Category: Habits

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I Need to Always Be Improving One Thing

So I just read a rather depressing but very honest and introspective post from myself from February this year. In it, I explained how I felt like I hadn’t really been trying all that hard. But I felt like I had rounded a corner, and that 2020 was going to be nothing but good things!

Putting the soul-crushing irony of that belief aside, while the post did bring up some great points and present a good overall picture of where I was (am) at, it didn’t really provide any real strategies for improvement.

As much as I wish it were, “start trying harder” is simply not an effective strategy, no matter what anybody tells you. And neither is anything dealing with “motivation”.

So what do I do?

I’ve talked a lot about the “One thing”, the thing I need to focus on most in my business (or life!) to improve at any one moment. While I’m not strictly saying that I should just, “do that”, but focusing on one area is, in fact, what I’m saying.

I need to always be focusing on improving in one area. I’ve written at length about habits, and how I want to be building one new habit at all times, etc.

As strange as it is to say, the one habit that I need to be building, more than any other is… Building new habits constantly.

So… I guess to start, I’ll need to be building two habits at a time!

But that seriously needs to be it. Even if I’m doing a bad job building whatever habit it is I’m working on, I just need to be doing it. I need to focus every single day on it, and aggressively enforce what I’m doing.

And the reason for this goes beyond “habits are good”.

If I want to get to where I feel like I’m “trying hard”, it’s going to take a lot of work building up the habits and resilience that it takes. It’s going to be improving things, one step at a time.

I’ve written about sleep habits extensively, and so far have just been plagued by failures with those. Maybe that’s a good place to start and just double down on fixing that.

I’m taking a month-long break from alcohol and so this seems like a good time for it. I’ve tried to do just one piece at a time, but maybe I need all of the following to be in sync for this to work:

  • Going to bed early
  • Waking up at the same early time every morning
  • Not using the snooze button
  • Not napping

I have so many years of bad habits with all of these lined up, I may just have to do it all. I might be exhausted initially, but that exhaustion will help me sleep earlier and get better sleep, which will then help with not needing to snooze or take naps, and over time I should even start waking up at the same time.

So… I just need to focus on this, and then the next thing, and then just keep improving.

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I’ve Gotten Comfortable Just Running the Business

Don’t let the title fool you: this is a post about something bad.

I just got done reading some of my posts from January and February, when I was excited to grow my business and really work through a ton of marketing things. And then, as you know, the world changed in March.

So for a long time I told myself that it was okay to just worry about keeping things going and not too much on working ON the business instead of IN it.

But it’s been 7 months now, and I’m still just working IN the business. I haven’t gotten around to doing… anything. I just work on the projects we have, as they come, and that’s it. I’ve done almost nothing to advance my company.

I am working with a marketing company now, and we are about to embark on a new campaign that may lead to many new clients (or at least I’m hoping!). And in that sense, maybe I’ll just fall over backwards into success without having to do all of the work.

Or maybe, if this works, the takeaway is that if I’m just not putting in the effort or having success in an area: outsource. Why make things difficult for myself? Just outsource and things will be fine.

But I don’t know that yet, so in the meantime, I should really focus on getting back into working on the business again. Even if it’s just for 15 minutes per day, I really need to do it. Things are a little slow right now and that scares me a bit! But it’s also an opportunity.

Take advantage of it.

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Additional Thoughts on Having Systems in Place

In my last post, I talked about the need for some kind of system in my business to keep things going forward. After deeper thought, I definitely think that’s a must!

I just read one of my old blog posts here where I essentially described this blog as my “system”. It was the only place where I was reading over old thoughts and goals and it was the only thing I had that resembled accountability of any kind.

But the problem is that it’s totally informal and has no real rhythm to it. I read old posts whenever I have time, and they all get the same amount of attention. That’s not really a system.

So I need something in my business that can prioritize tasks, keep them top-of-mind, and make me accountable to them. It also needs to have some timings built-in that ensure things are continually addressed in a systematic fashion.

But I’m also thinking now that maybe I need better systems for other areas of my life, too. I’m always trying to develop new habits and improve things, but there is no real system to it. I try to develop a habit until it works, or sometimes I fail, and then just… Keep going?

Maybe I need to put a schedule together and record results for new habits. Once something is established, I can move on. I should probably review it and record the results at least once a week, or maybe even more often. That would keep me focused.

With the unprecedented and continued success of my weight training “system”, it has made me even more confident that this type of success could be applied everywhere else in my life if I can just develop or find the right systems.

