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This subscriber story is an excerpt from Entrepreneur Voices on Effective Leadership. If you are a subscriber, scroll to the bottom to download the e-book for free.
During my 25-plus years as a journalist, corporate communications executive and entrepreneur I’ve had the opportunity to directly work and interact with some of the most successful people in the world.
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Tor Constantino
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The massive shift to remote and hybrid work was seen as a revolution, but two years later, not much has really changed in how most people collaborate day-to-day. Despite having access to powerful tools like Microsoft 365, large swaths of the workforce are stuck in outdated habits, leading to inefficiencies and frustration.
According to SWOOP Analytics’ 2023 M365 & Microsoft Teams Benchmarking Report, analyzing over 266,000 employees across 19 large organizations, the commonly held belief that the move to remote work has caused widespread “meeting overload” and burnout is a myth. Only 1% of employees have five or more meetings a day on Teams, Microsoft’s video conferencing platform. Less than 17% of people have more than two meetings daily. For the average user, less than an hour is spent in Teams meetings each day.
I see that kind of problem frequently when helping clients transition to a return to office and hybrid work. Some of them have good excuses: One told me that, due to compliance issues around stock trading, their risk management staff forbade them from using Teams chat and they have to rely on email. But what’s your excuse?
The real problem is not too many meetings but that outdated tools and habits still predominate. Email remains the primary mode of collaboration for most, with the average person spending nearly two hours a day reading and writing emails. Despite having access to innovative collaboration platforms like Teams, 76% of people using Teams don’t utilize its chat channels, and 71% don’t post in their company’s internal social network. Almost 25% of Teams users have never sent or received a chat message.
These findings point to a “silent majority” of employees who collaborate little digitally and are difficult for managers to engage. While a small number of overly active users may feel burned out, this research suggests the focus should shift to helping the broader workforce improve collaboration habits.
To maximize the benefits of tools like Microsoft 365, teams must establish common practices for using them. It’s not practical to educate every employee on the full functionality, but agreeing on a subset of features and learning together is achievable. Each M365 tool, like Outlook, Teams chat, meetings, and channels, plays a distinct role that contributes value. Integrating different modes of communication in the appropriate contexts can help reduce inefficiencies.
For example, Teams chat is ideal for quick conversations and bonding teams together, while email may be better suited for communicating with external contacts or when formality is important. Teams channels facilitate asynchronous collaboration for projects or workstreams. Regular meetings, whether on Teams or in person, provide opportunities to engage with colleagues and align on priorities. Determining as a group when and how to use each tool most effectively can optimize productivity.
The good news is, improving digital collaboration habits can have a big impact. SWOOP Analytics estimates that optimizing M365 use could increase workforce productivity by 4.5%. But making the most of available technology requires breaking out of old email habits and embracing new ways of working together online. With the right focus and practices in place, the promise of hybrid work can finally be fulfilled.
A few common pitfalls to avoid:
With hybrid work here for the foreseeable future, organizations have an opportunity to reimagine how employees collaborate for greater productivity and work-life balance. But technology alone is not enough. By establishing new norms, learning through experimentation, focusing on the whole workforce, and valuing both virtual and in-person interaction, teams can thrive in this new paradigm. The future of work is promising, as long as we break from the past and commit to collaborating more effectively.
Leaders must make collaboration a strategic priority and commit resources to help teams optimize how they work together day-to-day. Some key steps:
The path forward is challenging, but the potential benefits to both employee experience and productivity are enormous. By breaking old habits, embracing new technology thoughtfully, and facilitating a culture where collaboration is valued and nurtured, organizations can thrive in this new era. The future of work depends on the future of how we work together. With focus and effort, that future can be bright. Teams can overcome the obstacles of distance to build real cohesion and make progress, as long as they leave behind outdated tools like email in favor of all the platforms at their disposal. The power of hybrid work lives in a shared connection. It’s time to unlock that potential.
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Gleb Tsipursky
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Russian composer Igor Stravinsky reportedly did a 15-minute headstand each morning. Inventor Nikola Tesla performed 100 toe curls every night. Poet and author Maya Angelou only wrote in hotel rooms.
We may snicker at the quirks of famous creators, but we all have entrenched habits, whether we’re aware of them or not. In fact, research shows that about 43% of our everyday actions are habitual. Your morning espresso? Habit. Choosing an aisle or window seat? Habit.
Habits are powerful — and they run a wildly subjective gamut from good to bad, with loads of gray in between. Yet, the variable nature of entrepreneurship can make it tough to create and maintain constructive habits. “Consider the almost daily schedule upheavals that require us to drop what we are doing or had planned to do and choose the best response right now,” writes researcher Michelle Segar, author of The Joy Choice.
People with busy lives and ever-changing roles, schedules and responsibilities often struggle to put complex behaviors on autopilot, Segar says. In the 17 years since I launched Jotform, I’ve implemented some key habits, like spending an hour with my personal trainer before work. At the same time, I’m a classic founder. My attention gets splintered, and my calendar often resembles a chaotic LEGO tower.
Although habits are essential, there’s another tool entrepreneurs should use to maximize their time and focus: automation. I’ve spent the past decade automating my most repetitive, manual workflows and building a team that does the same. If you want to kick-start a habit, like checking email just once a day, automation can minimize the mental bandwidth required to make the change. Or it can take over a task entirely; you don’t even have to think about making or breaking a habit.
Let’s break down three common habits that trip up entrepreneurs, and how automation can smooth the road to success.
Related: 3 Ways to Automate Your Busy Work and Boost Your Productivity
Most of us develop the list-making habit early in life. Teachers, parents and coaches tell us to battle overwhelm by itemizing tasks and crossing them off, one by one. But a list doesn’t reflect what’s important versus what’s urgent. That’s how “buy printer paper” ends up on the same list as “launch new website.” And if you can’t do it all — a truly impossible goal — it’s easy to feel like you’re failing or falling behind.
You’re not failing. The only problem is thinking you have to personally tackle everything on your list. Instead, take a cold, hard look at your calendar and to-do list. Choose the single most important item — the activity that could transform your business — and give it your undivided attention. Later, examine the remaining tasks and consider what you could automate. For example, let software schedule (and re-schedule) your meetings. Set bills to auto-pay. Use automated tools to parse reports and organize social media posts.
The more you start to automate, the more opportunities you’ll find to let machines do the heavy lifting. Adopting an automation-first mindset will give you more time to think strategically and grow your business.
Related: From Mundane to Magic: The Incredible Benefits of Automation for Small Business Owners
Founders know they need to delegate. But what if you’re just getting started? Before there’s a team to share the workload, you’re covering sales, IT, marketing, operations and maintenance. Thanks to recent advances, technology can now be your assistant — and it has deep expertise in nearly every function your business requires.
With AI and automation tools, you can track your competition online, receive search daily trends in a custom spreadsheet, employ chatbots for customer support and so much more. For every task you’d like to delegate, there’s a strong chance someone has built a free or low-cost solution to meet your needs.
Research from Columbia Business School also shows that women are socialized to feel guiltier when they delegate tasks than their male peers. In my experience, bootstrapped founders (of all genders) often struggle to delegate, too. They identify a need and move immediately to address it — whether they should or not.
Thankfully, automation doesn’t have feelings, nor does it value your deep self-sufficiency. It doesn’t mind backing up a server at 3 a.m. or adding yet another line to the spreadsheet. Most importantly, delegation is a habit you can strengthen over time. Just like editing your to-do list, re-assigning manual and repetitive tasks gets easier with practice.
Related: 5 Ways Automation Can Help You Manage Your Team
As an entrepreneur, you’ve already said “yes” to an idea or opportunity. Chances are, you’ve also accepted many requests along the way, from taking introductory meetings to exploring new directions. You’re primed to say yes. As author and habit-building expert James Clear explains, saying “no” is equally important. “When you say no, you are only saying no to one option,” writes Clear. “When you say yes, you are saying no to every other option.”
Sometimes, “no” is the best choice for your business. Automating tedious activities protects your time, focus and energy and opens the door for innovation. As I was writing my upcoming book, I realized that modern business requires a machine for success. When you automate your busy work, you create that machine and then refine and improve it over time. Instead of spending all your time baking pies, you can develop increasingly better recipes.
