Raise your hand if you know you could be doing something to save a nice bit of cash each week but for some reason or another you just don’t. Maybe you have a hard time getting your act together to pack a lunch each week or somehow you never find the time to look for a cheaper auto insurance plan. Don’t be embarrassed if this is true for you, as almost everyone I know has these little, seemingly easy things that somehow just don’t wind up happening. If you’d like to conquer one of these items on your list, try my three step method for making a change in your habits.
Pure laziness is not a detailed enough answer. You can almost always find a good solution to a problem if you have enough information to work with. So take some time and give yourself a thorough question and answer session to get to the bottom of things. Note: be friendly and kind to yourself when asking questions, don’t go bad cop on yourself. It’s not really productive.
For example, if you somehow never make the time to pack a lunch, think about all the reasons for not packing a lunch over the past week:
Or if you continually put off phone calls (my personal Achilles heel), your reasons might look like this:
Typing it out made me realize that some of my reasons for avoiding phones calls sound a bit ridiculous but I’m willing to share them because you probably have some rather silly reasons for not doing things too. I also want you to know that it’s not that big of a deal, as we all have our little quirks and weak spots. The thing is, unless you know the reasons you aren’t doing things, no matter how silly they seem, you won’t be able to make a workable plan to fix things.
Chances are good that once you understand and articulate the reasons that you are not taking action, you’ll be able to come up with one or more workable solutions right away. For example, some solutions to the not packing a lunch problem could be:
For my problem with making phone calls, here are some solutions I’ve come up with and why they work for me.
Until your new habits are well established, it’s going to take a conscious effort on your part to make sure that you schedule the time you’ll need to make things happen. Even if it sounds silly to write “Saturday 4 pm: make a grocery list. Sunday 10 am go to the grocery store” on your calendar, do it. In fact, it’s a good idea to write down a list of all of the things you need to do each day or week to accomplish your goals and cross them off as they are finished. This not only serves as a helpful reminder, it’s also a good way to measure your progress.
I’ve found that it helps to break tasks down into chunks. For example, when I talked about gathering documents for a phone call the night before instead of right before the phone call. Now, there isn’t a reason why I couldn’t just lump that together into one task, but the truth is, most of us only have so much mental energy to go around and it’s psychologically easier to do a task if a lot of the prep work is already out of the way (and easier to do the prep work if you know you can take a break after!) Another example of putting this in action would be cutting up and bagging fruits, veggies and cheese for an entire week’s lunches so all you have to do is grab one of each and put it in your lunch bag each night.
Sometimes you can take advantage of proximity and momentum to get tasks done. That’s why packing your lunch when you’re already in the kitchen putting away dinner works well for most people. That’s also why I make a batch of phone calls at the same time instead of spreading them out during the week. It seems to work best when you lump like tasks with like tasks to take advantage of momentum.
You should also consider when your mental energy is greatest to decide when to do tasks that require a great deal of willpower and/or concentration. Since I hate making phone calls so much and it tires me out, I plan to do those first thing in the morning when I am at my peak. Night owls might be better off waiting until later in the afternoon. It’s also good to accept that doing things that feel difficult or unnatural to you will be exhausting so try to balance it with things that you can do on autopilot immediately following.
Don’t feel like you have to rely on sheer willpower alone to make positive changes. Instead, understand your own personal reasons why the change is difficult, make a plan that incorporates your own personality and lifestyle instead and give yourself the time you’ll need to turn these changes into habits.
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