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The Importance Of Routine

You’ve probably heard the phrase “Variety is the spice of life”, right? Even if you’ve never heard it before, if you stop and think about it for a moment, you’ll understand the meaning behind it… it’s the things that stand out that make life fun and interesting.

Variety is important… but so is the routine that makes it stand out. Your body learns from routine (so does your mind, actually, but we’ll concentrate on the body for now). It learns when it is time to sleep, along with how much to sleep, when, what, and how much to eat, and many other things that you likely consider subconscious, and out of your conscious mind’s control.

When you lack a routine (Guilty!) , and your life is essentially chaotic, it takes a toll on your body. You start sleeping poorly and become tired all day, and even sleepy at less than optimum times. Your diet likely starts to suffer as your body tries to compensate for the unpredictable demands on it, and starts craving more sugar because of the interference with your sleeping patterns.

You’ll also find that you seem to have less and less time in the day to get things done. Because nothing is planned and nothing is routine, you lose time both because you can’t be as efficient (there can be little planning ahead when you don’t know what’s coming) and because you have to keep taking the time to choose what to do next. Eventually it starts to seem as if you have no time to do anything, even though you have exactly the same amount as everyone else who IS getting things done.

Variety also starts to lose its flavor to where it takes more and more for you to feel like you’re having a good time, like what you are doing is fun, enjoyable, and really what you want to be doing. All the little things that you haven’t done because you let go of the routine start bothering you, hanging about at the back of your mind and draining you bit by bit.

You can alleviate all of this, and make your life more enjoyable, by establishing a routine. That doesn’t mean that everything in your day has to be the same every day, it just means establishing certain patterns, and sticking with them the majority of the time. Establishing specific times to eat (or specific intervals between eating), for instance, can help you improve your diet, which often also improves your mood. Establishing a bed time can also help to improve your sleep, as your body can become adjusted to going to sleep at that time, and therefore start preparing beforehand. Times in a routine don’t have to be set down to the minute… approximate is good enough. Dinner could be at 6:30 PM, give or take 15-30 minutes (or your interval could be eating every 3.5 hours, give or take 15-30 minutes), and bed time could have the same sort of range (ie 10:15 is close enough to 10:00 to still be accepted as part of a routine).

Establishing your new routine can be difficult, at first. It can feel confining, which may make you want to rebel. It also requires conscious effort until it becomes established habit, which can take two or three weeks. During this time of change, you may feel even more stressed than when you had a routine… precisely because it’s a change. If you stick with it, however, you should start noticing a difference within a couple weeks… and then eventually you’ll stop noticing the difference, because that’s how your mind and body work.

If you want to try this, but don’t want to try to reorganize your entire life at once, the change with the most impact is probably setting a bed time. The amount and quality of your sleep can drastically affect nearly every other aspect of your life. The second most effective thing to make routine is your eating… this will tend to cut down on your cravings for unhealthy food, as well as the negative effects of eating too much or too little at a time. Other things which are good to make part of your routine but can wait until later are things like exercise, laundry, dishes, and anything else which needs done every, or nearly every, day.

If you have children, having a standard routine in your life is even more important, as they are more sensitive to such things than adults. Having set times to eat, sleep, and even play (especially if that set time to play is a set time to play with you) can make massive improvements in their behavior… which can make massive improvements in your mood.

This article is not suggesting, by the way, that you never vary from the routine… far from it. Exceptions to the routine are likely to be what you remember long down the road… but there must be a routine before those exceptions are noticeable. It doesn’t hurt anything that the routine can help you clear out stress and give you more energy (through improved diet and sleep) to enjoy those exceptions, either.

So, in closing… don’t make everything in your life routine, but do try to establish some routines. It’s very draining and damaging to your mind and emotions when either everything, or nothing, is planned.

PS – This is something that I, personally, plan on working toward… it’s been quite some time since I had much routine or pattern in my life, and it’s time I got some back. Except for my trip to Vegas next month

Author

July 15th

Planning

Achieving Your Goals – Negative Motivation VS Positive Motivation

When it comes to motivation, it can be broken down into two categories: negative motivation and positive motivation. Negative motivation is "push" motivation… you are trying to push something you don't like away from you. Positive motivation is "pull" motivation… you are trying to bring something that you DO want closer to you.

Each has an area where, generally speaking, it is more effective. Negative motivation is good for getting you started, for getting that initial movement that is often the hardest part to achieve. It does not, on the other hand, last all that well. Positive motivation is just the ticket for that… positive motivation can be a lifelong thing, but in general is not as great for getting the first sparks together to "light your fire".