Whenever I share this principle, someone inevitably suggests that saying “no” is a luxury reserved only for founders with money, power and established businesses. These puzzle pieces certainly make it easier, but “saying no is not merely a privilege reserved for the successful among us,” Clear says. “It is also a strategy that can help you become successful.”
I couldn’t agree more.
Related: How to Enhance Business Automation and Unlock New Levels of Operational Efficiency
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Aytekin Tank
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Entrepreneurs at all levels make mistakes. They make mistakes that STOP progress and leave them scrambling for time, money, clients — you name it. I’ve seen it all.
There are some red flags that indicate that you’re keeping yourself from growing your business.
If you find yourself doing three or more of these nine business habits, it might be time to get a better strategy in place:
You need to embrace the belief that you are your biggest competition — not others. No one on this earth is you. No one does exactly what you do. When you stop comparing yourself to others, you find your confidence and self-worth.
Related: As A Business, Here’s Why You Need To Focus On Yourself (And Not On Your Competition)
First off, there is NO hope in business — only action and results. When you craft your offer for your service or product, you have to make sure it’s compelling enough to your avatar.
Simply telling people what you do (coherently and cohesively) is a great first step because it clears up any confusion about your business. But to create an offer that sells, you’ll have to be crystal clear on your unique selling proposition, and be enthusiastic and persistent.
What can I say? There are millions of people in the world who have coaches and mentors. Where there’s smoke, there’s fire, folks. No matter how “good” at business you are, no one can do everything alone.
Having a coach or business strategist in your corner is essential. Every highly successful person had or has a coach of sorts or even several. You don’t want to be surrounded by “yes” people — or worse, go it alone.
A coach gives you the tools and strategies to move forward, gives you fresh new ideas that may not have occurred to you and keeps you on track.
Being organized will help you get more done in less time. Period. Make sure you have everything you’ll need throughout the day laid out. Get out a notepad, and write down everything you need to get done that day — and stick to it (there’s a lot more to being productive, but it’s a start). Break up big projects into bite-size pieces! Setting doable goals is crucial to getting organized, no matter how small they may be.
Related: 10 Simple Productivity Tips for Organizing Your Work Life
What do your clients wake up in the middle of the night clamoring to have? You need to solve one BIG problem with one BIG solution. Customers crave results. For example, if you’re offering healing coaching, people don’t suddenly realize they want a healing coach. What they WANT is to feel better, happier, whole and at peace. Sell a result — not a marketing gimmick or brand.
Your very existence alone differentiates you from others. You have your own unique brand of intelligence because you alone have lived a life nobody else has.
Use your unique story to your advantage (and if you have a boring life, make up a fabulous fantasy one that will wow people. You know I’m kidding, right?! LOL).
So, first off, we need to plan. It’s very important, but staying stuck at planning continually without implementation is a business killer. The difference between dreamers and doers is that doers understand that the key to success is consistent and persistent action. Block off time to implement new strategies, and test and adjust your processes until the results come rolling in.
Related: Reasons to Stop Planning Too Much — Live in the Now.
Fail fast, fail often, and fail forward. Rinse and repeat.
Often, we give up easily when something doesn’t work out. Keep charging ahead in any situation, no matter what, and you’ll succeed. Of course, you will need to course-correct. Successful people aren’t necessarily the smartest or most talented, but they are ALWAYS the most persistent and work through failure and WITH failure — no matter what.
Waiting until things are “just right” to launch a new product or start a business just holds you back and wastes your life. And you’ve been on this earth long enough to know that “just right” is a fairy tale. In fact, tons of successful people started their most prosperous ventures right after hitting rock bottom. I know I did.
Perfection is a myth that cannot be achieved. If you are a perfectionist, it’s a form of self-abuse. I was a perfectionist myself until I saw that I was never going to win that game for so many reasons and that it was just a huge way of holding myself back.
So, if you’re doing three or more of these things, you need help. The good news is that it can all be fixed. Most things can be fixed! That’s the positive thing about life.
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Jeanne Omlor
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Transformation coach and nutrition expert Charles D’Angelo will fire you up, and help you develop an empowered mindset that leads to a healthier life. Pulling tips from decades of his inspirational talks and books, Think and Grow Thin and Inner Guru, this high-energy and informative webinar will help you learn how to get the best out of yourself in.
Key Takeaways:
Discover the habits you need for a healthy life. Register now and join us on April 18th at 3:00 PM ET.
About the Speaker:
Charles is a sought-after personal coach and public speaker. He frequently provides keynotes for events and appears as a guest on TV, radio and Internet programs. He is the author of two bestselling books: Think and Grow Thin (2011) and Inner Guru (2017). He’s been endorsed by many notable individuals including President Bill Clinton, Tony Robbins, Larry King, Richard Simmons, Angela Bassett and Dr. Mark Hyman as well as notable Missouri locals including Senator Claire McCaskill, David Steward, Chairman and Founder of World Wide Technology, and Maxine Clark, founder of Build-A-Bear Workshop. He resides in St. Louis, Missouri with his greatest inspiration – his wife, Crystal – and their two cats, Leo and Theo.
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Entrepreneur Staff
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Taking your skills to the next level is never an easy task. It requires more than just blood, sweat and tears, yet also a desire to become better. It requires you to make the choice to be the best you can be and have the commitment to match it. But not everyone has the drive to become better. Most people tackle everything head-on and still find themselves in the same cycle of wishing for a breakthrough and claiming that this year will be their year.
Will it ever be different? Can our resolve become more than just a wishful thought? What does it take to transform your leadership skills? What do we need to do in order to live the life that we desire and a life that we deserve? What are we missing? Is it money? Fame? Time?
To be truly honest, the answer lies within ourselves. Many leaders expect to come out successful when they don’t even have the right attitude to begin with. We fail to realize that we don’t rise to the level of our expectations, we fall to the level of our training. It is not about luck or chance, it’s all about our habits. If we want to become world-class at anything, it will require world-class habits for us to be truly successful.
Habit is the powerful force that shapes our behavior and determines our success. As leaders, we must be able to recognize the habits that will truly make a difference in transforming our skills and create an action plan that will lead to success. Here are five key habits that you need to develop to transform your leadership skills:
Related: 5 Key Habits of Great Leaders
A journey without a destination is a journey without purpose, and this rings true across all aspects of life — whether it be our relationships, our health or our business. We must have an end goal in sight before taking the necessary steps to get there. It is important to take the time to think about what we want to achieve and be specific in our vision.
Knowing exactly where we want to wind up helps us in identifying the steps that should be taken along the way. It also allows us to know what success looks like and help us focus our resources in the most effective and efficient way. Getting into the habit of setting your goals and direction will help you stay on the right track.
Taking the time to plan and map out what you want to accomplish in the year ahead is one of the most important leadership habits for transforming your life. Actions without a plan are like rivers without an outlet, they don’t go anywhere. Planning gives us a sense of direction and urgency when starting our tasks. It allows us to know what it’s going to take to achieve our desired outcome from an activity standpoint.
It is essential to plan and break down your goals into achievable pieces for each quarter, month, week and day. This allows you to identify a target for each period and the tasks that need to be completed in order to reach it. Once you have a plan in place, it becomes easier to track progress as well as make timely adjustments without getting overwhelmed or distracted. Ultimately, planning ahead with achievable goals helps set yourself up for success and leads to a more productive and effective beginning.
Surrounding yourself with the right people can hugely impact your life and success. As Nipsey Hussle said, “If you look at the people in your circle and don’t get inspired, then you don’t have a circle. You have a cage.” We need to make sure that the people we’re surrounding ourselves with are those people who are telling us what we need to hear, not what we want to hear.
Your circle should be able to keep you in check and also lift you up — reminding you to believe that you’ve got what it takes to make it to the next level. This will help you be accountable for your habits and grow in leadership and success. Remember that if your people don’t inspire your growth, then they’re not the right people. Be kind to yourself, and avoid toxicity. Find positive, like-minded individuals who are passionate about achieving their goals and create the right environment for you to grow.
