Checklist For 2 Brilliant Habits

+ Focus & Mindfulness mini clips and books I enjoyed in 2023

Happy New Year. “Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow has not yet come. We have only today. Let us begin.”

Looking to focus today? - See here for my new mini zoom clip on focus

Like to do some mini mindfulness today? - See here for my new mini zoom clip on mindfulness

For individuals look out next week for the invite to a new session I’m piloting for Blue Monday - Phone Distraction Remedy

For organisations look out next week for the launch of our new session Fit & Focused Meetings - meetings are often a top pain point causing stress and preventing staff from making progress with their most important work - see this Harvard Business Review article here.

Some of our habits help us, some of our habits hinder us. Today our aim is to create, strengthen, or start one simple habit that provides multiple benefits in one action.

What’s the simplest habit to help us improve focus, reduce anxiety and strengthen resilience?

Exercise at the start of the day - up to 20% increase in cognitive function, improve mood, regulate emotions, strengthen immune system

OR

Read a book before bed - reduce stress, emotional release, strengthen attention, aid sleep

Yes we could add mindfulness, Deep Work hours and hydration to this list. However, today our focus is maximum benefits in one action.

Exercise and reading are brilliantly beneficial anytime of day. However, the cognitive benefits of exercise are more apparent the earlier in the day we do it. The sleep benefits of reading are more valuable just before bed.

Like to test morning exercise? - Here is a checklist to get started

• Choose the easiest exercise possible; 10 minute walk from home or workout video like this one - Walking is my number 1, Gym or Swim are my number 2 - I drive to the gym instead of cycle as this helps me bypass procrastination if its raining or really windy

• Leave your workout clothes out ready the night before. - I leave my workout clothes on my chest of drawers the night prior. In the morning they are the first thing I see. ‘Seeing is believing’

• Put your exercise commitment into your calendar - when something goes into our calendar we are telling our brain that it’s important

• Plan an important work task to follow after your exercise - help yourself feel how much easier it is to concentre, think clearly, push through procrastination

• Tell one person about your commitment - I text a couple of swim friends to let them know when I will swim next, social accountability is an excellent way to maintain an action before it becomes a habit. Joining an exercise class is also a great way to benefit from social accountability.

• Remember the relationships benefit - I’ve got to know lots of people at my gym just by saying good morning to them, we aren’t best friends but these little chats help me feel part of a community, many of them I see more frequently than members of my own family!

Like to test evening reading? - Here is a checklist to get started

• Choose a book you find easy to read and enjoy reading - If you don’t like it after chapter 1, get a different book. Evening time is too precious to ‘slog through’ a book we don’t really like

• Genre wise I’d encourage you to steer away from crime fiction or true crime - These can be excellent escapism but they can also spike our stress levels late at night which can interfere with sleep and dreams (nightmares) - I keep this book of poetry by my bedside and read one each evening a couple of times + at the bottom of this post is a list of the books I enjoyed most last year

• In the morning leave the book on your pillow - Put it in a location that requires you to touch the book as part of getting into bed, behavioural scientists would call this an ‘environmental que’, use our environment to do the heavy lifting of remembering to take an action

• To maximise the benefits of reading I strongly encourage you to read a real book - Amnesty & Oxfam bookshops are a great place to pick up high quality real books and give to a good cause at the same time. A real book allows us ‘to hold’ something that can bring peace and relief to our lives. So much of our life is intangible (everything online). Our brain highly values physical contact, like a favourite blanket or comforting jumper.

• Don’t have a goal like ‘read one chapter’, just read to get into the story - To escape into a single narrative that stimulates our senses. Helping us release stress, get insights into an experience, empathise with others and often reframe our own lives. Bedtime reading should be a place protected from striving and thriving. There is no need to try and better ourselves just before bed. The working day is full of that, we deserve other, more peaceful experiences as well. We deserve a rest and a story that lifts our spirits.

• If you feel drowsy after one page, don’t fight it, just put it to one side and start again tomorrow - if one page helps you fall asleep that’s a brilliant outcome as sleep improves memory, immune system, mood, perspective, hand to eye condition, muscle repair, and more

• Relationships benefit - Often in my life when I’ve felt lonely the people I’ve felt closest to are the characters in the books I’ve read. Obviously its not as powerful or reassuring as a real life relationship but there are some lovely neuroscience studies showing the same regions of a readers brain light up as if they were experiencing the same events as the characters in their book. We feel the love, loss and redemption as if it was happening to us.

Remember habits are formed by small actions on a consistent basis. One tiny bit everyday is the secret. Don’t choose habits you think you ‘should do’. Choose to invest in habits because you like how the action or outcome helps you feel. Start with what feels easiest.

Take 4 breaths now. Inhale. Hold for a few seconds, long slow exhale. Every conscious breath makes a difference.

“Nobody ever got ready by waiting. You only get ready by starting.” - John C. Maxwell

You are a good person, doing your best. That’s enough.

I read a wide selection of genres, of the 27 books I read last year these are some of my highlights from 2023. These aren’t recommendations, everyone’s taste is a little different. My favourite way to choose a book is to go into a book shop, read a few pages and buy it if it feels right.

The Great Circle - Maggie Shipstead, great adventure story

Tokyo Express - Seicho Matsumoto, Japan’s answer to Agatha Christie

Crossroads - Jonathan Franzen, another great story and in parts very funny

Really good, actually - Monica Heisey, laughed a lot

Paper Towns - John Green - wanted to recommend something to my niece and just kept reading, fun and quietly insightful

Non fiction ‘learning books’ I found really useful in 2023. Sometimes I read these as part of my bedtime routine but mostly in the day time.

Clear Thinking

The Order of Time

On Getting Better

The Language of Kindness

The Get Things Done Book