Better Life Habits

News Flash: Just complaining is not productive.

Arguably, if one is of that mindset, there is much that can be complained about. Globally, nationally (regardless of who is elected), in the office, in the home. If someone wants to complain they will most assuredly find something to complain about and just as likely collect others who will jump on the grousing bandwagon.

So the question I ask of complainers is, what are your going to DO about it? Complaining is easy, requires no training and little imagination. It also erodes productivity. It wastes time, brings everyone down and does nothing to change the situation.

I've been in a couple of negatively charged situations recently where I wanted to jump out of my chair and flee from the room. Stop with the complaining already!

Make it a habit to be a part of the solution. If you don't know what the solution should be, all the better. Engage people in thoughtful, reasonable discussion. Don't assume everyone within earshot agrees with your complaints. Learn about different ways of looking at issues and situations. Devise a plan - whether you hope to make an incidental or significant impact - to do something to change what inspires you to complain.

Whew. I feel better now.

More later.

Creating a routine

This is quite simple and can be done quickly. So simple in fact, that I may be able to hear a collective "duh" when I tell you how. But as simple as it may be people tend not to do it. One of the primary reasons for not doing so being that routine equals boring. Who wants to be boring?

But in practice, having routines that help you accomplish repetitive tasks quickly actually leaves more time for you to do things that interest you and make you more interesting to others. Save your creative impulses for tasks where the outcome can be significantly impacted by thinking of new and original ways to do it.  Make planning your day as routine as you need to in order to get it done quickly and effectively.

Here's an example of how you might go about planning your day. Drop your stuff in your office, fire up the computer and hang your coat on the back of the door on the way to get a cup of coffee or glass of water to start the day. Back at your desk, pull out of your brief bag anything you may have taken home last night (and now brought back - completed or not). Also pull together the papers that you have to, or hope to, deal with today. Open up your paper or electronic calendar so you can see what kinds of appointments and tasks you have for the day. Reviewing the information in front of you and knowing what kind of time will be taken up with appointments, meetings, etc., choose the top three things you would like to get done in order to feel that at the end of the day you've been productive. Either make a note of those tasks, or put papers that jog your memory about those tasks in a specific place on your desk so you can refer to them without hunting for them.

Pretty simple right? Note that though I said to fire up your computer when you walk in the door, that's so it can boot up and be ready when you need it. It's not so you can check email first thing in the morning. Checking email should be done after you've planned your day. If you need to scan the sender list quickly in order to see if an email you've received will create a task that may be in your top three, that's fine. The thing is, most of us get stuck responding to relatively unimportant emails while important tasks get put on the back burner. But that's another post.

You can create routines for many tasks and I recommend you do. Over time it will save you time and who doesn't want that?

A routine is easier to create than a habit.

Many of us would like to have better habits around any number of ways of being. Sleep habits, eating habits, time management habits, or exercise habits. Why is it so hard to create a new habit? Maybe it's in the very definition of the word.

"Habit: an automatic pattern of behavior in reaction to a specific situation; may be inherited or acquired through frequent repetition."

"Automatic" infers that this behavior simply happens without even giving it a thought. It's quite likely that you have some habits that are ingrained. Putting on a seat belt perhaps, or your work commute. You don't think about it, it just happens. In fact I'll bet you've had times when you pulled into the garage and for the life of you couldn't remember even making the drive home. Habit.

But how long did you have to do those things before they became automatic? A month? A year? Longer?

The last words of that definition "acquired through frequent repetition" provide important insight. In order to develop a habit, first focus on creating a routine. Routine is an "unvarying method or procedure" allowing you to move forward without having to make lots of decisions. Repeat the same routine everyday and at some point you may just develop a habit.

Some activities are perfect opportunities to develop a routine. Getting ready in the morning, planning your workday, shopping for groceries, etc. Tomorrow I'll lay out a simple plan for creating routines for, well, routine tasks. See you then.

Are you an escalator or an elevator?

Have you ever gotten an e-mail that reads rather nasty in tone? Of course you have. E-mail is modern day body armor. People will say stuff on e-mail they would never have the guts to say face-to-face. What do you do when you get one of those e-mails?

If you fire something back of equal or greater rudeness, you're an escalator. You take a bad situation and escalate it to new heights (or depths) of passive aggressiveness. It may feel good in the moment to "show them I won't be talked to that way" but we all know it's just going to get uglier and what does that accomplish other than providing evidence that two people can be unprofessional and childish? Bravo.

On the other hand, what if, upon receiving such an e-mail, you elevated the level of understanding and professionalism? You don't take the bait that nasty e-mail sender is dangling, ignore the veiled dig and respond in a way that reflects your values and maturity. I'm thinking that might be the better option.