Related: 3 Bad Leadership Habits to Leave Behind This Year
“Nobody will truly value you until you truly value yourself first.”
Showing up and putting in the effort to become better than what your expectations are is one of the basic things that we shouldn’t forget. Even if we don’t feel like it, we owe it to ourselves to show up with our best — not for the sake of others but for ourselves. And for us to play on any next level in any equity of our life, we’ve got to be willing to make the commitment to show up no matter what. Being able to push yourself to do more than what is expected of you, and doing it consistently, will help you hone your leadership skills and set you up for success.
Taking things to the next level takes more than just saying you want to do it. We should be willing to make sacrifices and put in the work because there is no silver bullet. There is no magic pill. The magic pill is hard work. We’ve got to be willing to make sacrifices to change our behavior, to change our habits. That’s where people get left behind. They’re not willing to make sacrifices with their time, money and relationships. And that’s what will hold people back from achieving things. If we want to become the best in the industry, we have to take the initiative and put in the work.
Anything that we want in our life that’s at a pro level, we are not going to get there with amateur habits. It’s not enough to want success — we need to be willing to work for it. Only then will you reach the next level of leadership skills and success that you desire. After all, success is not a destination, it’s a lifestyle.
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John Kitchens
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While you may associate spring cleaning with pulling out the dusters and getting rid of clothes that haven’t seen the light of day since pre-pandemic days, springtime is a wonderful invitation to let go of the old to make space for the new in all areas of your life. An often-neglected area that may benefit from some airing out includes your workplace habits. When was the last time you did a good spring cleaning on some of your unhelpful repetitive behaviors at work? Here are five ways to help you get started with your workplace habits deep clean!
Related: 7 Science-Backed Strategies for Building Powerful Habits
This may surprise you, but you probably aren’t even aware of many of your workplace habits. Whether it’s slouching over your computer until you have neck pain or mindlessly scrolling through social media, many behaviors are done on autopilot. To let go of what isn’t working so you can make space for new possibilities, you first need to become aware of what is holding you back. You need to become aware of your thoughtless habits and repetitive behaviors.
So, how can you do this? One great way to start is to get curious. Notice how you feel at different times of the day. Pay attention to where you are spending your time and whether those activities drain you or fuel you. When do you feel your best? When do you feel your worst? Are there parts of the workday you dread? Incorporating mindfulness practices where you bring your focus and attention to the present moment is another thing that can help you in building awareness.
Once you have awareness about a habit that isn’t serving you, you can choose to take another approach. Maybe you noticed that you feel stressed when you check your phone, social media or emails throughout the day. To try something new, you could decide to keep your phone in a different area during work and have more structure around when you check your accounts. The trick here is to try some new methods to see what works. If you want to have a new outcome, you need to change something!
What is an area that you would like to improve in? Take some time to reflect on where you are at in your professional life, and think about where you would like to see yourself down the road. How can you set small approachable goals to move you in that direction? What is something that you can do today to start building momentum?
Once you have clarity on the habits that you are looking to let go of and you are clear on some new behaviors and goals that you are looking to embrace, it is important to have reminders throughout your day to keep you on track. It could be helpful to check in with yourself at the same time every day or to put reminders on your phone to help you get back on track if you have veered off course.
Related: This Is the Best Way to Form Powerful Habits That Stick
Let your colleagues, friends and family know about the goals that you have for yourself and the new behaviors you are looking to create. Ask for their support to help keep you motivated. You may even inspire them to make some positive changes in their life!
Now that you have a roadmap to help you spring-clean your workplace habits, aim to turn this into a regular occurrence so that you can continue to learn, grow and show up as the best version of yourself at work and in life.
Disclaimer: This content purely represents the opinion of the author and is not medical advice or treatment recommendations. Always talk to your healthcare provider about recommendations specific to you.
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Kristel Bauer
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A habit-forming app that turns your habits and daily tasks into a game, with rewards and challenges to keep you motivated.
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Success Elite Team
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I’m embarrassed to admit this, but it took me five years to build my company website. What was really bad is that my company builds websites for our clients. The cobbler’s children have no shoes, so it’s said.
For the longest time, all I had was a single landing page with a contact form. It served its purpose, but I knew it had to be better. Actually, I knew that it had to be perfect because it represented my line of business.
My obsession with having the “perfect” website had me frozen and was holding me back from even making one step toward progress. I was stuck in a holding pattern, but looking back, I should have just started.
How many entrepreneurs fall victim to this over and over again? And how do we overcome it — perfectionism — when it’s such a blocker to growth and creativity?
Related: How to Overcome Perfectionism to Succeed in Business
I don’t have the scientific study to support this, but my theory is that entrepreneurs are disproportionately Type A personalities. We have a fascination with doing things differently but doing things our way — the “right” way, in our minds.
This leads us to want to perfect everything in our business. We need to research, plan, optimize and execute the perfect marketing funnel. We need to mind-map, strategize and articulate the perfect content marketing framework. We need the perfect offer for the right audience at the right price point… and on and on it goes.
This obsession with perfection often prevents us from taking any action at all. That’s why it takes us years to get our website built, to launch that course we’ve been talking about, to record that first podcast episode, to test our first product launch or to create a company vision and core values.
Fortunately, there’s a better way to be. A more productive, flexible mindset. But it means letting go of perfectionism and embracing progress.
Related: 4 Ways to Send Your Perfectionism Packing
When I finally got around to creating my website, it was only good, not great. But over time, I made improvements. And then it became better. And finally, it became great. I tweaked it until it was what I envisioned from the beginning.
The reality is that, right now, you don’t truly know what it will take to achieve perfection. Your offer might change, your audience might change or your mind might change. The “steps” are fluid. And if you are hyper-focused on how to do it “right” the very first time, you will never get there.
The mindset shift is to envision what single step you can do now — and then take it. Strive for good, adjust until it’s better and tweak until it’s great. Roll with the changes of your offer, brand, audience and interests. This leads to a more adaptable and dynamic business rather than a rigid, “perfect” one. It’s the incremental steps that you take that lead you to your goal.
Related: Figuring Out What Success Really Means to You
“Perfect” is really just a moment or concept, frozen in time. It is not a creation that emerges out of change, learning and creativity. You learn more about yourself as you build your business, so let your business model reflect that growth later.
I am a very different person than I was five years ago. If I had tried to build the “perfect” website then, I’d likely have gone through six rebrands since. I am happy I gave myself a foundation of a “good” website that allowed me to change and adapt over time.
Similarly, your approach to business may change. It takes a while to develop a strong and steadfast brand. Success is only achieved by learning about your business, market and audience as you grow — and allowing that degree of flexibility. Perfectionism will only keep you stagnant or worse, fearful, of growth.
You don’t need to have everything perfect. Good, better, great is far better than striving for perfectionism and having that block you from taking any action at all. So, what are you holding off on doing until it’s perfect?
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Jason Hennessey
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As entrepreneurs, most of us have traveled across time zones and do so frequently for both work and leisure. And do we complain? So despite knowing that it will happen, why do many of us complain every year when the clocks spring forward by one hour for Daylight Saving Time (DST)?
I encourage you to take a different approach this year. First, the most important thing you can do is to change your attitude towards the clocks springing forward. Here’s how: Mentally prepare yourself in advance, and tell yourself and those around you that DST is nothing to complain about because we face it every year. We’re better off preparing for it and finding the silver linings and benefits of the time change.
For example, more daylight in the evening allows for after-dinner walks. Such a walk fosters family time, lowers your blood glucose level, and it’s likely a deterrent from excess evening snacking or drinking. Is that a win or a win?
I recall weekday mornings from past DST days when everyone in my house was slow to move, and nobody except for the clocks was springing forward. Friends called me to talk about their double doses of caffeine and how they yelled more at their kids to rush them out the door for school.
Research shows increased car accidents and injuries at work after DST because our already sleep-deprived country is less alert. So, while we will still feel the time change because of our circadian rhythm, the 24-hour cycle that’s governed by our body’s internal clock, below are some tips that should help make DST more manageable and help you better prepare not to fall back when the clock springs forward.
Related: How Daylight Savings Time Affects Productivity
You may not feel tired at night but try to schedule an earlier bedtime before DST. By moderately making these changes before the time change, you’ll begin daylight saving time having almost adapted to the time change.