So in the coming weeks, I’d like to work on searching for or developing new systems for myself. From there, I think I can really improve rapidly!

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Successes Within the Last Year

I think I need to take a step back and acknowledge the successes I’ve had over the last year that maybe I haven’t really mentioned here too much.

Too often I only focus on the failures and things that need to be improved, while rarely pointing out all of the things that have gone well. That should change!

So here are some successes I’ve had over the past year or so:

  • Drastically reduced or eliminated time spent on social media
  • Drastically reduced time spent browsing the news
  • Eliminated non-productive time on my phone
  • Replaced it with productive activities
  • Learned the name, location, capital, and flag of every country in the world
  • Learned the name, capital, and location of every state/territory in Canada, the US, and Mexico
  • Learned every US president in order, including the years they served, their party, and their presidency number
  • Grew my English vocabulary by about 300 words
  • Put on a significant amount of muscle and figured out a new workout routine that is yielding consistently positive results
  • Got into the habit of running, and reduced my one-mile time from over 8:30 to nearly 6:30
  • Have greatly improved the time in which I get up every morning, and minimized how late I sleep when not using an alarm
  • Started drinking less
  • Played drastically fewer video games
  • Greatly improved Spanish skills with drills, continued practice, and watching Spanish-language television instead of English shows
  • Learned a lot of history from reading and watching documentaries
  • Finished renovating my house and rented out the bedrooms
  • Paid off student loans, all credit card debt, and a business loan
  • Purchased a company and successfully migrated all of the clients to my services
  • Started investing money for the first time ever
  • Improved my yard and lawn considerably and harvested my first black raspberries
  • Caught the biggest snapping turtle I’ve ever caught

Honestly there are way more things than I thought there would be when I decided to make this list! That’s why it’s good to do it, to really get a sense of where you’re at and what’s going right.

I can’t help but feel like, while I did all of these things, there are many other things I should have been doing but didn’t. And while there is always room for improvement, it doesn’t all have to come at once. I think most of these fall into the category of self-improvement which I firmly believe will roll into improvement in all areas.

So I think I just need to keep it up, and good things will come!

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Working Out Earlier in the Day

Okay, so not every post here has to be deeply profound. I’m all about improvements, no matter how small.

Lately, out of necessity, I’ve been pushing many of my workouts to early in the day instead of in the evening when I usually do them. And I’m realizing there are huge benefits to doing so.

Historically, I would basically get all of my important work done, and only then would I do a workout. This typically has meant not working out until 6, 7, or sometimes even much later.

But the problem with that, I’m realizing, is that when you put something so physically demanding at the end of the day, it acts as a sort of barrier, like a magnet facing the wrong way.

It is hard to get through the work you need to do, because you know you’re going to need all of that willpower to do the workout at the end. And that’s a problem.

Now that I’ve been doing it earlier in the day, I’ve noticed that not only is it easier to get going on the workout itself, but also that you feel much freer afterwards. You’ve already done the hardest thing for the day, so everything else is easy. You just finish the rest, and you’re set!

So I need to focus on doing the workouts early consistently, I think. I’ll get a lot more done, and probably be more consistent, too.

That’s just my thought for the day.

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It’s Amazing that I Still Don’t Have Time

I barely leave the house, and yet I still feel like I barely have any time to get things done at all.

My experience makes me feel like I have nothing in common at all with other people. Maybe it’s because  actual hobbies have become a dying pastime.

But I’ve been filling all of my days with work, learning/studying, exercising, socializing, house/yard work, and of course other hobbies like kayaking, disc golfing, etc.

And I feel like I’m really productive, but at the same time, there still just isn’t enough time. I’ve found that I’m never even close to bored, I’m never sitting around doing nothing (or even just watching TV for fun), and I rarely finish everything I set out to finish for the day.

And the bigger problem is that I’m not finishing some of the very most-important things I’m supposed to be doing. There are major, long-term projects in my business that are critical to my future success that I’m not getting done.

Maybe I just thought that with everything shut down, it would be easy to get all of these things done. But obviously that won’t be the case for me.

So now I’m left wondering if I need to start cutting some things out or limiting certain activities more, even if they are productive.

Or maybe it’s just a case of needing to delegate more in my business. I think that, along with the sense of “having more time”, I’ve started to take on more of the development work myself. That’s time that could fairly easily be freed-up by delegation.

Maybe the answer really is that simple. I guess I’ll have to think more about that.

Either way, it truly is important that I figure out how to get these important long-term things done. My career depends on it!