Negative Motivation

Negative motivation is very good for getting you moving. It provides a sharp stimulus that is congruent with out instincts… that thing is unpleasant, get away from it. Our instincts don't make a distinction, in this case, between physical unpleasantness and mental unpleasantness… either way, our instinct is just to get away.

This can work very well… if your doctor tells you that you have cancer, and that unless you do what they say you are going to die, that provides some really strong motivation to change your ways and do what they say. The motivation is sharp, strong, and focused… do what you need to (what the doctor tells you) in order to avoid something unpleasant (dying of cancer). Since motivation is linked to action by way of a cost/benefit ratio, you can see that the cost (doing what the doctor tells you) is very low in comparison to the benefit (not dying).

Negative motivation has a very definite weakness, however. It can be quite strong, enough to get you moving when other things wouldn't, but what happens when you take the negative stimulus away? The motivation dries up almost instantly.

In other words, once you feel like you are safe from whatever the unpleasantness was, there is no more motivation from that source, though you may keep up whatever changes you have made out of habit.

Positive Motivation

Positive motivation is generally not quite as good at getting you moving. The natural instinct to avoid unpleasantness is not triggered, thus leaving you without the added boost that brings. Even if there is something you really, REALLY want, unless the path from here to there is pretty obvious, there may be some doubt, some fear, about your ability to achieve that thing, making it harder to get started.

On the other hand, positive motivation doesn't necessarily have a defined end, either. If you lose weight because your doctor tells you that you have to or suffer some really unpleasant problems, then once you lose enough weight, that motivation goes away. If you lose weight because you want to feel more fit and healthy, however, that motivation doesn't really go away. You're still going to want to feel fit and healthy, even after you've achieved your original goals.

Positive motivation gets stronger as you go along. Seeing progress toward your goal, whatever it may be, reinforces your positive motivation at the same time that it weakens your negative motivation… after all, you're getting closer to your thing you want (positive, or "pull" motivation) and farther from the thing you want to avoid (negative, or "push" motivation). Positive motivation can also help you conserve momentum when moving to a new goal after completing your current one.

Summary

The trick of motivating yourself is to know how to combine the two, and which to use when. Negative motivation is good for getting started, which is why many people who speak about reaching your goals will tell you to share your goals and time frames with someone else. This induces the negative motivation of not wanting to look bad in front of that person. That can range from a medium to a very strong negative motivation. At the same time, however, it makes you start framing the way you look at your goal in terms of that negative light. This can lead to you looking for ways to avoid both working on the goal and the person with whom you shared that goal.

That's where positive motivation comes into play. Once negative motivation gets you moving, you can start to see your progress toward your goal, which helps to strengthen your positivel motivation into a force that can support further progress. As you make more progress, and the end point (your goal) becomes clearer, positive motivation becomes even stronger, getting to the point where it can really drive you to the next goal once the current one is achieved… as long as you don't slow down too much. Once you slow down, you may need the kick from negative motivation once again.

So… that's a really simple look at the differences between negative motivation and positive motivation. Do you find that you use one more than the other? Will you change how you attempt to reach new goals after thinking about the difference? Let me know in the comments.

Author

October 10th

Energy, Feed Your Mind, Goals, Motivation, Perseverance, Planning, Polarity

A Simple Way To Easily Keep Your Focus All Day Long

We all have a natural tendency to start losing our focus as the day drags on, especially when we're working on something other than what we really want to be doing. It becomes harder and harder to pay attention to what you're doing… your mind starts to wander and pretty soon you're working at a fraction of your peak efficiency. Sometimes you may even become annoyed at yourself for it, but that doesn't really help, it just makes it even harder to focus.

There is, however, a fairly simple way to keep your focus all day long, and it doesn't even take much time. And, as a bonus, not only will it help you to keep your focus, but it will also help you to train your subconscious in what is important to you, and thus which choices and opportunities to bring to your attention.

And now onto the meat of article, how to keep your focus all day long:

Preparation

The first thing you'll need to do for this to be the most effective is a list of specific things in your life that you want to improve. The easiest way to get such a list is to sit down with pen and paper (or electronic equivalent) and write down whatever comes to mind as something you would like to improve. Anything that is really general, like "I want to be more successful", refine down to one or more specifics, such as "I want my income to increase".

Now take that list and narrow it down to something like 4-6 items that are the most important to you. Take those items you have left and put them into a positive and current sentence. As an example, if you chose from above the specific of "I want my income to increase", you could take that and turn it into "My cash flow is increasing." That's positive, as opposed to something like "I'm not going to smoke", and current, rather than future like "I will make more money".