From exercise to meals to your bedtime routine, move everything forward by 15 minutes each day. Particularly in the evening, be disciplined about washing your face, brushing your teeth, going off screens or whatever sleep routines you have earlier than normal.
I’ve never used the snooze button. I feel it’s torture and not efficient nor motivating for the morning routine you’ve set out to do, so I mentally trained myself never to snooze. Now for you snoozers, you can call me crazy but give yourself some wiggle room during the week of DST for the morning time. Most of us adjusting to the time change will be slow-moving, and rushing will lead to a stressful morning, so use the extra time to prevent this rushed and chaotic feeling.
The same goes for getting kids ready for school. Time is valuable, and the extra time will make the morning less hectic. Just please do not “snooze,” as this will keep your circadian rhythm from adjusting to the time change.
Related: Stop Hitting the Snooze Button and Start Intentionally Building Your Life and Business
Get your sunshine early, within an hour of waking if you can, even if it’s stepping outdoors for a 5-minute gratitude practice, walking the dog or looking towards the light of the day while taking deep breaths. Light is the central driver of our circadian rhythm, and this morning sunlight alone will help your body’s internal clock best acclimate to the new timing of light and dark.
I’m not a biohacker, but I do keep on top of the latest research and science in health and wellness, and I encourage you to check out this guide from Neuroscience Professor at Stanford, Dr. Andrew Huberman. Even on a cloudy day, natural light provides more brightness that helps to align the circadian rhythm than artificial indoor lighting.
Related: 6 Benefits of Unchaining Yourself From Your Desk to Take a Break Outside
I personally look forward to and need my morning workouts as they help get my body, brain and soul moving and kickstart my day. But if exercising first thing in the morning isn’t what you enjoy, plan to get outside or move every day this week, even if just a brisk mid-morning or lunchtime walk (or even a ‘sweatwork’ walk meeting), which will energize all parties involved and help everyone ease into a better night of sleep.
Added bonus? Walking as little as 2 to 5 minutes after any meal will help lower your blood glucose level, according to a 2022 study in the Journal of Sports Medicine.
Proper nutrition is directly correlated to sleep. Eliminate added sugars, stay well hydrated with water and electrolytes and focus on eating good sources of protein, carbs and fat, such as fish high in omega 3s, nuts, vegetables and fruits. Eat dinner at least a few hours before bed, and limit spicy and heavy foods.
Whenever my schedule allows, I prefer to eat what I call “linner,” meaning that it’s a combo lunch/dinner, and I eat this meal between 3-4 p.m. If this isn’t conducive to your schedule or ability to prepare a healthy meal, try making lunch the bigger meal of your day. Be aware of caffeine in beverages, including soda which is also loaded with sugar.
It’s human and forgivable that most people will be doubling and even tripling up their coffee and green tea this week just to survive. But don’t overdo it. Too much caffeine will make you crash, so aim to stop drinking caffeine after 2 p.m. And particularly for this week, plan to ease up on alcohol intake as alcohol can interfere with a good night’s sleep.
Related: Is Caffeine Boosting or Sabotaging Your Productivity?
If your boss is flexible, ask if you can get to the office a little later for a couple of days so you can take the time to happily ease into the time change and avoid sleep-deprived and frustrated commuters at rush hour.
If you lead a team or company, have a little compassion. Offer your team a slightly later start to the morning in exchange for meeting a specific deadline that week or having them agree to 15–30 minutes of fresh air early in the morning or the middle of the day. Happy employees = productive employees.
More health and wellness professionals, experts and entrepreneurs are treating themselves to power naps for rejuvenation and mental wellness. The key for napping is 30 minutes or less; otherwise, you’ll feel like you got hit by a bus when you wake up! A nap should both calm your nervous system and energize you.
Early afternoon naps are best, as naps late in the day can make it difficult to sleep. Not necessary, but if you’re curious about prioritizing a deeper night’s sleep, look into sleep tools such as weighted blankets, sleep meditation apps and light therapy.
With these tips, you should be able to spring forward along with the clocks. As human beings, and especially as entrepreneurs, we are strong, and our minds and bodies can adjust. So when the clocks spring forward, shift your mindset to when the alarm goes off at 6 a.m. on Monday morning, and think that it’s 6 a.m. instead of saying, “I can’t believe it’s really 5 a.m.!” The better we prepare, the better we position ourselves for positive outcomes and longer, brighter days full of sunshine.
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Elisette Carlson
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Our brains are lazy — but not without good reason. Comprising only 2% of the body’s mass, the brain gobbles up 20% of its energy. About 86 billion neurons fight to fulfill their staggering metabolic needs. Laziness is an energy-conserving necessity for the brain.
If we want to create powerful habits that stick, it doesn’t make sense to waste that energy. But that’s what most of us do when trying to change our habits. We scold and punish ourselves into adopting new habits. We bend over backward trying to justify unhealthy ones. These mental gymnastics deplete vital mental energy. We engage in thoughts, beliefs and actions that don’t actually support change. Instead, they stifle it.
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Leah Borski
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What if everything ran on autopilot? This includes chores, exercise, healthy eating and completing your work. They just happen on their own. The problem is that unless they invent robots, all your work won’t disappear overnight.
It is possible, however, to create a new habit that requires little effort to maintain, with a little bit of initial discipline.
Before going on further, let me quickly explain what habits are.
In short, habits are learned behaviors that become reflexive over time. In many cases, a specific context triggers the behavior. After eating breakfast, for instance, you may brush your teeth automatically.
There are three types of habits: healthy, unhealthy and neutral. For example, taking ten minutes a day to stretch or meditate when feeling stressed can be classified as a healthy habit. An example of an unhealthy habit would be smoking a cigarette whenever you’re stressed. Taking the same route to work or eating the same breakfast each morning are neutral habits.
A habit is a learned behavior, whereas an unconscious behavior, like breathing or blinking, does not count.
Related: 3 Things That’ll Make You a Master of Forming — and Keeping — Great Habits
A habit is different from a routine because you’re aware of it. In other words, habits are repeated actions on autopilot, whereas routines are planned.
Unless you practice routines deliberately, they will eventually disappear. Habits, however, are formed unconsciously.
Intention and effort are necessary for gratitude practice, for example. It won’t run automatically. Exercise is no different. Exercising isn’t going to happen by itself. You will, however, grab a cigarette on autopilot if you have the habit.
To become a habit, a routine should be carried out without conscious thought. For example, say you begin your morning routine by drinking green juice. You can consider it a habit when you start making your juice daily without thinking about it.
The majority of habits begin as intentional, goal-directed actions. As an example, a parent may instruct a young child to wash their hands before eating. In the beginning, a child may only wash their hands to get praise from their parents. It is possible that they need a reminder every time they eat to do the task.
In time, the child will get used to the washing routine and no longer need reminders. Even if the parent doesn’t reward the behavior, the child will wash their hands before meals. Because the behavior is driven more by context than concrete rewards, it can be described as a habit.
It is possible to think of habit formation as the creation of a mental shortcut. For example, a child must take many steps to wash their hands before dinner. To wash their hands, they need to go to the sink, turn on the water, lather on soap and then dry them off. Once the habit forms, the brain begins to group these steps together as a single “chunk.” To put that another way, it interprets these steps as a single behavior.
The good thing about habits? They can save your mental energy. For you to focus on more complicated choices, you may save energy if you repeat certain behaviors automatically. The problem with reflexive behavior is that it is harder to notice and stop them. It can be hard to interrupt habits such as nail-biting at the moment since the brain identifies them as one action.
Now that you have more clarity on what habits are, how they’re formed and the difference between habits and routines, here are a few tips to help you develop good habits and keep them:
“The most important part of building a new habit is staying consistent,” says James Clear, author of Atomic Habits. “It doesn’t matter how well you perform on any individual day.” Consistency is the key.
Because of this, new habits should be so easy that you cannot resist them.
Would you like to build a habit of exercising? Today, you will exercise for one minute.
Do you want to get into the habit of writing? Make a goal of writing three sentences today.
