In many situations, we don’t need to make a perfect choice but just a good-enough choice.
One of the biggest wastes of time is doing something well that didn’t need to be done at all.
From my observation, habits in four areas do most to boost feelings of self-control, and in this way strengthen the Foundation of all our habits. We do well to begin by tackling the habits that help us to: 1. sleep 2. move 3. eat and drink right 4. unclutter.
Many strategies help us change our habits, and four strategies tower above the others: Monitoring, Foundation, Scheduling, and Accountability.
The conduct of our lives is the true reflection of our thoughts. – MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE.
Although men and women agree that sharing activities and self-disclosure are important, women’s idea of an intimate moment is a face-to-face conversation, while men feel close when they work or play sitting alongside someone.
Hugging relieves stress, boosts feelings of closeness, and even squelches pain. In one study, people assigned to give five hugs each day for a month, aiming to hug as many different people as they could, became happier.
Use counters for activities, not for storage.
See the child you have,” as the saying goes, “not the child you wish you had.” In the end, I agreed with Michel de Montaigne: “The least strained and most natural ways of the soul are the most beautiful; the best occupations are the least forced.
Technology is a good servant but a bad master.
Erasmus’s The Praise of Folly. According to a footnote, the argument of the growing heap is: If ten coins are not enough to make a man rich, what if you add one coin? What if you add another? Finally, you will have to say that no one can be rich unless one coin can make him so.
The Strategy of Scheduling, of setting a specific, regular time for an activity to recur, is one of the most familiar and powerful strategies of habit formation.
Nietzsche wrote, “All truly great thoughts are conceived while walking,” and his observation is backed up by science; exercise-induced brain chemicals help people think clearly. In fact, just stepping outside clarifies thinking and boosts energy. Light deprivation is one reason that people feel tired, and even five minutes of daylight stimulates production of serotonin and dopamine, brain chemicals that improve mood.
When scheduling a new habit, it helps to tie it to an existing habit, such as “after breakfast,” or to an external cue, such as “when my alarm rings,” because without such a trigger, it’s easy to forget to do the new action.
Research suggests that about 40 percent of our behavior is repeated almost daily, and mostly in the same context.
I was surprised to learn from my research, however, that the well-known notion of anger catharsis is poppycock. There’s no evidence for the belief that “letting off steam” is healthy or constructive. In fact, studies show that aggressively expressing anger doesn’t relieve anger but amplifies it. On the other hand, not expressing anger often allows it to disappear without leaving ugly traces.
The happiest and most successful people are those who have figured out ways to exploit their Tendency to their benefit and, just as important, found ways to counterbalance its limitations.
Also, accomplishing small tasks boosts our sense of “self-efficacy.” The more we trust ourselves to follow through on our own commitments, the more likely we are to believe that we can keep an important habit.
Secret of Adulthood: Make sure the things we do to make ourselves feel better don’t make us feel worse.
Having less often leads us to use our things more often and with more enjoyment, because we’re not fighting our way through a welter of unwanted stuff.