So… that's the one time preparation, although you can, of course, revisit the list at any time if you find that one of the things on it is no longer of as much importance (or if you simply find something of more importance). There is also daily preparation, done each night just before bed. Each night, just before bed, make a short list of things you need to do the next day. This shouldn't be more than few of the most important things, not a comprehensive list of everything you have on your plate.

Now, onto the next phase…

Execution

First thing in the morning, soon after you wake up, take five minutes of quiet time for yourself. Start this quiet time with deep breathing, concentrating on feeling your breath slide in and out. After you feel your body relax and your mind achieve quiet (which should only be a couple minutes if you do this regularly) repeat to yourself the phrases from your list… "My cash flow is increasing.", etc. Focus on each one for just a moment, then move to the next. After you have finished that list, quickly review your to do list from the night before and decide the order in which you are going to do those things. Now you're ready to go start your day knowing what you need to do and where you want to go… and your focus should be sharp.

You should repeat this process every two or three hours throughout the day. It should only take a few minutes each time, and the time it takes is likely to go down as you get used to doing it. It gives your mind a chance to clear out all the debris that working builds up, refocuses you on what you want to improve in your life, and offers a chance to review what is left on your to do list, letting you see your progress and keeping you from straying off too far with distractions.

Each of those three things is important, but the thing that helps the most is clearing out the mental debris. This builds up constantly during the day and most people only clear it out at night when they go to sleep. If you keep it cleared throughout the day, however, it's not there impeding your ability to focus, and also lets you get to the good sleep faster, since there is little built-up debris to clear first.

And that brings us to the final phase…

Review

First thing in the morning is the most important part of the execution phase, because it sets the tone for the day. There's another very important part of the whole process, though, and that comes at the end of the day, just before bed. This is the time when, after doing your deep breathing and review of the areas where you want to improve, you review your to do list to see which things on the list were accomplished. This can be a good way to feel like you got something productive done that day.

After you review your list for the day, take the time to make a new one for the next day. You can include anything that wasn't completed from the day just past, as well as anything new. Take a moment to picture yourself the next night with your new list accomplished, and then put it away until the next morning.

It's also a good idea to mentally set a time that you intend to wake up in the morning, and use another phrase, something along the lines of "My sleep is restorative and refreshing. I awaken each morning focused and alert." This combination, setting a specific time and essentially telling yourself that you are going to sleep well, can help you to actually sleep well and awaken in the morning feeling refreshed and mentally clear.

Summary

This process generally takes no more than 30-40 minutes of your day, in 5 minute chunks, and will more than compensate for that time by keeping you focused and operating near to your peak efficiency. It also helps you to keep an eye on what areas of your life you want to improve, teaching your subconscious to bring situations and opportunities involving those areas to your conscious attention. If that isn't enough to talk you into trying it out, remember that it also helps you to focus on getting the most important things done each day, with reminders throughout the day of what you wanted to accomplish.

All of that works out to help you easily keep your focus all day long. It also helps you to reduce your stress, frustration, and feelings of not getting anywhere, bringing more peace into your life. It can even help improve your relationships, as that can easily be on both your "areas to improve" list AND your "to do" list.

If you have any suggestions for ways to improve this process, or other things that you can add to it, please leave them in the comments.

8 Ways To Put Procrastination Off Until Tomorrow

Author

October 4th

Awareness, Body/Mind Relationship, Energy, Feed Your Mind, Internal Quiet, Planning, Priorities, Subconscious

8 Ways To Put Procrastination Off Until Tomorrow

Notepad - List

Ah yes, the joys of procrastination… putting off all the hard or unpleasant work that you need to get done until later. Then, when it all piles up until it's over your head, you feel overwhelmed, wondering how you managed to end up so deep in a mess and how to escape.

Some people seem to have a natural tendency toward procrastination, always putting off until tomorrow what could be done today. Others don't seem to have that issue. They don't seem to have any problem just getting right to work on something, even when it's very unpleasant to even think about. Those of us who fall into the first category can, however, take steps to deal with our "problem".

So, since you have a tendency to procrastinate (otherwise, why are you reading this article?), why not put it to work against itself? Here's some ways you can put off procrastinating until tomorrow.