Want to start eating healthy? This week, you should eat one healthy meal.
“It doesn’t matter if you start small because there will be plenty of time to pick up the intensity later,” Clear adds. “You don’t need to join a CrossFit gym, write a book or change your entire diet at the very beginning.”
“It’s easy to compare yourself to what others are doing or to feel the urge to optimize your performance and do more,” he says. “Don’t let those feelings pull you off course.”
Demonstrate your ability to stick with something small for 30 days. After you are consistently on track, you may want to increase the difficulty. Performance is irrelevant at the beginning.
Related: The First Step to Creating Healthy Habits Is Smaller Than You Think
When you decide to develop good habits in yourself, staying optimistic is one of the most essential elements. In addition to helping you overcome negative feelings, positive thinking enables you to deal with stress effectively.
In order to think positively, you do not ignore all the unpleasant things in life and carry on with your daily activities. Instead, you react positively to them all.
If you think mostly negatively about changing your habits, you will have a hard time adopting the new, good one. But, on the other hand, it is easier for your mind to accept something if you view it positively.
So, instead of focusing on the negative, be positive. Remember, with the right attitude, the sky’s the limit.
Find out which people, places and activities are connected with bad habits in your mind. After that, you should change how you behave toward them.
Those with shopping addictions should avoid shopping malls, for example. Also, when your friends take a smoke break, don’t go outside with them if you’re trying to quit.
There is also a link between chronic stress and poor behavior. As such, managing your stress levels will help you avoid triggers.
In the same way, cravings are driven by a desire to change your internal state of being. In other words, you can reduce cravings by identifying how you want to feel. Then, once that feeling is achieved, take an action that is healthier.
Instead of smoking when you want to relax, take a bath. Rather than drinking your third cup of coffee, eat a banana when you need energy.
Researchers from the University of Bristol investigated how people form habits in the real world, asking participants to take a walk before dinner or drink water at lunch. In the study, published in the European Journal of Social Psychology, it was found that it took 18 to 254 days for a task to become automatic. However, the median time was 66 days.
What is the lesson? Creating habits takes time. The more often we practice them, however, the quicker they become, so start with something little and simple.
For example, it’s more effective to do a small amount of exercise every day, rather than trying to go to the gym thrice a week to stick with an exercise habit. Then, as you become accustomed to daily exercise, you can begin exploring more intense forms.
Swish Patterns are used to break unwanted habits and limiting behaviors. In this method, you imagine a situation that is undesirable or triggers you, as well as a version of the situation that would result in a perfect outcome. After that, you swish the two images so that the desirable one occupies more mental space.
The first thing you need to do is visualize yourself doing a bad habit. After that, visualize yourself letting go of the bad habit and taking on a new one. Then end that sequence with a highly positive image of yourself.
Think of how you would feel if you picked up a cigarette, put it down and snapped your fingers. Last but not least, visualize yourself running and breathing freely. You should repeat the process a few times until the new habit becomes automatic.
Related: Form Lasting Habits Using These 4 Strategies
Most of us overestimate our willpower when trying to build a new habit and set a course for the most efficient method to accomplish our goal. For example, suppose you want to become fit through regular exercise. In most cases, you’ll look for workouts that yield quick results, such as running on a treadmill.
However, research suggests that finding ways to make goal pursuit fun will help you persist longer and ultimately accomplish more.
For exercise, this might mean going to Yoga or Zumba classes with a friend, hiking or joining a team sport. For those trying to eat more fruits and vegetables, smoothies can combine multiple servings of fruits and vegetables in one tasty drink.
Overall, a positive experience is critical to habit formation. But it’s often overlooked since repetition is key to sticking with something you enjoy.
Again, it takes time to build a new habit, so don’t expect success overnight. A good habit could require many failures before you become habitual.
As a result of your guilt after your failure, you may stop incorporating that good habit into your daily routine. A solid plan, though, will make it easy for you to get back on track quickly.
You should remember that slipping up is not a failure. It’s a normal part of the process. However, to develop good habits, it’s important to have a plan for dealing with failure. So, make sure you don’t start building a good habit without a plan.
There are two things you need to believe to build intrinsic motivation:
First, as long as you act according to your own preferences, you have the freedom to do so.
The work you do will make you a better, more knowledgeable person.
It is essential to learn how to deal with negative emotions to believe these two things. Additionally, you’ll need a way to measure your progress. After all, progress is an important motivator. The simplest method is to write it down and stick it on your mirror. Writing in a journal or creating a more detailed spreadsheet might also be options.
As soon as we put something on autopilot, we fall into pretty consistent routines, exercising, studying or taking our medication at the same time and place every day. However, research suggests you should deliberately introduce some variability into your routine when you’re just beginning to form habits.
There’s still no substitute for having a first-best plan. For instance, establish a mindfulness habit, perhaps meditating at 7:00 a.m. every day. Likewise, you should also consider mixing in a meditation session around and another at 6:00 p.m.
As you recall, it’s essential to repeat a behavior frequently to build a habit. However, the less brittle your routine becomes, the less likely you will follow through. If you have a flexible habit, you can still accomplish what you need to, even when things go off track. For example, let’s say that a traffic jam prevented you from meditating in the morning; you can still practice mindfulness at noon.
The key to being flexible is to provide yourself with “emergency reserves.” You’ll have these cards on hand for those days when you can’t meditate, for instance. Think of them as your Get Out of Jail Free card in Monopoly.
A challenging goal, like meditating daily, for instance, can motivate you more than an easier one. But if you miss multiple targets, it can be demoralizing. If an emergency arises, having a few emergency reserves each week allows you to miss a day without losing sight of your goal.
Environment plays a huge role in developing good habits. For example, let’s say you decide to eat a clean diet. However, when you open the fridge door, you see all the junk food inside. You’ll have a hard time resisting that, won’t you?
You will have difficulty getting rid of your bad habits if you do not change your environment. It is, therefore, better to alter your environment according to your goals.
Related: 5 Ways to Set Good Habits That Actually Stick
Good habits are built through lifestyle choices. So, what is the best way to change your lifestyle? By improving your daily routine.
In other words, take the time to plan out your day and incorporate healthy practices where appropriate.
Eat vegetables and fruits as soon as you wake up, for instance. Then, you can take a restorative nap during your lunch break. In the evenings, go for a stroll. Just remember to select realistic and healthy practices when choosing them.
Sometimes, this step is overlooked despite being obvious. As you set goals, let your friends and family know about them since they can serve as cheerleaders and hold you accountable.
Evidence suggests that the behavior of those around us strongly influences our behavior. For example, are you interested in starting a regular running routine? It’s probably better to join a running club than ask a few friends who don’t jog to join you. After all, members of the running club already have the habits you’re looking for. As a result, you’ll learn what works and gain friends who will keep you on your toes when you fall behind.
If you want to pick up good habits, try hanging out with people who are a few steps ahead of you. However, don’t overextend yourself. The experience of training with marathoners can be disheartening if you only want to improve your 5K speed.
Overall, it has been shown that socializing with people who are already successful and being inspired by them is crucial for success. The added bonus is that it’s more fun to achieve your goals with the people you like.
In general, journaling is considered a good habit. Why? As well as helping you learn from your mistakes and wins, it enables you to improve your ability to communicate.
You are likely to achieve many victories as well as some mistakes when you implement a good habit into your life. Keeping a journal in which you list all your wins and errors will allow you to easily see all the mistakes at a glance that were not in line with your habits development strategy.
Furthermore, it can help reduce these mistakes so you can remove obstacles to developing a positive habit and replace it with a negative one. In addition to identifying the obstacles, this method accelerates your habit-building progress.
It can be hard to remember to maintain a habit at first. As discussed above, habituation takes time.
One solution would be using an online calendar, such as Google Calendar, iCal, or Microsoft Calendar. With these calendar tools, you can schedule the habits you want to develop. You can also set notifications to remind you when it’s time to start working on a task. And you can even make events that recur monthly, weekly or daily.
Related: Science Says Healthy Scheduling Habits Make People Happier
The probability of you having a bad outcome is much higher if you think that you can’t do the good habit you want to incorporate into your life. The reason? Because it’s hard. When faced with a difficult task, motivating yourself with a can-do attitude is better than judging yourself.
