or on Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn.