Improving Habit Formation through Temptation Bundling

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April 14, 2020

Essentialism was introduced by Greg Mckeown. It mainly talks about how people should learn how to choose what matters most in their lives. Most people do not realize that most of the things that they are invested in are not important at all. They joggle much of their time but have not realized the things that have been compromised. Greg Mckeown believes that only a few things really matter and it is important to pursue less but to do better in life.

It does not mean when you are busy, you are being productive. Sometimes you are being stretched thinner than creating significant progress. All of us are guilty of this. People tend to commit to most of the things without thinking about the trade-offs that may occur in making decisions.

Sam Elliot, an executive of Silicon Valley, fond of saying yes in almost all requests without thinking about it. He became unsatisfied with what he was doing and people are frustrated as well. He is being overworked and underutilized. His mentor advised him to do what things that are essential for him and ignore those that do not matter.

As he followed the advice, things change. He does not go to meetings if he does not have any direct contribution to make. He was able to restore the quality of his work by doing what is most important and eliminating everything else. When he learned to do what matters most for him, he did not only won in his work, but he was able to have quality time with his family and he was able to have time for himself too.

Essentialism allows people to get the right things done and experience joy in the journey of life. It enables people to choose clearly what path they want to take.

Further, people tend to pursue everything in order to become successful, but Greg Mckeown highlighted that pursuit of success can be a catalyst of failure. People are mindful to be successful than identifying what is essential. In fact, through determining what really matters in life enables us to be successful. “Essentialism is a method for making tough trade-off between lots of good things and a few really great things,” Mckeown stated.

To know more about it, you may read Greg Mckeown’s book, the Essentialism: the Disciplined Pursuit of Less.

The Benefits of Keeping Your Habits on Track

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April 9, 2020

Nowadays, there are a lot of platforms that are being used to keep people’s habits on track. Ticking the boxes or marking your dates with some of X’s obtains benefits that most of you are not aware of it.

The 20-year-old Benjamin Franklin used a small booklet to track thirteen personal virtues. One of his goals were “lose no time, be always employed in something useful, and avoid trifling conversation.” With his method, he was able to evaluate his progress.

On the other, Jerry Seinfeld believes in his mantra to never break the chain. In the documentary, entitled Comedian, Jerry explained why he keeps on writing jokes everyday. For him, he is not bothered about the quality of his jokes or how inspired he is, but the purpose of executing his habit consistently.

Habitual tracker does not only manage your consistency in doing your habits but it also has the following exceptional benefits:

It pumps your motivation

Habitual tracker affirms that you are having progress. The more winnings you get, the more it motivates you to continue what you are doing. If you’ve missed a day, the small empty portion from your planner reminds you that you need to be back on track again.

As you continue documenting your habits, it generates more triggers. Thus, you will most likely succeed in keeping your habits on track. A study found out that people who manage their calorie intake lost twice as much weight as those who did not.

It enhances your truthfulness

Since the habitual tracker is personal, you have a chance to manipulate it. But when you become dishonest about your habits, you are trying to distort your view of your behavior. At the end of the day, it is you who will suffer the consequences of doing it. With a habitual tracker, you will become more truthful and aware of what you are doing everyday. Plus, this allows you to assess your daily productivity.

It is satisfying

Keeping your habits on track is satisfying. As you witness how many pages of the book you finished, the number of hours you have dedicated to exercise, the amount of money you have saved, these will more likely enable you to continue what you are doing. The feeling of accomplishing something signifies that you are in control of what you are doing and it inspires you to endure more.

It allows you to focus on the process and not the result

With the extra motivation and satisfaction that habitual tracker gives you, you will be more focused as well with the process and not the outcome. Measuring habits is a system that enables you to be the better version of yourself. It helps you to become the person you are eyeing to be.

Interestingly, Belle imparted to her blog, entitled “Tracking your habits: why you should, and how to do it well”, what she got in tracking her habits. Like any other person, she has a hard time doing it but one day she was surprised on what she became after documenting her habits.

6 Things To Do During Quarantine

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April 8, 2020

Are you getting bored from doing the same routine everyday due to the ongoing lock down? Here are some things you can do during quarantine. Keep up on staying at home and try these new stuff to kill boredom and at the same time, doing something new for yourself.

1.Online classes

They say that it is important to learn new things everyday. Here are tons of websites that are giving free access while we are all in quarantine. If you are interested to learn new habits and skills like photography, content writing, digital marketing, analytics, and entrepreneurship, visit SKILLSHARE and take its classes. Plus, courses are being taught by world-class mentors. Sign-up now and get two months free access.

Moreover, you can also learn on how to optimize the benefits of Adobe apps like Photoshop, Illustration and Lightroom through Behance. Try it now!