Self-judgment creates a sense of guilt and shame because you take responsibility for your mistakes when you are working on them. In turn, you begin to feel guilty and ashamed. Negative consequences often accompany these feelings.
Because of this, it’s important to think about forming a good habit with self-compassion rather than self-judgment to give yourself some empathy and love, making it easier to do so.
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John Rampton
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Business owners have always been problem solvers. That’s what the free market is designed to do — allow innovative thinkers to create change for others by solving problems. We, as entrepreneurs, are problem solvers and creative thinkers. To see success in business, we must be good at a few core skills. We must be good at solving a specific problem for a specific type of person. We must be good at finding the right people and managing those people. And we must be good at solving the problems that arise in our businesses from the chaos that the world brings.
We all know that even with the perfect plan, we still run into problems. It’s how we deal with those problems that dictate the end results in our business. The human mind has evolved to create more comfort for us. We’ve designed houses, cities, supply chains and much more to solve problems and also create more safety and security in an uncertain world. It’s in the crafting of these types of environments that we create a better world for ourselves, and, ironically, a worse one at the same time.
Related: 3 Ways to Create an Environment That’ll Nurture an Entrepreneur
The more comfort we create for ourselves, the more we crave that comfort and allow that comfort to coddle us and lure us into relaxing our pursuit of betterment. Many of us tell ourselves the story that if we just have the Peloton, that tonal or that home gym set up, we’ll work out more.
The hard truth is that once we get those things that we tell ourselves will create a successful routine for us, many of us stay the same. Now we just have a new living room ornament and a reminder of the failed promises that we’ve made to ourselves every day. We tell ourselves, “Tomorrow, I’ll use it.” And then another day goes by, and it’s unused.
I’ve been there, too. For five years, I told myself, “I’ll quit heroin tomorrow.” And then, the next day came, and I found myself sticking a needle in my arm. Until a day came when the pain of staying the same was bigger than the pain of changing. So, I quit and haven’t touched it since. Was it easy? No, but what in life that’s worth it is easy? Not much that I’ve found.
Related: 8 Ways to Structure Your Daily Grind for Success
Most of our habits aren’t nearly as harmful to our health, our relationships and our business as heroin. But the continued practice of being comfortable and sitting on our laurels, thinking we’ve made it because we have a business that pays us a certain amount month after month, year after year, can be nauseatingly comfortable and therefore harmful. It’s that type of comfort that we get lured into that can cause catastrophic damage when a large problem arises, and we’re not prepared to solve it because we’ve let our metaphorical tools become dull and our muscles weaken.
In business, I’ve found that we are at war with ourselves and at war with the tendency to crave comfort over the habit of the consistent pursuit of success. So, it’s not the environment outside that we must cultivate to create success. It’s the internal environment that we must shape and prune to create the success we truly desire.
With lifting weights, it’s the last few reps when we’re in more pain, fully exerting ourselves and feeling the maximum amount of strain, that create the most significant changes in our muscles and physique. It’s also the times when we feel like giving up, throwing in the towel or procrastinating starting the thing we know we should be doing in which we need to change the internal environment and create habits of execution.
Life will get in the way; that’s inevitable. Children, headaches, feeling low on energy, needing to get one more thing done at work — the list could go on as to the excuses we could allow ourselves to use to continue to procrastinate the things that we know we need to do. The true power lies in realizing that we’ll never get more time in the day and that we need to prioritize what’s most important, which is self-worth, self-trust and the habit of showing up.
Yes, burnout is a real thing. And we are only capable of doing so much every day. We’ll never be able to create more time in the day, and that’s why we must create an environment inside, a set of decision-making skills that allows us to be the most effective we can possibly be with our time and our energy. That can show up as being willing to let go of control and empowering employees so that we can allocate our time and energy to different and more critical tasks and activities. It can also mean not allowing ourselves to be distracted by social media and motivational content and only allowing ourselves to be satiated by doing the things we want the motivation to do.
So, in 2023, I’m going to be creating an environment for myself and my business that allows me to stay consistently on the path toward greatness, and I encourage you to do the same. I’m not going to allow my old habits to destroy the person I know I can be and will become, and I surely won’t let the outside world dictate the way I show up. I hope you don’t either.
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Trevor Cowley
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Have you heard the phrase “process determines progress?” What it boils down to is that focusing on small, incremental changes is what matters most to achieving big results. That goes for habits, as well, says James Clear, author of Atomic Habits. Tiny changes to your daily routines can lead to significant improvements in your life.
A. Martin UW Photography | Getty Images
Here are some of the key concepts from that book that you can put into practice to help achieve your goals.
Looking for one-on-one help to build better habits? Book a video session with a coach or successful founder.
“Habits are the compound interest of self-improvement.” — James Clear
Small habits can lead to big results. Aim to get 1% better every day. So let’s say you want to lose weight. Don’t obsess over losing 15 pounds, but commit to jogging for 10 minutes every day. If you consistently lace up your shoes for jogs, that bigger goal will come. As James Clear says, “Time magnifies the margin between success and failure… Good habits make time your ally. Bad habits make time your enemy.”
In short: 1% daily improvements compound to 37 times better annually.
“Every Olympian wants to win a gold medal.” — James Clear
Focus on the processes to achieve results. If you are setting OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) for your business, this means focusing on inputs vs. outputs. Spencer Rascoff, the founder of Zillow, committed to OKRs every quarter. The process determined the progress.
Sign up for one-on-on productivity coaching here
What do Elon Musk and Bill Gates have in common?
They are billionaires. And they timebox.
Timeboxing is just what it sounds like, allocating a certain amount of time to a task. You need to shift away from a to-do list and add your tasks to calendars. There is a reason the Harvard Business Review consistently ranks Time-Boxing as the no. 1 productivity hack. People with specific plans for when and where they will perform a habit are more likely to follow through.
By shifting your identity and aligning your actions with your values, you can make lasting changes to your habits. Decide the person you want to become and take steps towards it with small wins.
Double up on your current habits that exist and add new habits. It’s most effective to make a firm commitment in writing with the following format: “After I [CURRENT HABIT], I will [NEW HABIT].”
Some examples include:
1) Meditation – “While my Nespresso machine is producing delicious God-given coffee, I will meditate for one minute.”
2) Exercise – “After I take off my work shoes, I will immediately change into my workout clothes.”
You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.” – James Clear
Motivation is not a reliable source of energy for making changes to your habits. Instead, focus on making the desired behavior easy and enjoyable, so that it becomes automatic.
Don’t get bogged down on the optimal plan.
Just get moving.
If you are an entrepreneur and need help with your plan, seek mentorship from successful founders.
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Brad Klune
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You’ve likely read the studies saying that those who wake up earlier are more successful. You may even have set the goal to adjust your wake-up time, sure that an extra hour or two at the start of the day is all you need. But deciding to wake up early and actually follow through are two different things. If you’d like to test out the theory that an early start is the key to success, here are a few tips to help you get started.
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John Boitnott
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Habits are like being on autopilot, and they’re the key to reaching your goals.
Habits are not resolutions: Those are the commitments to change you make on January 1, your birthday, or when you’ve had some sort of wake-up call. Habits aren’t behaviors, either.
Instead, habits are impulses that drive you to do certain things with little to no conscious thought. They’re a learning mechanism that connects what you’ve done in the past with the context in which you’ve done it.
Take typing, for example. Your fingers move across the keyboard smoothly, creating words and sentences. Do you think about every stroke like you did when you first learned to type? Of course not. Do you even know where the letters are?
“If I ask you to list the keys on the second row, you probably can’t,” says Wendy Wood, PhD, provost professor of psychology and business at the University of Southern California and author of Good Habits, Bad Habits: The Science of Making Positive Changes That Stick. “It’s not muscle memory. It’s habit.”
Your habits drive what you do more than you may realize. Wood estimates that 43% of our behavior is done out of habit. “We’re repeating what we’ve done in the past and not thinking about it,” she says. “You can act on habit without understanding what you’re doing.”
If you don’t understand what you’re doing, can you change it? Absolutely. Whether you want to start a new habit or drop a bad one, what matters most is the way you approach it. And if you think you just need a lot more willpower, you’re mistaken.
