Habit Management Strategies to Accomplish More in Less Time

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I've been intrigued by the concept of habit management for a while now.

I'm always on the lookout for ways to accomplish more while still leaving time for family and fun. At first, I thought better time management was the answer, and I devoured all of the tips on time management that I could get my hands on.

While, of course, it's important to make smart use of your time, the more I learn about achieving goals, the more I'm convinced that habit management is an absolutely essential piece of the puzzle.

Small business owner working at a laptop. Text - -Build better habits to achieve your creative goals.

It's astonishing to me how much routines shape your life and impact your ability to reach goals.

I've felt the need to put in place some kind of effective but easy strategy to get things done amid a pile of conflicting work, family, and personal demands. I'm willing to bet most craft professionals feel the same way.

Let's get honest here.

I usually feel like I'm hustling to keep up with work, family, home, marriage, friendships, and personal goals. I often feel like I'm dropping some ball somewhere. Some balls don't even make it up in the air.

Specifically, I've long felt I should be able to get more done in the work time I have available. Too many of the productivity strategies I've tried in the past have ended up lost in the demands of daily life.

I've become convinced that good habit management - actively cultivating productive routines that, over time, build on goals you want to achieve - is the simplest route to better business productivity.

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The Massive Power of Habit Management

Text overlay Establishing habits is like setting up an automated savings plan. When some of your money to automatically go into your savings account, you eliminate the willpower needed to save money.

A huge amount of what we accomplish (or don't accomplish) comes down to our habits, both good and bad. If we could just create productive routines - things we do without even thinking, like brushing our teeth - a lot of things should fall into place.

Establishing productive daily habits is like setting up an automated savings plan. When you arrange for a portion of your money to automatically go into your savings account, you eliminate the willpower needed to save money. You don't have to constantly make a choice to save or spend your money; you just do it.

The amount of money you automatically save each month is usually pretty inconsequential, but as each month goes by, it builds on itself and eventually becomes a big pile of money.

Habits do the same thing for us.

If I establish the habit of getting up at 6:00am to work for an hour on social media marketing, the little bit of work I can get accomplished in an hour is small. But as I post and pin each day, eventually that will grow into thriving social media communities.

If I can turn that work into a habit, I eliminate the need to think about doing it. I don't have to make a choice to get up every day if it is a habit.

These ideas might not be a big revelation to the more disciplined among us, but they are huge to me.

In the past, I've struggled to consciously shape my habits. I do have some great habits that help me achieve and maintain certain goals, but I don't think I consciously cultivated those habits. I can't even really tell you how those habits came to be.

Instead of living with a mishmash of random helpful and unhelpful habits, I wanted to learn how to actively cultivate some helpful habits.

Better Than Before

Around the time I started thinking about all of these ideas, a friend recommended the book Better Than Before by Gretchen Rubin. She said it was full of exactly the type of strategies I was looking for.

I was intrigued, but I'm skeptical of the productivity niche. I've read a lot about the topic, and none of it ever really speaks to me.

The "experts" always seem to prescribe one-size-fits-all methods without any consideration for personal work preferences, learning styles, or life circumstances.

But the friend who suggested I read the book is smart, thoughtful, and well-read. She told me the recommendations in the book are based on meticulous research, and they describe effective habit management strategies that account for individual preferences and tendencies.

I was definitely interested.

I spent about a month making my way through Better Than Before. It's not a tough read, but I read it slowly to take it all in. My copy of the book is covered in highlights and folded corners (actually digital folded corners because I bought the Kindle version).

This approach to habit management isn't rigid. You're not told what habits you should form. There's no list of "The Top 10 Habits of Successful People."

Instead, you're trusted to know what habits you want to develop. You develop deeper self-knowledge to understand which habit management techniques do and do not work for you. Then you're provided with strategies to help you develop and maintain the habits you want to cultivate.

I love this approach to habit building because it frees you to be yourself and do what's right for you.

