Habits: Automating Actions for Productivity
===
[00:00:00] Hello, welcome to the productivity genius podcast. I'm your host, Kelly Fifield. And in this episode, we're talking about building amazing habits for productivity. We could easily do like an entire year of episodes on using habits to be more productive, but instead let's keep this super simple and make this easy to implement to actually do this and start seeing some results.
Before we try to figure out what your optimal habit is, let's just check in and see why the heck we actually want to do this work. anyway, Here's why I love looking at habits as a productivity tool. They eventually require no energy for big results. That's extreme productivity, right?
Adjusting your thoughts, your feelings, your actions, to make maximum impact with minimal effort and habits are an incredible tool to use for peak productivity Think about like brushing your teeth If you're a parent, do you remember the effort you invested to make teeth brushing a habit with your kids?
First you had to do it for your kids, right? There was that like [00:01:00] that little rubber toothbrush you'd stick on your finger and rub it on their gums When they were too little to do it themselves
Then there was what seemed like a painfully long period of monitoring the process to make sure they were thorough and to make sure they actually did it, Four bazillion reminders, repeating yourself, timers, maybe fancy toothbrushes with cute characters.
It likely took years. And now when you think about brushing your teeth, you probably think of it as a relatively pleasant experience but when you were little my guess is that it probably wasn't right like I remember being a little kid and like Brushing my teeth so fast and you'd slip and you'd like cut your gums Sometimes you'd accidentally gag yourself, right?
And sometimes you'd have toothpaste where the mint kind of burned. And now I kind of like that burning sensation. It's actually kind of interesting to read about the start of toothpaste and the burn. But anyway, I digress.
Most people do like that kind of tingling clean feeling. But as a little kid, that probably felt awful.
So that was a big [00:02:00] investment, as a parent, to get your kids to do that regularly. But what's the return on that investment? Like, if you think about yourself now, so your parents invested in getting you to brush your teeth, do you have to get yourself, like, psyched up to brush your teeth? My guess, and my hope for anyone who has to speak to you face to face regularly, is that teeth brushing is so habitual that not doing it actually feels more like off.
It's so ingrained that you actually want to do it, right? Otherwise, you're uncomfortable. That, like, not brushing your teeth actually is more draining and causes more mental drama than brushing them. I know if, like, for some reason I have to get out of bed real fast and maybe I have to speak to someone and my teeth aren't brushed, like, I don't know, maybe there's someone at the front door or something.
It's, like, so uncomfortable. I just can't wait to get upstairs and go back and brush my teeth. So this thing that took so long to become a habit now is such a strong habit that [00:03:00] when I don't do it, don't worry, I always brush my teeth, but when I don't immediately do it, it's actually more uncomfortable than the thing that probably as a little kid was annoying.
Habits are actually an incredible tool that we can use to like, automate an action that helps us in some way. And once your habit is solidified, it's as if you created the results with no effort. Of course, we intellectually know that there's still some effort, but with habits, it's super minimal and doesn't even feel like effort.
For example, like when you're telling someone about your busy day, you're not like, well, I wrote two emails in my nurture sequence and I created a slide deck for my webinar. Oh, and I brushed my teeth. It just doesn't make your list of tasks of challenging things you did for the day.
You don't even consider it as something that required any effort or thought.
So what is the one thing that if you could automate it, like complete it without the mental drama and effort that it's currently taking? What would [00:04:00] really move the needle or make your life so much simpler or more enjoyable?
I'll help you select that habit in a moment. We'll do some exercises in this episode that'll help you pick one to work on.
But before we start, let's acknowledge the obstacle that's going to come up in about one minute from now. And that's going to be your desire to choose more than one habit to institute at one time.
It's going to be so tempting to do, because you're going to come up with a short list of life changing habits, and you'll be so excited and want to get the results of that and start doing it right away that you'll want to do more than one of them. And of course, I strongly advise you not to do that,
Because when we try to create multiple new habits, we kind of diffuse our attention and it just becomes way more difficult to solidify either of those habits. Just know that we're going to come up with a list of habits. You can implement all of them eventually, but we're going to just ultimately pick one to start with.
