How To Create A Habit In 15 Days Most of our life is lived by habits. We learn how to ride a bike, how to drive a car, we even learn how to speak and read. And then we do all of these with minimum effort and implication. As any other things in our life, habits are just tools we use in our joyful exploration of life. In today’s post I’ll share some of my experiences with habit creation using one of my favorite activities: journaling. Why Do You Need A New Habit? Well, let’s say you want a new habit in order to: write on your blog more oftenupdate your twitter status dailywrite each day a page from your new bookstart a fitness programstart a new eating habit or dietlearn a new language All these new activities are made by some repetitive tasks, a set of moves you have to do daily in order to get some positive results. How To Create A Habit In 15 Days All you need for that is a journal. Day 1: Name your habit Define it in the shortest, yet most understandable sentence you can write. Day 2: Describe your actions in detail
What It Takes to Form a Good Habit I think "accountability buddy" really misses the point. There is satisfaction and joy in accomplishing the task, but that's where accountability buddy is a misnomer. All habits of any sort will trip, falter, fail, etc. We are humans and we love to connect and share experiences with - even introverts have a means by which they connect and share. By far, the most important aspect of developing any habit is the actual doing of the habit. [From years of experience as fitness center owner/operator] The Power of Habit and How to Rewire Our "Habit Loops" by Maria Popova What Iraqi kebob vendors have to do with your New Year’s resolutions. As a young man, Benjamin Franklin set out to improve himself by devising a chart-based log for tracking his progress against the virtues he identified as essential to good personhood. Each week, he would pick a virtue to cultivate, then put a black pencil mark in his calendar chart on any day he failed to uphold the virtue. This visual feedback on his progress encouraged him, and allowed him to move to a different virtue the following week, hoping that each week would leave him with a “habitude” for that particular virtue. We try to reverse-engineer willpower and flowchart our way to happiness, but in the end, it is habit that is at the heart of our successes and our failures. Duhigg first became fascinated by the power of habit eight years ago, while in Baghdad as a newspaper reporter. So the major summoned Kufa’s mayor and made a strange request: Get the food vendors out of the plaza. Donating = Loving
Nine Things Successful People Do Differently - Heidi Grant Halvorson Learn more about the science of success with Heidi Grant Halvorson’s HBR Single, based on this blog post. Why have you been so successful in reaching some of your goals, but not others? If you aren’t sure, you are far from alone in your confusion. 1. To seize the moment, decide when and where you will take each action you want to take, in advance. 3. Fortunately, decades of research suggest that the belief in fixed ability is completely wrong — abilities of all kinds are profoundly malleable. The good news is, if you aren’t particularly gritty now, there is something you can do about it. 7. To build willpower, take on a challenge that requires you to do something you’d honestly rather not do. 8. 9. If you want to change your ways, ask yourself, What will I do instead? It is my hope that, after reading about the nine things successful people do differently, you have gained some insight into all the things you have been doing right all along.
10+ Tips and Tools To Keep Teachers Organized “Be regular and orderly in your life, so that you may be violent and original in your work.” ~ Gustave Flaubert Learning online can be an incredible journey but at some point you may feel overwhelmed with the surplus of information and resources. You may feel very excited about a resource you come across, but want to access that resource at some other date. Perhaps, you are teaching your students how to research online and they want to bookmark and create notes on websites. Many free webtools exist to help us quickly save, bookmark, categorize, store, and share information. These tools are very advanced and store our information in the cloud. Googlize It! Jump on the bandwagon and get a Google account if you haven’t already. G-mail – Make the switch to g-mail. Google Drive – If you haven’t already, make the switch from Google Apps to Google Drive. Google Calendar – Create events and send yourself and students reminders. Bookmarklet It! Bookmark It! Go Mobile! More Resources
How to Build Self-Discipline Discipline is freedom. You may disagree with this statement, and if you do you are certainly not alone. For many people discipline is a dirty word that is equated with the absence of freedom. In fact the opposite is true. As Stephen R. Self-discipline involves acting according to what you think instead of how you feel in the moment. Work on an idea or project after the initial rush of enthusiasm has faded awayGo to the gym when all you want to do is lie on the couch and watch TVWake early to work on yourselfSay “no” when tempted to break your dietOnly check your email a few of times per day at particular times In the past self-discipline has been a weakness of mine, and as a result today I find myself lacking the ability to do a number of things which I would like – e.g. to play the guitar. If you struggle with self-discipline, the good news is that it can be developed. 1. Discipline means behaving according to what you have decided is best, regardless of how you feel in the moment. 2.
THE MENTAL MARATHON THE MENTAL MARATHONBy Mindy Solkin Owner and Head Coach The Running Center We all know that running requires a great amount of physicality. But your mental fortitude is equally important. There are two types of mental training in the sport of running: "Association" and "Dis-association". Association or "associative running" allows you to "tune-in" to your body and its physical sensations, while Dis-association or "dis-associative running" refers to the process of "tuning-out" distractions. ASSOCIATION Association refers to running where your mind is focused on the body and you are intentionally concentrating on physical sensations. The limitations of association include: 1) Harder to learn and apply. 2) Requires mental effort. 3) Requires mental skills. DIS-ASSOCIATION Dis-association refers to running where your mind is focused either on external stimuli or internal distractions. © 2003 The Running Center™ All Rights Reserved
Freckle Time Tracking: Save Time... Earn More Self-Discipline This week I’ll be blogging a series on self-discipline. New posts on this topic will appear every day Mon-Fri. I’ve also added a new self-discipline category. In this series I’ll be focusing on what I call the five pillars of self-discipline. The Five Pillars of Self-Discipline The five pillars of self-discipline are: Acceptance, Willpower, Hard Work, Industry, and Persistence. Each day of the series, I’ll explore one of these pillars, explaining why it’s important and how to develop it. What Is Self-Discipline? Self-discipline is the ability to get yourself to take action regardless of your emotional state. Imagine what you could accomplish if you could simply get yourself to follow through on your best intentions no matter what. Self-discipline is one of many personal development tools available to you. Building Self-Discipline My philosophy of how to build self-discipline is best explained by an analogy. Progressive training means that once you succeed, you increase the challenge.
9 Productivity Tricks for Procrastinators Irony: As I started to write this article, I thought, “I’ll just go play one quick Sudoku game first.” I caught myself in the act and marched myself to my laptop. People who say that procrastination is about laziness are probably the same people who think that anorexia is about not eating enough. Procrastination isn’t about laziness. The good news is that there are ways to get moving again. Here are 9 of my favorite tricks to help even the worst procrastinator break the habit: 1 – When you get an idea, do some little thing to begin. When I read Stephen King’s book On Writing, I noticed something. Most people get an idea. Then they sit there. They wonder if it’s a good idea. Then, they wonder if it’s a good idea some more. Got an idea? 2 – All hail small chunks of time! Lots of us complain about having no time. Are you waiting for many hours of spare time to begin your idea, your project, or your taxes? 3 – Agree to do it badly. Set a goal to do it badly. 4 – Commit aloud. 5 – Define quantities. Why?
Flow: Task Management and Online Collaboration for Teams