Write A Daily Task List (DTL)

This one is relatively obvious, and you've probably heard it until you're sick of it… but any list of ways to help put off procrastination would be incomplete without it. All this requires is that each night you make a short list of things that need done (or worked on) the next day. Once you have your list, there are many other things that you can do with it.
Prioritize Your DTL By Importance

The first thing you can do is prioritize the list you created in #1 by importance. That way you can be sure that you will at least get the most important things accomplished, and you are likely to find that you get more than the first few things done, because you feel like you've gotten the important stuff out of the way and gotten something accomplished for the day. You may even find yourself on a roll, getting things done left and right.
Prioritize Your DTL By Difficulty

Your next choice is to prioritize your list by difficulty, putting the most difficult tasks first. This makes it so that you have the hardest work out of the way early, so that when you are more tired later in the day, you have only the easier tasks left, thus decreasing the chances that you will put a task off until tomorrow because it's too hard to finish in the time that you have left. Also, this particular method of prioritizing is even more likely to make you feel like you're "on a roll" than #2.
Prioritize Your DTL By Unpleasantness

This may be very heavily related to #3, as difficulty is a major factor in how unpleasant a task is… but it's not the ONLY factor. This means of prioritization has the advantage that as you complete your tasks, the remaining tasks are more and more things that you actually want to do, not things that you have to do. Also, like #3, you're less likely to have that really unpleasant task at the end of the day that you put off until the next day because you don't want to start it late.
Reward Yourself When You Complete Tasks Early

People have known for thousands of years that you train people, including yourself, through rewards and punishment. You reward behavior which you want to increase, and punish behavior you want to decrease. Since most procrastination has punishments built right in (like putting off paying your bills… not good for your credit, people come and shut off power, etc.), you are free to concentrate on the rewards side of the equation. The three easiest ways to do that are trewarding yourself for completing unusually difficult tasks, rewarding yourself for completing a longer-term task early (ie something that you expect to take a week and you finish in three days), and rewarding yourself for completing your DTL. Don't make the rewards too easy, or out of proportion, though, or they won't help you to train yourself… you have to feel like you earned whatever it is.
Post Your DTL Where You Will See It Regularly

This is especially good if you cross tasks off as you go, since it allows you to see your progress. It can be motivational to see a list of ten tasks with seven of them already crossed off, especially if it's still relatively early. Even if you don't have anything crossed off yet, having the list in a place where you see it can remind you of what you decided to do for the day if you get distracted.

Just as a note, the phrasing in that last sentence is important… always look at your list as what you decided to do, not what you "should" do. What you "should" do takes the element, the feeling, of choice out of it, which can leave you feeling resentful even if you made the list yourself. It's a list of tasks that you decided to do, not something forced on you by others.
Be Accountable To Someone Else For Your DTL

Just about everyone hates to feel stupid in front of someone else. If you let someone else read your DTL, and share your progress on that list with them at the end of the day, it provides a little more pressure to actually get things done, so that you don't feel like you have to stand there in front of them and tell them that you screwed around all day and didn't get anything on your DTL done. Don't let doing this make you feel like you have to put more things on your DTL just to impress them, though… the list is still for you, and you don't want to exhaust yourself trying to impress someone.

If you're in a relationship, your significant other is probably a good choice for this.
Do Things Instantly When Possible

This is really simple, and the thing that has helped me the most with my natural tendency to procrastination. This is completing tasks as soon as you can when you become aware that they need done. For example, you can pay your bills as soon as you get them in the mail. Or you can fix that chair with the wobbly leg NOW instead of waiting until the weekend (by which time you've probably become accustomed to procrastinating that task, which makes it easier and easier to continue doing so, while other tasks pile up behind it).

Your mental list of what needs done (not the same as your DTL) can become overwhelming when things pile up, making you want to hide behind one distraction after another. Completing tasks as soon as possible after you become aware of them keeps your mental list all cleared out, making you far less likely to feel overwhelmed, helping you to put off procrastinating.

Procrastination tendencies are incurable. They will be with you for the rest of your life (at least from what I have observed in other, and felt personally). Using the methods above, however, you can put procrastination off until tomorrow, and get things done today.

Author

September 18th

Goals, Motivation, Perseverance, Planning, Priorities, Timetables, Tips Tuesday

5 Little Ways To Show Your Love

Young Couple

One of the most important things in any relationship is to show the other person that they are special to you, worthy of your time, effort, and attention. This can be done with huge, lavish gestures, like buying them a car, but in the long run, the little things that you do on a regular basis make more of a difference.

There are obviously a vast number of small things that you can do for your spouse (I'm going to say spouse, but this applies to any significant other, you don't have to be married), and some of these will mean more based on your past history. For instance, I proposed to my wife by decorating a cake, writing "Will you marry me?" and having the engagement ring be the "o" in "you". That meant more because we often look at the cakes when we go to the grocery store or a bakery and comment on which ones we like, and we had done a few together before (like a flag cake for the Fourth of July). It might not mean much to your spouse, however, without that history behind it.

