7 Habits That Have a High Rate of Return in Life

Saw this tweet from James Clear the other day and had to share it around:

[This was first posted 4 months ago and STILL getting shares!]

So true, right? Especially that first one?

SO WHY AREN’T WE DOING THEM ALL??? 😉

I’ll tell you why: it’s hard, haha…

But still worth trying for, of course!!

Thought it would be enlightening to go down the list and see how well we’re all doing with these or not…

I’ll fess up first:

Sleep 8+ hours each day (C)

Pre-baby I was averaging 7 hours a night! Which isn’t too bad? Now it’s more like 6’ish with a couple wake-ups in between, but each week is (thankfully) getting easier again… And I feel like going to sleep around 10 or 10:30 gives you *better* hours of sleep than starting the process at 1am or 2am like I used to? My dreams are at least much more vivid now! Haha…

Lift weights 3x week (F-)

The one area I’ve failed at the most 😦 Not only have I not picked up a weight in years, but I haven’t done much physical exercising either, outside of chasing kids on the playground or going on my daily walks… And I just read that not exercising is worse for you than smoking, diabetes and heart disease! Scary!

Go for a walk each day (A+)

Ironically I AM GREAT at this 🙂 I go on at least one walk every single day, and some days even 2-3 depending on how many calls I go on (one of my favorite productivity hacks!). And the best thing is that it doesn’t require much planning or taking showers afterwards or anything – which I surmise is half my issue with working out 😦

Save at least 10 percent of your income (A+)

YUP! Usually more than that most years, but almost always at least 10%. Even if you blew every other penny of your money at least you’d be sitting on a nice nest egg! And one that keeps growing and growing at that.

Remember the story of the magical penny? That turns into $10 million if you double it for only 31 days?

We’ll never find investments that can do that for our $$$, but the message is pretty clear: compound interest is a mother.

Read every day (A+)

ANOTHER YES!! After 20+ years of ignoring it like a big ol’ dummy! It was actually the blogging world that got me back into consuming and learning again, and now even more so since I’ve switched to *physical* books which I swear make things sink in 10x better?! Been addicted to reading ever since, and even moved on from only picking up *finance* books too 😉

Drink more water and less of everything else (B-)

I was actually thinking about this the other day and literally made a list of all the liquids I consume in a normal work day (NERD ALERT!!). It looked like this:

5am-6am: water
6am-8am: coffee
8am-9am: orange juice
9am:11am: more coffee!
1pm-2pm: milk (so good with peanut butter & jelly!!)
2pm-6pm: 4x-7x glasses of water (inspired by the same James Clear)
6pm-7pm: milk w/ dinner (I was told drinking so much milk is weird, is it??)
7pm-9pm: a beer or glass of wine

So that’s what – 5 different liquids throughout the day? Water, coffee, orange juice, milk and the Good Stuff? 😉 I marked it down as a B- here because I drink way more water in total than anything else, but I think the real challenge would be nixing the coffee addiction… It just tastes and feels so good!! Did you notice there was NO SODA listed though?? Pretty proud of that one… Gave it up for a month straight over a decade ago and haven’t looked back since…

Leave your phone in another room while you work (A)

Or even better – when you’re AROUND OTHER PEOPLE! I swear these phones are going to be the death of healthy relationships, ugh… And while I don’t physically remove mine from the premises while I’m working (gotta keep it close by in case of kids/baby emergencies), I am pretty good at not looking at it while I’m in “hustle mode.” Same with twitter and emails and other social media stuff too. The “chunking” work style works pretty well with this stuff!

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Alright, so looks like we’re about 5 or so out of the 7 here – that’s not too bad? Even though the one main one we’re missing could kill me?! 😉

Run down the list yourself now and see how it makes you feel… Anything surprise you one way or the other?? Does it make you want to change anything?

This guy is the MASTER of habits and productivity experiments, and you can learn more about him and his thoughts over at his blog –> JamesClear.com. He also just dropped a new book last week around all this stuff too: Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones

Here’s a note about it from Amazon:

“If you’re having trouble changing your habits, the problem isn’t you. The problem is your system. Bad habits repeat themselves again and again not because you don’t want to change, but because you have the wrong system for change. You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.

Here, you’ll get a proven system that can take you to new heights. Clear is known for his ability to distill complex topics into simple behaviors that can be easily applied to daily life and work. Here, he draws on the most proven ideas from biology, psychology, and neuroscience to create an easy-to-understand guide for making good habits inevitable and bad habits impossible. Along the way, readers will be inspired and entertained with true stories from Olympic gold medalists, award-winning artists, business leaders, life-saving physicians, and star comedians who have used the science of small habits to master their craft and vault to the top of their field.”

And lastly, here are two other posts that James helped inspire over the years… He actually used to run a personal finance blog called PassivePanda.com back in the day if anyone remembers that one?

It really is all about the small habits in life! But be aware that both the good ones and the bad ones compound on us!

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Links to Amazon above are affiliate links…

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[For more $$$ nuggets, head over to Budgets Are Sexy!]

from Finance http://www.budgetsaresexy.com/7-habits-that-have-a-high-rate-of-return-in-life/