Tag Archives: success

Articles I Like: 10 Small Habits That Have A Huge Return On Life

The PolyBlog
July 11 2020

Given my interest in goal-setting and self-improvement, I am a sucker for anyone with articles that sound like they are easily digestible and might trigger some other personal thoughts. Since I use Firefox, and the opening page has popular articles on it that are being shared on Pocket, I frequently find one or two here and there to click on. If they’re about goals, I almost always click.

Today’s feed from Pocket included a reprint/repost of an article from Darius Foroux from September 2018 about which habits you can adopt which will have the highest rate of return for you (10 Small Habits That Have A Huge Return On Life – Darius Foroux). Note that we’re not talking about setting a goal, and deciding which method will get you there, this is about various habits that will get you to ten separate targets where the method is part of the journey itself.

Foroux has a much stronger preference on focusing on the “what” than the “how” and I like his newsletter enough to subscribe to it, although I’m a more recent convert, so I never saw his original article back in 2018. I quite like his list. His list is mostly obvious stuff…work-out regularly (although he is more specific about full-body strength training workout 3x a week), get enough sleep (he argues for a full 7-8h a night), read more (60m a day), walking regularly (30m a day), intermittent fasting, being present, practicing kindness and love, journal/write more often (30m a day), and save regularly (10-30% so it is constant). Overall, it’s a pretty good list, and I don’t disagree that those who do them benefit significantly. Holding yourself to them all is hard, but not impossible, and adding them one at a time is doable.

But for me, the “magic” is in his second habit of how he manages his daily habits:

2. Set 3-4 daily priorities

This is one of the best productivity strategies there is. We all know that focus is what brings us results.

No focus? No results. So how do you focus? By limiting your options and tasks. Elimination is the key.

Be very clear about what you want to achieve every single day, week, and year. Form the habit of focusing on what matters regularly.

Every day, work on 3-4 essential (and small) tasks that will bring you closer to your weekly and yearly goals.

As I said, it’s a great list. Personally I think it should be a mix of 1-2 small goals that are complete by themselves, a step or 2 of a medium-sized goal, and a step towards a large goal. If you’re only focusing on the small goals, it’s easy to let the big stuff get away from you. Crowding out the “important” with the “urgent”, instead of properly prioritizing what big things you’re working towards…which is not to say he’s suggesting that, just that it isn’t as clear in such a short article that there are pitfalls to just saying set 3-4 goals for the day.

A good list, I like it.

♫ I saw the sign ♫

The PolyBlog
September 2 2019

I have the song, “I saw the sign”, by Ace of Base, going through my head (and it’s probably going through yours now too, sorry about that!). If I was being honest with this post, it should be titled “I missed the sign” because I did. I missed a sign that was staring me in the face for over a week because I was focused on the day-to-day detritus of daily life, not the broader world. Let me explain.

I posted earlier this year that I was facing depression and had to choose amongst three options (My seven ways to respond to depression // Choosing between three depressions // Deciding on my way forward). I ended up opting for a very aggressive “F*** the Universe” approach, which was not about saying “screw everyone”, although at least one person thought that’s what it meant. No, I meant that the universe seemed to be sending me signals about certain things, and rather than listening to them, I chose to give the universe the middle finger and pretend everything was a raging success. Literally telling the universe itself to go screw itself, not the people in the universe. Astronomy was one of the areas where the universe was messing with me, but there were others (FtU Update – 30 days in). But regardless of what method I use, the depression still sits there. Maybe mitigated, maybe not, but it’s there until it’s not. The only way out is through.

I’ve been on holidays the last two weeks, which has been good for my mental and physical health, and I have detached so much that I’ve actually forgotten my password for my work phone. Either that or it’s just futzed on me and won’t accept my password. I’ve got one more day and then I’ll be back at it on Wednesday, so the IT people there can figure it out for me.

But just over a week ago, I was back at home after a busy couple of nights doing star gazing, I was doing some planning for a few things in the next six weeks, and I was feeling overhwhelmed. Stressed even. And I missed the sign.

Oh, sure, I saw that I was stressed. That was easy. I could even articulate some of it. But I missed the sign.

I was stressed. STRESSED. Something I can’t feel when I’m depressed because it dampens everything down. I’d broken through the depression (some areas of progress that will likely be part of future posts, perhaps) and I hadn’t even noticed my emergence, partly because I was ignoring any signals from the universe. I was feeling better, more upbeat, more optimistic about my ability to do certain things, and I was slowly starting to ratchet back up my planning for various events and habits. Of course, I’m still physically depleted energy-wise, and so I was feeling overwhelmed quicker than usual, but I missed the sign that feeling ANYTHING, even STRESS, was a sign.

♫ Life is demanding, without understanding.

I missed the sign, and it opened up my eyes, I missed the sign. ♫

A weird form of progress, to be sure, but progress never the less.