That being said, there are a few "categories" of things that you can do for your spouse that are pretty much universal, and I will list some of these. You can then choose a specific thing that fits in that category that might mean something specifically in the context of you and your spouse.

By the way, I'm saving the best one for last.

Suprise Them With A Small Gift

This is shown in all the movies and TV shows, and is ingrained in our culture. The stereotypical example is to bring flowers. This category is far more effective if you do it for no reason… buying them a gift to say you're sorry has some effect, but buying them a gift just to say I love you means far more.

The secret here is to do something that shows that you went out of your way for them… the most effective small gifts are ones that show that you know them, like getting them their favorite food, or something in their favorite color, or maybe the new CD from their favorite artist.
Do Something They Normally Do For Them

This involves doing something for them that they normally find unpleasant. Examples include washing dishes, taking out the trash, and changing the baby's diaper but it could be anything that they do that they dislike. I think my wif'e's favorite is when I do the dishes.

Oh, and this has to be without them asking, and not in exchange for anything… ie not "I'll do the dishes today so I can hang out with the guys and watch the game on Sunday.". It has to be "I'll do the dishes so you don't have to do so.".
Schedule Some Time Specifically For Them

Schedule some time just for them, and do it in advance. That is, don't just go "There's nothing happening right now, let's go do something", although that, too, can be effective. Plan some time at least a week ahead of time that is theirs, where there are no distractions, to the best of your ability. That means no checking email, no cell phones (you may have to make an exception if you have children… emergencies DO come up), none of the daily clutter of life. That time is their time, and theirs alone.

It can help if you plan what to do ahead, too, but you should always stay open if you can, so that if what you had planned no longer sounds appealing at the start of their time, you can go do something else that DOES sound pleasant. The key here is to let them choose whether to go ahead with previous plans or change them for something else.
Turn Down Something Fun To Spend Time With Them

This does require that they know about it, but also that you don't rub it in their face. In other words, don't tell them "I turned down something else to do this with you" like you expect them to make it worth it. It's far more effective to let them overhear you turn down the other thing, or simply let them know ahead of time, saying something along the lines of "Joe invited me to do such and such, but I told him that I was busy spending time with you".

This one is particularly dangerous to do too much. First, if they feel like you are trying to spend ALL of your time with them, they may feel smothered (or they may not… it depends on your relationship). Secondly, though, they start expecting it… they start to rate your own time as less important, and start getting resentful when you DO say yes to an invitation to do something that they don't enjoy. Essentially, they get used to the addtional attention, and it becomes the level of attention they expect, so they feel like you are "stealing" it from them when they don't get it.

So make sure that doing this is unusual and special.
Create Something For Them

This is the most effective category of them all. It involves investing part of yourself, part of who you are, into them, not just a little bit of time or money. When you create something, it is a partial reflection of who you are… and the amount of you that is reflected is in direct proportion to the amount of effort you have invested.

My wife's favorite gift that I've given her is the jewelry box I made for her. It's certainly not perfect, and I've seen much more beautiful jewelry boxes… but I spent my time and effort creating it for her. She also loves a bracelet that I had custom made for her… it's not the expense, it's the time and attention and creativity that I invested into making it. That increases the value of the gift far more than cost alone, and that holds true for all but the most empty of relationships.

Again, all of these things are "categories" of things you can do for them. Each one of them represents time, effort, and attention that you are spending on them. These things show that you find the other person special, and that is important to any relationship.

It helps if you don't always use the same item from above. For instance, if you always buy them small gifts, they will become accustomed to it, and it will start to lose its meaning. If you take over a chore from them, then eventually it becomes "your" chore, and again, loses its meaning. The last category is more resistant to this than the others, but is NOT immune to it, especially if you're always creating the same type of thing, like always writing them a poem.

One more thing: The things listed above only work when done because you want to do them. Your spouse WILL be able to tell if you are doing them because you're "supposed to", if you are doing it against your will. Your action will lose almost all power at that point.

So, if you want to show your spouse that you appreciate them, start doing something from the list above, but again, only if you actually want to do it (not necessarily the specific act, but really want to show them that you love them), or you're wasting your time

Author

September 11th

Communication, Planning, Priorities, Relationships, Tips Tuesday

A Miracle A Day

Archive for the ‘Planning’ Category

The Importance Of Routine