We know in our gut when we are crafting an e-mail in such a way as to be able to twist the knife and deny our intention to do so at the same time. Think carefully about participating in this no-win battle of words. Certainly resist the temptation to start such an e-mail thread and most definitely refuse to participate in an ongoing one.

21 Day Myth Busted!

Thanks to Twitter I learned about a very informative post on the very topic I wrote about earlier this week. Stephen Smith did the background research and found that, yes indeed, there is no (save for one very specific experiment) research to back up the idea that it takes 21 days to develop a new habit.

While I was at it I Googled the subject and found many many other posts on both sides of the fence. Though I must add that most of the links supporting the idea that it can be done were selling a program on how to do it!

I don't know about you but I feel lots better with the knowledge that this old saw can be moved to the trash heap.

Stephen Smith's post from Productivity in Context is well researched and has some great tips if you do indeed want to change some habits. And who doesn't? Check it out. http://bit.ly/xuChM

Is "21 Days to Develop a New Habit" Nonsense?

I, like thousands of other folks, have spent years spouting this fact in casual conversation and as part of speeches and articles. I've never done any actual research on that particular notion but if I were to use personal and client experiences as evidence, I'd have to say that there's not much to support the theory.

In refuting the old saw, it helps to first agree on the definition of habit, which according to www.dictionary.com is "an acquired behavior pattern regularly followed until it has become almost involuntary."

I've exercised pretty regularly for years and yet I'd hardly call the effort to get out the door "almost Involuntary." Putting on the seat belt is a habit. Checking the Blackberry is a habit and the internal debate rages on whether that's good or not so good. (Calling it "bad" is just too downright negative.)

Perhaps a more realistic name for this blog would be BetterLifeThingsToTryToDoOnARegularBasis -- which is a more accurate descriptor. Or maybe I just haven't been at some of these things long enough. When I'm 90 that exercise thing is totally going to be a HABIT.

As usual I'd love to hear your thoughts on the matter. Do you have a real life example of a habit you developed in 21 days? Is it nonsense? What say you?

Why do you Twitter?

In the last two posts I've talked about how, if you are goiing to Twitter, you need to shedule that time into your day. Today's post talks about why you might want to consider spending time on Twitter.

And, I don't have an answer for that, because it comes from you. Here, based on what I've seen are some of the reasons people use Twitter...

1. To meet interesting people they may not have known about in any other way

2. To have a place to share thoughts, ideas or information

3. To sell whatever it is they have to offer

4. To learn things from resources they may not have known about

5. To get feedback about products they may want to try

To get dates

Now, for the purposes of this blog I'm not going to spend time discussing which reasons are socially acceptable and which ones are not. (But I will say that if you don't recognize two of those as pretty much unacceptable, you could possibly be an offender.)

My point is this: If you don't know what you want to achieve with your time on Twitter, how will you know if you are getting there?

Think carefully about what you want to accomplish before you devote lots of time. Twitter time is not a waste unless you have no idea why you are doing it. Be thoughtful. Be purposeful. Be aware of how you are spending your time.

Track your time on Twitter

Yesterday's post offered a suggestion about how to handle the sheer volume of information that comes your way via Twitter. Today's post addresses how much time you spend on Twitter.

Have you ever sat down at the computer first thing in the morning, started handling e-mail and soon found yourself caught up in surfing the web? You're going along reading an e-mail and there's either a link in the e-mail or it spurs a thought that sends you out to Google or a particular site. If we're not focusing on what we're doing an hour or more can go by before we realize we should have spending time on other tasks.

Be careful of falling into the same time crunch with Twitter. Some posts are simply statements, comments on other Tweets or inspirational quotes. But many Tweets have a URL embedded in the message -- links that take you to helpful articles, funny or instructional videos, interesting or beautiful photographs. If you're interested in the Twitter-er, you stand a strong chance of being interested in the information provided in the link.

So it's important to be purposeful when you sit down to spend time on Twitter. Depending upon why you Twitter -- a subject that will be covered in tomorrow's post -- you need to plan how much time you'll be spending on it each day. Whether it's five minutes, 30 minutes or two hours, know what you have scheduled and stick to it as much as possible.

It's certainly OK to veer from your planned amount of Twitter time, the important thing is to make the choice to do so instead of getting distracted and inadvertently messing up the rest of your workday.

Twitter teaches unexpected lessons.

Twitter is a fascinating phenomenon and I'm on the bandwagon. I started once and soon quit because it seemed too overwhelming. A few months later I tried again and this time took careful notice of what was so daunting the first time.

For anyone who already feels overwhelmed by e-mail you've got to get your head in the right place before you getting into Twitter in a significant way. I don't know anyone who has every Twitter post come directly to their e-mail, so it won't increase the traffic in your regular in-box. Your Twitter homepage is essentially an entirely new, separate in-box where you see messages posted by people you follow.

