Your life is a collection of habits and a few surprises.  Here’s 3 steps to a better life:

  1. Examine your routines as habits.  Nearly everything you do is habitual.  Take the time to jot down all of the various habits that you do.  This can be as mundane as always hitting the snooze button 3 times before finally crawling out of bed, to eating your breakfast cereal out of the same bowl.  It could be as exciting as always taking a summer vacation. These are the habits and routines that you have decided to do that make up a majority of your life.
  2. Explore the value of each habit.  Sure, you brush your teeth twice a day, but do you floss?  My dentist always asks this question, not because he doesn’t know, he’s just trying to get me to improve my habits.  Some habits are good,  some are bad, and most fall in between.  It’s up to you to decide which ones you want to keep, which ones you want to change and which ones you want to eliminate.
  3. Start and don’t stop a new or better habit. This will probably also involve stopping and not returning to a habit or routine that you want to change or eliminate.  Say for example you want to read a new book every month.  This could mean finding 30 minutes of time each day to devote to reading.  You need to decide what 30 minute habit you’re going to eliminate to make room for your new habit.  Suddenly watching “Wheel of Fortune” becomes less important when you get to read during that half hour.

What habits/routines are you going to change?