Most people give willpower more credit than it deserves.
It would be wonderful if you were built to resist the temptations that keep you from creating or dropping a habit. But it just doesn’t work that way.
You do things a certain way because you’ve always done them a certain way – and it’s worked for you. Habits keep us from having to think through everything, all the time. That’s also what makes them very hard to break.
Habit memories are deeply ingrained, incredibly persistent, and “last long after you’ve forgotten why you started something in the first place,” Wood says. “Habits aren’t something we can intuit and understand. It’s not like changing our beliefs or having feelings about something. Motivation and willpower wanes, but habits persist. Most of us don’t have the willpower long enough to change a habit.”
What are your go-to behaviors that you almost don’t realize you’re doing?
For instance, do you:
This is mindfulness in your everyday life. You have to see your habits before you can change them.
We all know what we need to do, whether it’s to exercise, eat healthier food, be better at our jobs, stop smoking or overspending, or cut back on alcohol. Why don’t we do it?
There can be multiple reasons: We’ve tried before and it didn’t work. We didn’t have good advice. Our lives or communities aren’t set up to support that goal, and the resources we need are inconvenient or inaccessible.
But sometimes, it’s because the goal takes us too far outside of our comfort zone.
Being uncomfortable is, well, uncomfortable. So we look for a way to escape that sensation. That leaves us open to distraction.
Let’s say you made a plan this morning to go running this afternoon. But now that it’s time to head out, you feel less motivated.
Instead, you:
How can you stop this cycle and stay focused on the habit you want to create or break?
Wood recommends making things easy. For example, if you want to eat better, buy a bunch of pre-chopped, prepared healthy foods. Set yourself up for success by making it easier to do the thing you want to do.
Before he wrote Indistractable: How to Control Your Attention and Choose Your Life, Nir Eyal studied how products change our behaviors and helped build health and ed-tech apps to get people hooked on healthy behaviors.
Ironically, he found himself getting increasingly distracted by technology.
One day, while doing some daddy-daughter bonding activities in a book, his phone buzzed with an email just as they came to the question, “If you could have any superpower, what would it be?”
“I couldn’t tell you what my daughter said because in that moment, I checked my phone and she left the room to play with a toy,” Eyal says. “I thought the problem was tech, but distraction has always been with us. Plato complained about it centuries before the internet. If I could have any superpower, I just want to do the things I know I want to do … without getting distracted.”
Eyal finds that people tend to retreat into distraction when they’re uncomfortable. He decided to lean into it instead.
“When I was writing a book, I used to say, ‘Why can’t I get into a writing habit? If I was a real writer, I wouldn’t have to work this hard.’ Now I say, ‘This is what it feels like to get better at something.’”
Use your discomfort as a motivation to propel yourself into action, Eyal says.
Your entire day can be devoured by distractions if you don’t plan out exactly what you’re going to do and exactly when you’re going to do it. Eyal calls this process timeboxing.
Granted, your plans aren’t always going to happen to the letter. Stuff comes up that legitimately bumps other things off your schedule. But you can avoid unnecessary diversions if you have a plan.
If something is a distraction that you consciously want to continue, like scrolling social media, schedule a time for it. Don’t give it free reign.
There are many habit trackers and journals devoted to habits. Eyal offers a free schedule maker on his website.
There’s an overwhelming amount of information out there about habits. Which app, book, or system should you buy?
“Start with how you want to spend your time: Time for reading. Time for exercise. Time for sleep. Should you build in family time or just give them the scraps of time you have leftover in a day?” Eyal says. “Once you know the difference between … what you plan in advance, and everything else (distraction), the habits will come naturally.”
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With the holiday season upon us and the end of another year quickly approaching, it can cause frenetic feelings about wrapping up final projects. On the other hand, it may offer a chance to reflect on how far we’ve come since January.
Most of us fall somewhere in between, and it can be easy to lose focus as December 31 approaches. However, this holiday season, carve out time to tackle a few to-dos that will set you up nicely for the year ahead, give you space to think about what you’ve already achieved and prepare you for 2023.
Related: 5 Things Entrepreneurs Should Focus on During the Holidays
Whether you have ongoing monthly or quarterly goals, it’s wise to set three larger goals you want to accomplish in the new year. Consider if you want to switch direction come January or build upon what you’ve already created. Start big. Then, create a strategy with individual milestones to get you where you want to be.
In business, most goals are attached to revenue but consider alternative perspectives as you plan for the future. What kind of client or service growth do you want to achieve? Do you want to attract a different type of audience? Do you want to add a new skill or certification to your repertoire? Perhaps a goal is to speak at an event or become an influencer in your industry. Whatever you want to achieve, attach your motivating “why” to each goal and map out tangible steps to make it easier to envision.
Related: This Simple Brain Hack Will Help You Achieve All Your Goals
Adding new goals and plans to 2023 means you must make room by decluttering your current schedule. The end of the year is an excellent time to review your ongoing meetings and commitments and evaluate where they can be trimmed or deleted altogether. Every entrepreneur knows time is a precious commodity, so to avoid getting burned out, make sure your calendar is full of things that help your growth.
Simple changes may be to change a weekly meeting to twice a month or shorten regularly scheduled hour meetings to half the time. Take a look at all the organizations — both online and in-person — which may be taking up time with little to no return on investment. Also, consider areas that limit your productivity. Social media is always a common distraction. Although, for many, it’s necessary to maintain a presence online. To keep it a helpful tool (rather than a place for mindless scrolling), schedule specific times when you’ll post and check your channels. Then, step away from social media for the rest of the day.
Related: 10 Ways to Declutter Without Going Minimalist
As with decluttering your schedule, take a look at your budget and consider areas that can be eliminated. Are there programs or tools you’re no longer using? Have you put off canceling the free trial on apps or subscriptions that can be better invested elsewhere or budgeted in another way?
Additionally, auto-pay makes it easy to forget where we spend our money. Take stock of all business auto-payments and see if any can be deactivated. Also, consider other business expenses like online courses, educational or networking events and client meetings. Where do you receive the most value? Weigh each individually to determine if all the resources you’re currently using are still as helpful as they once were. If not, get rid of them and know they’ll always be there should you need them again.
Related: 5 Ways to Build a Business Budget for Maximum Success
Gratitude is the free, quiet booster to success. Plus, it’s easy to obtain. While waiting for your morning coffee to brew or before you dive into answering emails, jot down three things you’re thankful for. Take extra time to reflect and expand your list during the holiday season. Creating a daily gratitude habit isn’t just something to make you feel warm and fuzzy; it can help you focus, increase efficiency and create an abundance mindset.
Numerous studies illustrate the positive effects of gratitude on the brain. It changes the brain’s makeup and can help us feel more engaged and appreciative, leading to greater productivity, optimism and overall better mental health. Consider the benefits of what starting your day with gratitude could do for your outlook, especially compared to the frenzy we often find ourselves in first thing in the morning.
Related: Cultivating Gratitude and Happiness Will Boost Your Business
There’s been a cultural shift over the past years from the hustle mentality to a state of self-care. However, for entrepreneurs, sometimes it’s not so easy to slow down. Many times there is no one to delegate work to, which means there’s a difficult balance to sustain a steady workload. Nevertheless, it’s always necessary to take time for yourself. It can seem overwhelming for some, so you’ll have to be intentional in how you want to use the time. Put it on the calendar. Make it a priority.
Good physical and mental health are two things that are easy to take for granted until they start to fail us. When taking time for yourself, these areas should be at the top of the list. Plan it out, whether it’s a workout at the gym, a walk around the block or a few minutes for stretching and meditation.
Putting it last on the list means it’s not likely to happen, and burnout could be around the corner. Add time for play and enjoyment into your weekly schedule as well. Essentially, time for yourself, planning or relaxing, must be part of your daily list of to-dos, and what better time to start than the holidays?
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Kelly Hyman
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Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
When your app or website was just a small seedling of an idea, you probably had big plans for how people would use it. As you built and tested it, you imagined your product becoming as integral to users’ days as brushing their teeth or checking their emails. That was the hope, at least. But making your product a recurring part of users’ lives is easier said than done.