Apart from building habits and exploring graphic designing, Khan Academy offers free tutorials on how to code. Since all schools are suspended right now, it is an opportunity for you to advance your learning.

2. Workout

In order to fight COVID-19, you need to boost your immunity. One of the ways to become healthy is to exercise regularly. Now is the time to build the habit of exercising. There are a lot of exercising routines that are available in Youtube and Pinterest that can accompany you in your fitness journey.

3. Read books

One of the things you can do during quarantine is to read books that you have not read because you don’t have time to do it. If you’re looking for more books to read, you can visit the following websites for free access:

https://libguides.ccu.edu/covid
https://www.scribd.com/?lohp=2 (good for a month of unlimited access to all books)
JSTOR
https://lib.siena.edu/free (up to September 2020)

To give you some book recommendations, we have five self-improvements books that you can read.

If you do not prefer reading long paragraphs, it is ideal for you to read newsletter from prominent authors. I highly suggest you subscribe to John Clear’s newsletters.

4. Listen to various podcasts

Podcasts do not only entertain you but also stimulate your brain. You can listen to various podcasts in Spotify. I recommend you to listen the podcast of the Self-Improvement Daily by Brian Ford. His podcasts are mostly less than 10 minutes. Even more, the topics are interesting.

What’s more interesting, try to check the podcasts of Matt D’Avella, the Ground Up Show. His podcasts are interviews with people that has exceptional contributions. The purpose of these podcasts are to inspire listeners.

5. Learn to build a website

The world today is shifting to digital marketing. Try to consider understanding how websites are being build. You will know more about building a website when you attend an online class in Skill Share. Further, you can use Square Space whenever you want to try since there is a one month free trial, no credit card required. If you want to use it for good, Square Space offers a discount for your first month.

6. Start gardening

With the ongoing crisis brought by COVID-19, learn to appreciate the idea of farm to table. Go to your backyard and plant the fruits and vegetables that you are eating always. Love how nature works. Gardening is also therapeutic.

If you have your own garden, that’s great. Venture on more plants you want to cultivate or try redesigning your existing garden.

Maybe you are done watching the series on Netflix and the movies on HBO channel. Now is the time to try something new. Learn something new and master it. After this quarantine, you will be able to do something for yourself.

Keep safe everyone!

5 Self-Improvement Books to Read

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April 5, 2020

Are you finding some good books to read? Check out these five recommended self-improvement books that will motivate you to become the best version of yourself.

Most of these books are more on increasing one’s productivity, how to become motivated at school/office, and choosing the right mindset.

1.Essentialism

The Essentialism of Greg McKeown is one of the game-changer among the self-help books. If you’re having a hard time juggling your priorities and to-dos in life, get a copy of this book and you will know how to solve this kind of problem. You will realize that being busy does not equate to being productive. This book will guide on how to focus on things that truly matter in life. It will teach you to do less, but doing it better

Greg McKeown is known to be an author, public speaker, leader, and business strategist. Not to mention, his book is the #1 Time Management book on Amazon.

2. The Book of Joy

The Book of Joy is written by Dalai Lama. It talks about how joy affects one’s life and what are the obstacles of joy. It is a story of the experiences and the conversations of Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu, the former Archbishop of South Africa. They share their spiritual journeys and how they find joy amidst suffering.

This book will help you to become the best version of yourself by improving your self-awareness. Even more, this book also uplifts and enlightens one’s mood.

3. The Atomic Habit: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones

If you are looking for a good book that will help you establish new habits and will keep you to be motivated in life?, add this book written by James Clear in your library. The author emphasized the importance of habits and how they can affect our ambitions in our lives.

This book is a great companion in building good habits and eliminating the current bad habits that you have in your life. What’s more interesting in this book, is that there are inspiring stories about world-class athletes, business leaders, and other influential people that will truly motivate you. You would not believe that they reached their ultimate goal just because of their daily habits.

4. The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck

This book written by a blogger Mark Manson defied self-improvement books that romanticize the idea of positivity. He emphasized that people need to recognize anxiety, fear, and pain.

“Improving our lives hinges not on our ability to turn lemons into lemonade, but on learning to stomach lemons better. Human beings are flawed and limited—not everybody can be extraordinary, there are winners and losers in society, and some of it is not fair or your fault,” Mark Manson stated.

He highlighted that as you continue to pursue something, you are telling yourself that you are lacking it. That’s why it is important to ensue happiness.

Accordingly, this book used research-backed methods to help you become more productive amid the struggles of life and choose what is utmost essential. Its contents discussed more on the reality of life.