So let's go through a few steps just to help you pick [00:05:00] a really good habit to start working on. So step one, I would say, answer this question, like, what is your main focus in your life right now? Like, are you working towards something or is there an area that's particularly like frustrating or draining right now?
Now, maybe since you're listening to this, maybe your one thing that you're focusing on is productivity.
And if that's the case, I'll give you my idea for what habit I would suggest you do first. But I would love for you to do this exercise on your own because the best answers always come from your own brain. So step one would be like answering those questions like what are you focusing on? What are you working towards?
Or is there something right now in your life that's super frustrating or draining? Once you've identified that,
The second step then would be whatever your focus is or you're working towards or you're frustrated or it's draining, what is the goal in that area? Is it to make more money, get more clients, work fewer hours, be more calm, build more muscle or maybe like lose weight? [00:06:00] And then step three would be to answer the question, what's in your way?
Like, what are the obstacles? List as many of those as you can think of in like two minutes, like set a two minute timer.
All right. Step four. There's only five steps. Stay with me here. This is kind of using the concept of the obstacle is the way I love the title of that book. I read it. I didn't actually love the book, but I do love the basic idea that if you were to knock down all of the obstacles that were in your way, then you'd have the thing, right?
So if there were no obstacles, you would have it. So if you can identify all the obstacles in your way of getting whatever result you're trying to get, Okay. Then that kind of gives you the map to achieving the thing, right? So look at the list of obstacles, which ones if you could overcome them will get you closest to your goal the fastest.
Maybe pick three.
final step, step five, for each of those three that you narrowed it down to, set aside maybe two minutes of creative thinking [00:07:00] time to think of habits or repeated actions that would eventually overcome that obstacle. And once you have those, now you've got your list of potential habits and pick one.
This is the point where you might be excited about multiple habits. So that's great. You can totally create all of those habits, but we're going to do it one at a time. So just pick one. As you're trying to pick that one habit, You want to see if you can find a keystone habit.
a keystone habit has several features. One is that it naturally triggers other positive things in your life. Another one that has several positive outcomes, right, so if you could do one habit, institute one new habit, and yet it had multiple positive outcomes, that's great. Another thing about Keystone Habits is they're a good foundation for other habits to build on.
They usually help you improve your identity, like it makes you proud of yourself that you're doing this habit now. And it's usually something that's really small, simple, not complicated or super challenging. So [00:08:00] that would be ideal, You could pick a keystone habit that would be something huge, but
It's ideal if it's not super challenging, complicated, hard.
So you might want to look through the list of habits that you wrote and see if any of those you would consider to be a keystone habit.
If your area of focus right now in your life is on productivity time management then my suggestion for a keystone habit would be to start pre planning your day and The smallest commitment I can think of in my mind would be to just set aside five or ten minutes
So we want to keep this small because we want to make it more likely that we actually follow through and make this a regular habit. So five or 10 minutes each morning to review your goals or tasks for the day before jumping into work. So get an overview of your day. Here's what I've got planned. If you haven't written anything down, maybe you don't have anything on your calendar yet.
Maybe there's no like hard set meetings or anything. Then write down the things that you want to get done [00:09:00] that day. This small habit of setting aside time intentionally before starting the day is the first step towards mastering an entire schedule, becoming super productive. And there isn't anyone who can't carve out 5 or 10 minutes.
if you're thinking, in the morning, I do not have 5 or 10 minutes, then do it the day before, Do it at the end of your work day or in the evening. for most people, it's easiest to do in the morning because You tend to be more energized and things like that. You don't have all the decision fatigue from working all day.
You're not kind of shot out. But if it has to be at the end of the day and that's the only time you have, it's just going to be harder to follow through on. That hard thing about following through on it in the morning is your brain is probably going to offer you all these ideas like, no, we just have to get started working.
