The power of habit

(the video is a short TED talk, very student-friendly)

I’ve made significant progress over the last couple of years in cutting down the amount of things I have. Between my house and my office at work, I probably own less than 30% of what I owned at the end of 2010. This has been a hugely positive thing for me.

I’m not quite finished with the process, but it is well underway.

Lately I have been turning my attention to the things I do. Like the physical objects I owned and never used, I have a lot of habits that are not really adding value to my life. Trying to track time is a real eye-opener. The amount of time I spend doing things that don’t enhance my life and won’t pay off in the future is staggering.

The difference between things and habits is that it is very difficult to throw habits away.

Instead, I have been trying to adopt new ones. If successful, they naturally crowd out the old, less beneficial ones.

I’m just getting started with this, but so far it is going well. Here are a few new habits I have adopted this year:

1. study Japanese kanji/vocabulary first thing in the morning (before doing anything else on the computer) using anki
2. taking my granddaughter to baby swimming once a week (bonding time!)
3. writing 1,000 words a day (thanks, Stephen King)
4. planning my day first thing in the morning and last thing at night on paper

I still have a long way to go, but this has been a good start.

What habits have you consciously adopted? Is there anything you’d like to start?