5. The 80/20 Principle:The Secret to Achieving More with Less

Richard Koch, the author of the 80/20 Principle, revealed that 80 percent of the outcomes in life are attributed by 20 percent of your efforts. In his book, he explained how this principle can increase one’s effectiveness.

If you have more self-improvement books to recommend, message us and you can share your insights with us.

Consistency of Building Habits through the 2-Day Rule

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April 1, 2020

Planning and starting your new habits may be easier than being consistent in doing such routines. Today, we will introduce to you the 2-Day Rule, a technique that will help you to be consistent in establishing new habits.

What is a 2-Day Rule?

Motivation pumps people at the beginning of having new habits. But later on, people lose motivation when results aren’t forthcoming amidst the ongoing effort.

Keep in mind that habits are being established in a long period of time before they are instilled in one’s lifestyle. Similar to this, is when you skip a habit. It should not take two days in a row to keep your new habits going. When you let yourself stop for more than two days, you are now building a habit of slacking off from the new habits you wanted to establish.

When you are trying to build a habit of exercising, it is not easy to pull yourself out from your bed everyday and go to the gym immediately. It is normal to get tired and be lazy but not for a long time. Thus, when you have skipped a day of exercising, you should find a way that you will be able to exercise the next day.

This rule was introduced by Matt D’Avella in his video The Two Day Rule. In his experience, he was able to effectively instill working out in his everyday routine when he implemented the said rule.

With the use of habitual tracker, a calendar where he put X when he achieved going to the gym, he was able to commit himself to observe the 2-day rule while building the habit of exercising.

He realized when he committed to this rule, he became healthier and alert. For him, there were ripple affects on his other habits as well.

Rules do not limit people’s freedom but in fact, setting the right rules in life, based on what you value the most, allows you to live a life that you have always imagined.

Starting a New Habit with 2-Minute Rule

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March 31, 2020

Are you having a hard time building a new habit? Worry no more, a simple 2-Minute Rule strategy will help you make things easier and will stop you from procrastinating over and over again.

The rule mainly overcomes one’s procrastination and laziness.

This 2-minute rule was introduced by James Clear, an author of Atomic Habits. According to him, the rule stated that it should take less than two minutes to begin a new habit.

What does that mean? When you want to finish a task or do something new, do it for less than two minutes. Does this mean that goals can be accomplished after two minutes? Definitely not, but with this rule, doing your goals can be started.

The logic behind this rule was inspired by Isaac Newton’s physics of real life. The first law of motion, the law of inertia, states that “objects at rest tend to stay at rest and objects in motion tend to stay in motion”.

Similar in doing a new habit for less than two minutes, once it is being started, it is easier to continue doing it.

But how to make sure that you will start doing your goals? Make it as easy as possible.

Here are some easy-to-start habits by doing the 2-Minute Rule:

Reading a book- Just read one page of a book until you’ll find yourself reading more than a chapter.
Becoming a writer- Start writing a paragraph until your thoughts are flowing as you will be surprised that you are writing for almost an hour.
Eating healthier food- Eat at least one piece of fruit until you love to eat some salad for your meal.
Exercise daily- Tie your running shoes and you will find yourself running for more than a mile.

Building a new habit is easy to map out but difficult to start and to be consistent in doing it. With this rule, you will be able to do the right thing and urges you to do more once you’ve started it.

Little do you know that this strategy is very powerful. Keep in mind that new habits will never be adopted when they are not well-established. The 2-Minute Rule allows you to master the habit of showing up. Once you are used to it, you will be able to master the skill of doing your habits.

James Clear highlighted that it is important to standardize in order to optimize. He explained that it is more essential to do easy things on a more consistent basis than focusing on how to make a perfect habit from the start. You can never improve your habit when you are having a hard time making it possible.

“Strategies like this work for another reason too: they reinforce the identity you want to build. If you show up at the gym five days in a row—even if it’s just for two minutes—you are casting votes for your new identity. You’re not worried about getting in shape. You’re focused on becoming the type of person who doesn’t miss workouts. You’re taking the smallest action that confirms the type of person you want to be,” James Clear stated.

Source: https://jamesclear.com/how-to-stop-procrastinating

The Essentials of Morning Routine

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March 22, 2020

A morning routine sets the tone of your entire day. This significantly helps to improve your productivity.

Interestingly, Google’s Chief Executive Officer,(CEO) Sundar Pichai proves that stress and success do not work hand in hand but instead he emphasized the importance of low-key routines every morning.

According to him, the essential routine he has every morning is a kick-start for him to begin his busy day.

If you’re the type of person who keeps on pressing the snooze button of your alarm and goes back to bed, well, maybe you’re suffering from procrastination and has a difficulty to improve productivity.