We don't have time to waste. We just have to get going. But remember that upfront investment is going to save you so much time. It can save you easily like two hours a day because if you plan out your day, you preplan it and you look at the things that you [00:10:00] want to get done. You can also ask yourself real quick before you jump into the day, okay, how can I get done some of these things in half of the time and then let your brain give you the answers.
Very often you can save multiple hours by just giving some intentional thought at a time, And this would be a keystone habit because it's a catalyst for other positive things. It makes everything easier to get done, right? Because now you have a plan. It sets the foundation for other great habits,
When you're able to schedule your time, you can build lots of other great habits on top of that.
It helps you identify yourself in a positive way. And it's clear and small, Five or 10 minutes is all you need to start reaping big rewards. In order to increase the chances that whatever habit you've chosen actually becomes a habit, then you might want to use what science has shown us, like scientific research has shown about solidifying habits,If you want to create a solid habit, then the cycle is there's a [00:11:00] cue that cues you to do the habit, then there's the habit and then there's the reward.
So what is going to cue you each day to do this new thing? Then you do the thing and then what is the reward that you're going to give yourself or what is the intrinsic reward of having done that thing?
Consider the cue for your habit being another habit that is already solidified. For example, maybe the first thing you do at work is you sit down at your desk. Or you open up your computer, that might be your cue. Every day I turn on my computer, that's my cue to start my new habit that I'm trying to reinforce.
So once I open my computer or turn my computer on, then I set a timer for 5 or 10 minutes to schedule out my day. And then I reward myself with my morning cup of coffee. Right, that could be an example of one cue habit reward cycle.
Make sure you're super clear about what time it's going to happen, what the cue is, what the exact habit you want to be doing, and then [00:12:00] how you're going to reward yourself each time. And don't start adding requirements. Like you might start getting good at this. Let's say it is the scheduling example.
Okay. Yeah, I'm sitting down. I'm writing down, jotting down what I'm going to do for the day. But you know what? I think it'd be even better if I got into my Google calendar. If you start making the habit more difficult, again, you're, it's going to be less likely that you're going to follow through with it.
Just stick with this. If you some days want to put it on your Google calendar. Great, but don't make that in your mind part of the habit. The habit is what you set out in the beginning for it to be. The next habit you might want to stack on top of this habit might be adding the items to your Google Calendar, but that would be a new habit that we would form later.
Now you might hear sirens going on in the background. I think the studio sound is going to take that out, but don't worry. My house isn't burning down. Santa is on my street and I'm hoping to finish recording this so I can go wave to Santa because I have a long list this year.
But back to habits. Consider [00:13:00] habit tracking apps, um, or even handmade ones. One of my clients came up with this fantastic idea for one of the habits. that she is working on. And she just has a sheet with just a bunch of bubbles. And when she follows through on her habit, she fills in the bubble and it's super motivating.
You may have heard of like the urge jar with the life coach school, giving yourself little rewards. I mean, I swear the stickers you used to get when you were little, like sticker charts totally works as an adult. It sounds silly, but it totally works.
Okay, now Penny is barking at Santa, so you might hear her. Also consider following the motto, never miss twice. So if you miss once, no big deal. It happens, right? But just never miss twice. How long should you give yourself before you try to implement a new habit on top of this one or in addition to?
James Clear in his book, Atomic Habits, research shows that the time required to solidify most habits is somewhere around 66 days on average. Of course, it can be [00:14:00] faster, might be slower, but just keep that number in mind as an average.
I'd really love to hear what you chose as your habit.
I'd love to steal some of yours because I bet you have great ideas. So if you get a chance, reach out to me on Instagram at productivity genius coach , I would love to hear from you. Now in our next episode, we are going to tackle the thing I hear so often, I'm so behind. How often do you think that? Next week, we'll look at how to get caught up and stay there, but until then, have a great week.
