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Clearing my space clears my mind.
the habit of bed making is correlated with a sense of greater well-being and higher productivity.
Secret of Adulthood: Keeping up is easier than catching up.
people tell me that getting control of their stuff makes them feel more in control of their lives.
“Follow the one-minute rule: if you can do a task in less than a minute, do it.”
Although many people believe that habits form in twenty-one days, when researchers at University College London examined how long people took to adopt a daily habit, such as drinking water or doing sit-ups, they found that, on average, a habit took sixty-six days to form.
Secrets of Adulthood is “What I do every day matters more than what I do once in a while.”
DEAR (“Drop Everything and Read”), and my favorite entry, Choice Time.
“nurture your creative consciousness,” with activities such as visiting an art gallery, checking out a junk store, exploring a new neighborhood, or going for a walk.
Power Hour was only for those one-time tasks that I kept postponing. Something that can be done at any time is often done at no time.
limit calls, meetings, and lunches to Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday.
Johnny Cash used Scheduling to “Worry.” Although scheduling time to worry sounds odd, it’s a proven strategy for reducing anxiety.
write from 11:00 to 1:00 every weekday. During that time, he was to write or do nothing. No email; no calls; no research; no
Write, or stare out the window.
On days set aside for research and writing, he disciplines himself not to answer any phone calls or check any email until 4:00 p.m., at which point he spends one or two hours only doing that.
The goal is to develop habits that allow us to have time for everything we value—work, fun, exercise, friends, errands, study—in a way that’s sustainable, forever.
For me, one game is to announce … that I have finally decided on my next book, that I am ready to write it … to put my
THE BEST TIME TO BEGIN Any beginning presents an important opportunity for habit formation, because a beginning allows two powerful elements to combine: novelty and habit.
A twenty-one-day project, a detox, a cleanse, an ambitious goal, a boot camp—by tackling more instead of less for a certain period, I get a surge of energy and focus.
“When I was working on my daily writing habit, I didn’t think about writing, I thought about my prewriting ritual.
Regular bedtime habits can ease the challenging transition from waking to sleeping, and help us fall asleep faster and sleep more deeply.
For many people, don’t-break-the-chain is a powerful strategy—for
Another reason to avoid stopping a good habit is that, sadly, starting again is often far harder than starting the first time.
Habits are the behaviors that I want to follow forever, without decisions, without debate, no stopping, no finish lines.
One day at a time—even though I do plan to eat this way forever.”
A new insight can inspire a flash change.
what causes a body’s insulin level to be high or low? For the most part, diet. The more carbohydrates a person eats, and the easier these carbohydrates are to metabolize, the more insulin in the blood, and the more fat that accumulates.
Taubes maintains that the quantity and quality of carbohydrates, not calories or exercise, chiefly accounts for why we get fat.
Practically all processed foods are loaded with carbs.
Why We Get Fat and Good Calories, Bad Calories,
“Progress, not perfection,”
I’m the only data point I care about. That’s the most persuasive data point!”
Moderators shouldn’t try to abstain; if they try to deny themselves, they can become very preoccupied with indulging.
Follow the 80/20 rule, and be healthy 80 percent of the time, and indulge within reason 20 percent of the time.”
for Abstainers, having something makes them want it more; for Moderators, having something makes them want it less.
Self-knowledge will enable us to use the approach that works for us—which may also mean ignoring the advice of people who insist that their way is the right way.
Temporarily to give up color, or coffee, or a credit card makes us appreciate it much more. Alternatively, temporarily giving it up may help us to see that we’re happier when we permanently drop it from our stock of habits.
“Free from decisions, free from guilt!
The fact is, a person is so formed by his surroundings, that his state of harmony depends entirely on his harmony with his surroundings.
Surrounding
Convenience shapes everything we do. When it’s convenient to spend, we spend.
Secret of Adulthood: Make it easy to do right, and hard to go wrong.
You only live once (YOLO).
any one visit to the gym is inconsequential, but the habit of going to the gym is invaluable.
The habit of the habit is more important than the habit itself.
Distraction can help us resist temptation, minimize stress, feel refreshed, and tolerate pain, and it can help us stick to our good habits.
Waiting fifteen minutes proved effective against my growing “checking habit.”
Now when I feel myself reaching for my smartphone, or clicking over into email and social media on my desktop, I tell myself, “Wait fifteen minutes.”
Secret of Adulthood: To keep going, I sometimes need to allow myself to stop.
reward obstructs habit formation,
We’re extrinsically motivated when we do an activity to get an external reward (a carrot) or to avoid an external punishment (a stick); we’re intrinsically motivated when we pursue an activity for its own sake.
