Habits
“The chains of habit are too light to be felt until they are too heavy to be broken”, -Warren Buffett.
Humans are creatures of habit. Evolution has written this code in our DNA. The program works quite well. It is intended to automate the behaviours that are safe, by providing us with neural rewards. Repeated over time, these behaviours become habits. Machine Learning 101.
Numerous books have been written on this topic. Some of the ones I have read are listed at the bottom of this article.
Habits Lead to Perceptual Control
As we develop intellectually, we want to have a sense of Perceptual Control, i.e. tell ourselves how the world works. Nothing wrong with that; the idea is to have a sense of control in the seemingly chaotic environment.
A perfect example of this Perceptual Control is when you speak to your parents or grand parents. They will tell you how they think the world works and you can detect a sense of calmness in their explanation. Arguments get heated when this perception is challenged. Another good example is religious debates, or any debate for that matter.
This is one of the many ways our monkey brain tries to play tricks on us. It is critically important to challenge one self to always keep this a Perceptual Control in a dynamic state, i.e. always changing with the information available at that time.
Automation
Mental heuristics are shortcuts we learn over time to help us remember certain things. This is a habit. Athletes will tell you that practicing their moves many times over will make the action automatic. This is a habit too. Pick and choose the actions you want to automate, i.e. developing “good” habits.
For example, making breakfast each morning. This is a very tedious task. I do not enjoy it. Mornings are my most creative time of the day and I wan to automate all the mundane tasks as much as possible. I stick to the same oatmeal preparation ritual every morning. I have 2 scoops of oatmeal in the same bowl, add handfuls of seeds and nuts, microwave for a fixed time, add protein powder and milk, mix everything and wait for the same amount of time before eating. This process is fully automated and takes me less than 5mins.
Look for tasks you can automate during your day. This will free up time to be spent on the tasks you do enjoy. This will maximize your ROTI (return on time invested).
Another way to look at this automation idea is to identify all the tasks you do not enjoy doing throughout your day. Then look for time slots where you can fit them without interrupting the original task. Some examples include: making phone calls that involve lots of waiting time while you are driving; reading your daily news digest while using the toilet; brushing your teeth while taking a shower.
Be creative, I am sure you can identify many such opportunities.
Compounding
Time is unidirectional – a result of the Law of Entropy. A consequence of this is actions compound with time, for better or for worse.
If one puts in a little extra effort every day for 365 days, the end of the year result is quite remarkable. Alternatively, if one slacks off even a little every day, the result is remarkable. An elegant way to show this is:
1.01^365 = 37.8
0.99^365 = 0.03
Be strategic with your habits. Put in 1.01 effort every day towards your desired outcome and the results after a year will surprise you.
Habit Triggers
Habits need to be reinforced. Positive reinforcement by rewards, for example dopamine. Negative reinforcement by punishment. Trivial.
Triggers are cues that initiate a habit. Devise your new highly productive habit such that you have a well-defined cue to initiate it. For example, developing a gym habit by placing your gym bag by your door the night before.
Couple these triggers to your new automation habits and you have a very powerful system.
Workflow
Topics mentioned thus far will contribute to your Workflow, i.e. the system you will have in place to accomplish a task. These new action and habits will only take effect permanently if they fit your existing workflows, or fit around your exiting workflows.
Be realistic with any new habits you want to implement. If the new habit interrupts your current workflow, then step back and re-assess. Can you creatively figure out a way to make more time? Trim the fat? Make it work? Is it worth the effort? Is the cost of inaction something you cannot afford? Aka, Opportunity Cost.
Remember, this is an iterative process. Baby steps toward the desired outcome.
The secret to getting ahead is getting started, -Mark Twain.
Crisis
As mentioned above, our brain prefers certainty over new things. If a new thing interrupts predictable, comfortable outcome, then it won’t take effect. We will revert to the know. We are wired in this way. It makes evolutionary sense. Hormonal rewards are administered to reinforce routine.
There is only one cure for Fear, and that is to take decisive Action. If all else fails, then there is one final alternative: Crisis. If there is literally no other way out, if it is a matter to life vs death, then all bets are off. When you emerge victorious from this crisis, you will be equipped with tools that can be life changing; for better or for worse.
Use this knowledge and turn your crisis into an opportunity. Entrepreneurs know this trick well enough. A crisis can be devised such that it helps you grow from the experience.
Systems vs Goals
Goals are good for short term accomplishments. But they come to an end. Then what?
Systems are a result of habits. You can accomplish any goal by working through a system. Sure, there will always be a first time when you develop this system for this specific goal. But when you accomplish this goal, your system carries forward to the next similar goal. Habits lead to Systems Thinking.
This argument is masterfully explained by Scott Adams in his article.
Scheduled Maintenance
Once you understand the building blocks of habits and systems, and you have a workflow in place that facilitates the desired outcomes, it is imperative to have in place scheduled time blocks where you reassess and plan. During these scheduled maintenance sessions, you will take account of your progress, be critical of what didn’t work, and think about how to improve.
Schedule these times in your calendar, put it on repeat.
What gets measured, gets managed, -Peter Drucker
What gets measured, gets accomplished.
Book Summary: The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
The king of such books, in my opinion, is this book. Here is a summary on these 7 habits below. You can Google search for wallpaper-type images on the internet and stick them on your wall.
- Be Proactive: one of my favourites, the best way to predict your future is to create it. The opposite is to be Reactive, where you are not in control. Take charge of the situation. Your life is a product of your decisions, not your conditions.
- Start with the End in Mind: before you start any new project, think about “the why”. Why is it that you want to do this? Envision the end result: is this something that you are looking forward to?
- First Things First: Prioritize. Time is a limited resource. Make it count.
- First Understand, then Seek to be Understood: if we try to understand others first, before defaulting to the offensive, which is to assume we are misunderstood, this will resolve most of the conflicts.
- Win-Win: think win-win. It is not necessarily a zero-sum game. Look for creative ways to solve problems where both parties are better off than the starting point.
- Synergize: the whole is greater than the sum of it’s parts.
- Sharpen the Saw: finally, after you have perfected all of the above, look for opportunities to grow. Learn constantly.
Identify your weakness, and just work on one thing at a time.
Book Summary: The Power of Habit
This book is another gem. It gets into the nitty-gritty of habits:
- how they are formed in the first place: choice>repetition>reward>habit
- what triggers them: cues, hormonal, environmental
- how to change your habits: cue-routine-reward, keep the cue and reward the same, work on changing the routine
- cravings: are entrenched habits
- keystone habits: identifying these keystones and working on changing them cause ripple effects on other habits
- willpower: a finite resource; not a skill
- crisis: is an opportunity to change a habit
- familiarity and peer pressure: reasons to carry on with some habits
- habits can be changed
Book Summary: The Compound Effect
Compound your habits over time, and what do you get? Your personality.
This is the sequence of events:
- Your core values, your “Why”, drives you
- Your choices, you always have a choice…
- …become your habits, good or bad
- Discipline yourself for the good habits
- Momentum propels you forward, relying on your willpower and positive reinforcements
- Hitting the brick wall of your max, then keep pushing to go the extra mile. This is the difference between a mediocre and a professional
- Compound the above over time and you get…
- …YOU
Sources:
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, by Stephen Covey.
The Power of Habit, by Charles Duhigg.
The Compound Effect, by Darren Hardy.