Speaking of volume, think of it this way. Perhaps you're following 100 people, which is a conservative number based on what I have seen out there. Let's just say that each person you are following posts 3 Tweets a day (that's a 140-character message). Some folks post very little, but some people post a dozen or more each day, so 3 Tweets per day per person is another conservative estimate. That's 300 messages a day to read!

It's mind boggling that in this day of already being overcommitted and stressed -- and I hear almost daily that e-mail is one of the things that creates the most stress -- we would proactively take on another activity that could consume even more of our limited time. But before you throw your hands up and conclude that Twitter is not for you, there is a way to make it a very positive, worthwhile experience and not let it get out of hand. Each day this week I will post another tip here that will help you make your Twitter experience a positive one.

Tip #1

You're not going to be able to read every Tweet that is posted by the people you follow. Get over it. Do you make it habit of reading every page of every magazine or newspaper that you receive? Unlikely.

Yesterday was Father's Day so most of the day was spent with family. I checked Twitter a couple of times and read a few posts. There were some nice ones about expressing appreciation for the Dads in our lives and many unrelated to the holiday. For me, yesterday wasn't a day I wanted to spend a lot of time immersed in the internet. (Please note: I make absolutely no judgment about any folks who wanted to do so.) This means that if I wanted to read ever post I receive, I'd have 600 to read today. It's not going to happen.

Turns out today is pretty busy as well. So not only will I not read 600, I probably won't read all 300 new messages that come in. You might ask, "Why do you follow people if you're not going to read all the messages?"  Fair question.

In just a month or so I've learned about many extremely bright, interesting, funny, talented people that I never knew existed. By following them I get the opportunity to connect with them, learn about them and learn from them. And if they follow me, I have the chance to share ideas, opinions and messages with them that may bring something of value into their lives. And that's pretty cool.

So I won't be catching every interesting message but I know the ones I do catch are adding some real value to my life.

More tomorrow...

Sweet sweet success!

 The first of May I committed to giving up sugar (cookies, candy, cake, pie, ice cream, and the like) for 30 days. Last night at 10:00 p.m. that goal was accomplished. Big deal? Maybe not, but I learned a few things along the way that relate to making other kinds of changes. Changes that many of us struggle with as we try to create new and better habits.

It was a very small change. I know that sugar is hidden in a lot of things and I didn't start reading every label to make certain no sugar of any kind was in the ingredients. I cut out the obvious stuff like what is mentioned above. Also, no stealing bowls of my son's Lucky Charms. Though they are not technically a dessert, calling them anything other than a "sweet" would be pushing it. So it was a manageable change, not something that was going to require massive amounts of new behavior. If you have a new habit you want to create, start very small.

I had good substitutes readily available. I ate more than my fair share of grapes, apples, oranges, and berries -- all natural alternatives to sweets. When temptation hits have a plan for how you are going to address it. In this case I just needed to grab for an alternative sweet. If you are trying to eat more vegetables, have prepared ones ready. If you are trying to stop procrastinating, have one small task you can complete quickly to get yourself in motion.

I had good people around me when I started to weaken. On two occasions I almost caved but one time I had a friend, Terry Honeyball, to talk me out of that unbelievably delicious-looking piece of cake and another time my brother Kevin coached me through a rough spot. It's really important to have people around who will help you when your own resolve starts to wane.

People who tempted me earned my contempt (at least in the short term). When people said "this doesn't really count as a sweet" or "I won't tell anyone you had this one bite" it made me realize that tempting me was more about them than me. If I failed at it, perhaps they could feel better about their own doubts about themselves. So I'm rather joking when I say they earned my contempt, but it did strengthen my resolve. Do not listen to the people who say you'll fail or follow those who want to put you on that path.

The goal had an end. 30 days was difficult but do-able. Sure it was all or nothing but it was only for 30 days. Starting out telling yourself you are making a change "forever" is so daunting. Even saying you'll make the change for a year is overwhelming. Look at how many New Years Resolutions fail! Small steps will get you where you want to be.

Focus.  On one occasion I literally had to tell myself every few minutes to "avoid the ice cream for just the next minute." It looked so good!! Focusing on the goal, (I was 10 days into it at the time and didn't want to start over) made the difference. Get quiet and focus. Clear your head and focus. Breathe and focus.

30 days is enough time for something to become a habit. Even though I plan to eat sweets again, I doubt I'll go back to the mindless munching that prompted this effort in the first place. My brain is different and therefore my habit is different.

Whatever it is you want to accomplish, you can do it. When I look back, it doesn't seem like it was such a long time. The time went by and soon the goal was met. The next 30 days is going to fly by whether you choose to spend it changing a habit or not. But how cool would it be if you could share your success story on July 1st?!