Understanding Your Own Tendencies in Forming Habits

Gretchen Rubin says there are Four Tendencies that represent different ways people approach habits:

Upholders, who are masters at habit management
Obligers, who are great at maintaining commitments to others but not so good at maintaining commitments to themselves (that's me!)
Questioners, who need a lot of evidence that something is valid before they will commit to a habit
And rebels, who deeply value freedom, and push back against all kinds of constraints

The Four Tendencies approach drew me in.

I like personality assessments. I used to work with them as a career advisor, and I think they can provide valuable self knowledge that can help us move toward our goals while helping us to understand and appreciate others.

Once you determine where you fall within these tendencies and how you typically approach obligations and habit management, you get to discover a range of strategies you can use to improve your chances of forming habits that stick.

Again, it's not a one-size-fits-all formula. There's a huge series of well researched principles and strategies you can use for cultivating habits. You can take the strategies that work best for you, and apply them to the habit you're trying to strengthen.

The Results Are In

It's been a couple of months since I finished the book. I wanted to spend some time applying the principles before writing about them. I have truly been able to make some changes and cultivate some habits that have always been a challenge for me.

Of course, habits tend to be fragile. I'm not saying I have habit management completely figured out, but I have been able to make progress with habits that have been exceedingly difficult in the past.

The habit that has had the biggest impact on my business has been getting up at 6:00am.

I'm normally up at 7:00am to get kids ready for school. For years, though, I've thought that if I could get up an hour before the rest of my family, I could accomplish a lot in that time. And for years I've been woefully unable to establish that habit.

I've been doing it, though, waking up at 6:00, getting out of bed, and diving into a good, productive hour of work before everyone else is up. I haven't done it consistently every single day. Weekends are still a challenge. But I'm doing it on week days, and I am getting a whole lot done.

Update for 2019:

It's been 2+ years since I first read Better Than Before. I'm still holding on to those work habits.

I've even been able to make myself regularly get up at 5:20am to go to my favorite 6:00am class at my gym. That's a huge accomplishment for me, and something I previously failed at until I learned how to make my "obliger" tendencies work to my advantage.

I just tell the instructor that I'll be there, and that's enough to make the obliger in me get out of bed ridiculously early.

What's the Difference?

How has Better Than Before helped me to establish effective work habits that have eluded me in the past?

I think it's a combination of things.

First, I have a new depth of self knowledge. Understanding and accepting my own personal tendencies, and then working within them instead of berating myself for not fitting someone else's ideal is immensely helpful.

I can take the strategies in the book that really work for me, and, guilty-free, leave the ones that are more suited to someone else.

Second, the author is a master at cultivating habits for herself. Reading how another person successfully develops effective habits is extremely motivating.

Seeing a example of a person who expects a lot from herself helps me to expect more of myself.

Third, I understand habits in a whole new way. Now, when I try to back out of a habit, I see with clarity exactly what I'm doing. The new degree of clarity helps me to make better choices.

One Coin Can Make You Rich

Gretchen Rubin writes about the one coin argument. Most people would say one coin can't make a person rich. However, if we kept adding one coin to a pile, eventually, over time, we would be rich.

There is a point at which you would add just one more coin to your pile, and then you'd say you were rich. So, in fact, one coin can make us rich.

Daily habits are those single coins we add to our own piles.

Those single coins (habits) we add each day are more important than we realize. If we commit to adding those coins, committing to effective daily habits that function like our own automated savings plan, building our pile, we will eventually become rich in whatever goal we are trying to achieve.

Is Better Than Before for You?

If you want someone to tell you exactly what to do and which habits you should try to develop, you won't find that in Better Than Before.

If, on the other hand, you're interested in cultivating whatever positive habits you decide will be most helpful and developing a deeper self knowledge that can help you accomplish more, you will find that in Better Than Before.

If you want to learn a whole slew of strategies that you can apply to cultivate your own habits, and choose only the strategies that work best with your own personality and tendencies, then Better Than Before is definitely for you.