But it’s not yet too late to improve your habits. Let yourself control the schedule and not the other way around. Here are some points on why you should start building your morning routine.

Lessons Learned from Morning Routine

Calmness is a great way to start the day

As you jump-off your bed, you do not need to compel yourself to do your work first thing in the morning. You can do meditation, exercising, and journaling to begin your day so that calmness radiates within you throughout the day. Some people read spiritual messages or listen to self-motivating audiobooks to motivate themselves. The calmness brought about your routine reduces stress which can increase your productivity

Invest in meaningful matters

Building your morning routine helps you to become more focused on achieving your goals and complete daily tasks effectively which truly matters for everyone.

As James Everett Youngblood (2019) imparted that busywork is different from deep work which leads to an individual’s best work. Doing work that is uninterrupted, quiet, and glorious increases one’s self-fulfillment.

Through these daily rituals, people become motivated to do things in life.

Keep on moving

As Pichai of Google highlighted that his daily routines in the morning are kick-starter for his day, well, you should also start moving.

Do something every morning that can boost your mood for the entire day. Doing physical activities is one way to keep yourself moving during mornings.

I know this wouldn’t be easy with people who are not morning persons. But as they said, consistency entails persistence. If you want to invest in improving your productivity, you need to go beyond your comfort zone.

Maintain balance

As you pursue morning routine, you need to be balanced. You need to have the self-awareness for your well-being while getting things done.

“I’ve found that the best mornings are balanced. They include a mix of something physical, some time for focused work, and a way to get my mind and heart aligned for the day,” James Everett Youngblood said.

How you begin your day ripples out, influencing the remaining time of your day. Most people do a lot of trial and error before settling on their routines, even known CEOs commit to their daily rituals.

If you want to explore how to build your morning routines, SKILLSHARE can help you out. Just use this link (https://skl.sh/2woAL4I) to have a free subscription for two months.

Changing Environment to Build New Habits Effectively

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March 15, 2020

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Are you losing your motivation to do your new habits? Honestly, to build new habits effectively is not that easy. With this article, you will be guided on what things to do in order to effectively follow the new habits that you want to execute.

According to James Clear’s Atomic Habits, an invisible hand that shapes human behavior is the environment.

Have you not noticed that people tend to buy stuff not because of what they are but where they are placed.

The phenomenon of Suggestion Impulse Buying of Hawkins Stern, economist, stated that customers buy things because they are presented to them and not because they needed them. That’s why products in the supermarket that are at the eye level are expensive than those items located at the bottom and at the top of the shelves.

Even more, restaurants and cafes that can be found everywhere are more likely to be visited such as Starbucks.

Similar to our habits, we opt to choose the most obvious option and not much on the purposeful drive of it.

One way of improving the execution of one’s habit is to redesign the environment.

Most of us have the notion to pursue living healthy. But because we are in a hurry every morning, we tend to neglect a 10-minute workout. We choose to eat fast food than preparing our own lunch because that’s the option that’s available.

Designing Your Environment to Build New Habits Effectively

Did you know that sight is the most common sensory receptors of humans? That’s why visual cues significantly affects behavior.

With this, James Clear suggested to create obvious visual cues which can draw attention toward a desired habit.

James Clear shared how he bought apples but placed them in the bottom of the refrigerator. As a result, he forgot that he has apples. By the time he remembered it, the apples have gone bad.

The next time he bought apples, he placed them at the display bowl and put it in the middle of the kitchen counter. Since the apples are noticeable, he began eating apples each day.

Here are some tips that James Clear suggested in redesigning your environment:

In order to take your medication each night, placed the pills near your faucet on the bathroom counter.
Want to learn new musical instruments? Place your instruments in the middle of your living room.
If you want to drink more water, place your water bottles in common locations around the house.

” If you want to make a habit a big part of your life, make the cue a big part of your environment,” Clear emphasized.

“Making the better decision is easy and natural when cues for good habits are right in front of you,” he added.

But what if others created the world where you live like the situation you are in right now? Most of us can relate to this. But we are not constrained to be contented on where we are right now. We can change the spaces or the workplaces we are in to acquire positive vibes than negative ones.

Further, James recommended to associate one habit in one specific place to build new habits effectively. It is difficult to pursue a new habit in the face of ongoing cues.

You can’t develop a habit of going to bed early if you watch television every night in your bedroom. You can’t effectively separate your work life and home life if you’re only doing these stuff in one place.

Keep in mind to have “one space for one use”, James Clear highlighted in his book.

If you want to form and keep your habits effectively, you also need an environment that is favorable for you to achieve your goals.

Why Set Systems and Not Goals

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March 11, 2020