To understand why we must first look at the mechanics of human behavior. Per the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, about 40% of people’s daily actions aren’t tied to conscious decision-making. Instead, they’re automatically initiated by situational cues and other triggers. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Rather, it’s a way to compartmentalize the myriad decisions we have to make every minute, hour and day. By eating the same thing for breakfast every morning, for example, we free up our mental capacity for more important decisions.
The question is: How can you make your product so inviting that users have no choice but to incorporate it into their subconscious routines? This is especially important today, as McKinsey & Company found that more consumers have switched brands in 2022 compared to 2021 and 2020. What’s more, 90% of them plan to continue doing so. Here are three tips for creating product usage habits in your users, so they are more inclined to stick with your brand:
Related: 5 Ways to Set Good Habits That Actually Stick
No amount of self-study or controlled testing will teach you more about your user journey — the good, the bad and the ugly — than product usage data (i.e., the information users generate as they interact with your product). From geolocation to session length to tasks completed, these rich insights span numerous types of data and actions.
For instance, when you open the Grubhub app, it’s not just logging your food order. It’s also looking at where you were when you opened the app, which features you explored versus which ones you bypassed, how long it took you to decide between chicken nuggets and a burger and how long it took for your order to be fulfilled and delivered.
If that sounds like a lot of data, it’s because it is. But when segmented and analyzed, this treasure trove of information can help you tap into your product’s habit-forming potential. To that end, you should plot two key product usage data points: frequency (i.e., how often users repeat a specific behavior) and perceived utility (i.e., how useful and rewarding users perceive that behavior to be).
Plotting these points is only step one, however. Next, you need to understand the bigger story behind the actions and what they tell you about the user journey. For example, imagine users are clicking a specific button at a higher frequency. Can you link those button clicks to higher retention among that group? That might tell you the button is a “sticky feature,” or a dependable engagement driver that encourages repeat uses. With that information, you can more easily identify and clear the friction points in your product to deliver greater value and encourage recurrent use.
Related: Using Data Analytics Will Transform Your Business. Here’s How.
Unfortunately, developing products isn’t a “build it, and they will come” situation. If you want your product to become second nature to users, you need to develop a messaging strategy that taps into intrinsic motivators and helps users bust through inertia.
Take 15Five, for example. The team management software platform allows employers to keep a pulse on their employees’ goals through weekly check-ins. Employees must log in to their accounts on a specific day to answer a series of questions and set goals for the upcoming week. But how does 15Five build and maintain engagement in its platform beyond the check-in? Well, mid-way through the week, it sends every employee an email reminding them of their goals.
Because employees were the ones who set the goals, the reminder acts as an intrinsic motivator to provoke action toward goal completion or adjustment. The messaging that 15Five uses is effective because it’s inherently user-centric: Review your goals. Plus, even if employees don’t go into the app itself, the email nudges them to at least think about their goal progress.
We know this kind of messaging works. Language-learning platform Duolingo, for example, prompts users via notifications to practice every day and continue their learning streaks. The company’s research shows that these reminders and streaks are highly motivating for users.
Related: People Love Playing Games. Use These 4 Psychological Hacks to Keep Customers Coming Back for More.
Turning conscious behaviors into subconscious habits ultimately comes down to repeatedly linking your users’ problems to your solution. This methodology is what tech entrepreneur Nir Eyal calls the “hook model” in his book “Hooked.” The hook model is made up of a four-phase process with consecutive cycles:
The first phase is the internal (e.g., users’ intentions or goals) or external (e.g., a “buy now” button) triggers that cue a particular behavior. The second is the completed in-app behavior or action in anticipation of a reward. The third phase is the variable reward, or the result of taking action that leaves users wanting more (e.g., connectedness or physical products). Fourth is the investment that sweetens the deal for future cycles through the hook model.
When building hooks, you need to get to the heart of each phase in the cycle. For instance, when looking at internal triggers, ask yourself what users want and what pain points your product alleviates. In contrast, if you’re brainstorming external triggers, focus on what brings people to your specific product.
When looking at actions, try not to overcomplicate things. Instead, look for the simplest action users might take if a reward is involved. Remember, if users don’t have sufficient motivation or ability to complete the action, they won’t. When it comes to the variable reward phase, ask yourself how you can fulfill the reward without veering into finite variability territory. The last thing you want is your experience to become so predictable or boring that users have no reason to return.
Although variable rewards are about immediate gratification, investments are more focused on long-term rewards. Therefore, think about how much work users are willing to put into your product to enjoy those lasting rewards. Consider a product such as Pinterest, for example. A user might find satisfaction in an individual image on the platform, but that image alone isn’t what builds lasting engagement. Instead, the collection of images across all their Pinterest boards makes the platform more valuable and harder to leave. That’s the investment.
Every business owner’s dream is to lead a company that’s indispensable to customers’ lives — but doing so requires more than just a good product. Habits are made, not born. So, follow these three tips and see how customers start to incorporate your offering into their routines.
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Nick Chasinov
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By Laura Wells, as told to Rachel Reiff Ellis
When I was diagnosed with MS at 39, I would say my focus on my health was sporadic. I had young kids at the time, and my diet and exercise habits were all over the place. Before kids, I’d jog a few times a week, or get on the treadmill or bike. I’d also work in some weight training. But after the kids came along, I no longer did much regular physical activity. I was focused more on my kids’ schedules and needs than my own.
Once the kids were older, I began to have more time and attention for healthy eating, but my worsening MS symptoms were a real barrier to moving my body the way I once could. Because of my fatigue and balance issues, I could no longer jog or even go for long walks. So I started trying to figure out what I could do for myself. I decided to turn to yoga — something I used to do years ago.
I started by going to classes twice a week, but even that got hard for me, because keeping myself steady is so challenging. I was constantly worried that I might fall over and embarrass myself trying to do a Standing Warrior pose. And then I discovered one-on-one sessions. My instructor was so good about modifying any pose I needed help with. She’d show me how to use a wall or chair for support. These changes in my yoga practice meant I could do a little bit of exercise daily, which has turned out to be an important key to my well-being.
When I challenge my body to do small spurts of intentional movement every day, it keeps me stronger both mentally and physically. It’s very easy to go down the rabbit hole thinking about all the things you can’t do when you have MS. So if I can do even just 15 to 20 minutes of yoga a day, it can go a long way.
I’m also fortunate that I live in an area with access to a physical therapist who specializes in MS. She’s been amazing at showing me exercises that can strengthen the weak parts of my legs and help me work on my stability.
When it comes to healthy eating habits, my philosophy has always been everything in moderation. I know a lot of people who have tried special diets, but I just try to fill my plate with a lot of fruits and vegetables and whole grains, and eat fewer packaged and processed foods. My downfall is my sweet tooth, which I’ve always had. And sugar causes inflammation, which can ramp up MS symptoms. But being aware of how foods make me feel helps a lot. I know that I feel better when I eat a salad for lunch instead of something carb-filled. So I try not to overdo it in any unhealthy category.
It’s funny, because while MS has worsened my physical balance, it’s forced me to find balance in my day-to-day life. I’ve always been someone who feels guilty if I’m not doing or helping, or being productive. But it’s become clear that it’s not only OK to relax, it’s necessary. Fatigue is one of the main symptoms of MS, and being more mindful of my activity levels is one of the ways I keep my stress low and help manage that symptom.
It’s no longer an option for me to stay up too late at night or pack my schedule so full that I don’t have downtime. If I don’t take time to sit still and read or listen to music, go for a relaxing stroll, or take a nap, I won’t be able to function. My brain will simply hit a wall. I call it “pea soup brain.” Now, I’m really good about going to bed at the same time every night, and taking a nap every single day. Not a long nap — just enough so my body can finish the rest of the day strong. I’ve learned that you have to take care of yourself before you can take care of anyone else.
I’ve also found that it’s important to celebrate small successes. The more I can embrace who I am and what I’m able to achieve, the better my mental outlook. If I’m able to do one more set of leg-strengthening exercises today than I was yesterday, that’s cause for celebration. It may not look like much to anybody else. But to me, it’s an accomplishment.
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