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News Diet Update and Reflections

It’s been something like 9 days since I gave up reading the news and all forms of social media feeds. And it feels… strange!

The first thing is that it’s really odd just how quickly something that seemed so important and relevant can feel so completely distant and irrelevant.

I’m speaking, of course, of the pandemic. So far I’m fortunate enough to not have suffered any losses personally or professionally as a result. And my day-to-day is virtually unaffected, since I already stayed at home most of the time to work even before the pandemic, and most of the activities I do for fun aren’t really impacted either.

So in any given day, it really feels as though there is zero impact to my life as a result. And when I’m not reading about it or talking about it, eventually it ceases to feel important.

I’ve also been extremely productive during this time. In addition to having more time to do things, I also feel better and am more motivated.

So I’m really starting to wonder about the actual cost of reading and caring about the daily news.

Clearly I’m not advocating total ignorance, but really, the vast majority of news has no impact on me at all, and of the remainder, I typically have no ability to change.

So ultimately, the rewards of keeping up every day are virtually non-existent, but the cost is extremely high.

While I think I’ll still check in from time-to-time, I think I just need to acknowledge that following most news is just another form of mindless entertainment with no benefit other than killing time; just like social media, most television, and (in my humble opinion) sports viewership.

I am better off without it.

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Going to Get Back into Focusing on One Thing

Since early on when I went to Mexico, I haven’t focused on my “One thing” that I’m supposed to be focusing on. I have times scheduled into my calendar to do it, but I haven’t done it!

The world’s been crazy and so has my life, but this isn’t really about excuses. It’s just time to move forward with all of my plans.

Last week was my first one back home, and I really wanted to work on developing good habits. I think I did that.

This week I’m just furthering that along and also getting quite a bit of things done around the yard.

Next week, it’s time to get back into doing my “One Thing”.

It’s what will carry me through, and what will truly lead to success. I need to focus on it every single day if I want to accomplish what I’ve set out to do.

I need to start by going over everything I’ve prepared in terms of the plan. Then when I’m reacquainted with everything, I need to execute.

Keep in mind: virtually all of my future success rests upon me doing these things now. So do it!

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New Habit – Getting out of Bed When I Wake Up

I’ve spoken at length in the past about how important habits are and how I should constantly be developing them.

I don’t think I’ve really been focusing on one in a while, and it’s time to start!

At the moment I’m doing a good job of waking up without hitting snooze. I’m also on a news diet and am avoiding Facebook and other sources of current-event information as well.

And Imgur is blocked on my phone.

So there isn’t much pointless entertainment left on my phone, which means I don’t even have anything to do in bed after I wake up.

Why not just get up?

I’ve wanted to do this for many years, and I think now I’m finally ready for it. It will add a ton of productive time to my week, and will let me finish things way faster.

So, I’ll do it! I’ll post more about it here as I progress.

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Time-Blocking Everyday

In the last post, I developed my plan for what I need to do. The most important thing I can do now, everyday, is to work on that and move all of those things forward.

So to that end, I think it’s time that I dedicate predetermined chunks of time to only doing those things.

Again, this is something he says to do in The One Thing, but I think it’s a great idea. If I’m only spending 10 minutes per day on the most important things, how can I ever move forward?

In the book he recommends 4 uninterrupted hours of this. Now, I’m not saying that 4 hours is too much. However, I don’t know that I can transition into doing that all at once. So instead, I’m going to try to commit to 2 hours every day.

During this time, I think it’s important that I:

  1. Put my phone on silent and face-down
  2. Exit any email tabs
  3. Exit any text messaging tabs and WhatsApp windows
  4. Commit to only working on my “Own Thing” for the day

It won’t be easy, but hopefully it will be quite effective.

So how do I schedule this?

I’m thinking that I should have a set schedule throughout the week. Obviously my week varies a bit but I can definitely schedule 2 hours that are always the same on a given day of the week.

So right now, I’m physically adding them to my calendar. I’ll try out the time slots that I’ve created for a while and see if they work for me!

I think I can still be flexible with this arrangement, but if I have to move the time slot, the point is that it needs to be rescheduled! I can slide it later but I can’t avoid it entirely.

Realistically, this is an entirely new way of thinking and of spending my time, so I don’t think it’s going to be easy to implement.

But it’s so important. I think it could be absolutely crucial to advancing in my business.

Whereas in the past I feel like I’ve just reacted to things and improved marginally over time, this has the potential to help me take control and achieve rapid growth in very little time.

Here we go!