Productivity advice always sounds so good on paper: “A Few Easy Steps”, “3 Simple Ways”, even “Just Do It”. Yet, applying the so-called magic to your daily life often ends up being much more difficult than promised.
A big part of it is because of the investment. The initial investment can often mean you feel that your productivity routine is actually slowing you down – at least in the beginning. Building a better productivity routine that relies on daily habits could take a lot of the effort and stress out of making productive choices.
The Power of Habits: Why They Work
There’s no sugarcoating it: doing something differently can be hard. So hard that we often just don’t do it, even when we’re well aware of the benefits and genuinely intend to make the change. Psychologists call this mismatch between intentions and behavior the intention-action gap.
One reason the gap exists is that we prioritize instant gratification over long term gains. If carrying on with an existing behavior feels easier or more comfortable, changing it for something more productive likely won’t happen.
Habits, or small behaviors you do without really thinking about, can help to overcome the intention-action gap because they cause the desired action to become more automatic. If you can turn productive behaviors into habits, you won’t have to expend willpower on actively deciding to do them.
Approaching productivity at a micro level like this also means you’ll be gradually and sustainably boosting your baseline productivity over time. It’s much more realistic than pivoting to a new productivity trend in the hope of revolutionizing how you work overnight.
Understanding Productive Habits
Habits can be used to reduce your cognitive load, leaving you more mental resources available for complex tasks. You can also use habits to prime your brain to work on a particular type of task at a particular time, cutting down on unproductive procrastination.
Not every behavior can be turned into a habit, though. There are some tasks that require too much effort or deserve conscious thought for them to ever become fully automatic.
For example, brushing your teeth is a habit, but crafting a detailed annual plan is not. The former is simple and routine, while the latter requires creativity and critical thinking.
As for specific productivity-boosting habits, there are an infinite number of helpful ones you could form. You’re the best judge of which ones will fit neatly into your productivity routine and streamline your day.
Time Management Habits
A good place to start is to develop habits related to time management. For instance, there’s what Cal Newport calls autopilot scheduling. This involves identifying regular tasks you always need to do (like replying to emails) and assigning them to specific times and days. Or Jack Dorsey, who uses “themed days” to allocate his energy to specific tasks on certain days, ensuring he mentally focused where he needs to be.
With both Newport and Dorsey’s methods, you won’t have to juggle or let them encroach on other tasks.
Other popular time management focussed techniques that you can build habits around:
- The Two-Minute Rule – If a task takes less than two minutes, do it immediately rather than adding it to a to-do list. This prevents small tasks from piling up.
- Focus Intervals – Work in focused intervals of pre-determined length followed by a set break. After several intervals, take a longer break to recharge (see: Pomodoro).
- Time Blocking – Similar to autopilot scheduling, this involves dividing your day into blocks of time for specific activities, such as deep work, meetings, or breaks.
Organizational Habits
You could also form organizational habits. For example, if you get into the habit of creating your daily to do list at the end of your day, it will make you much more efficient in the mornings.
You could also create a habit of cataloguing useful thoughts or random pieces of information you come across so that you never lose track of them. There are tons of note-taking apps that can make this process easier. A quick voice note or bullet point can help you remember ideas without disrupting your workflow.
Replace Unhelpful Habits
Lastly, you could replace unhelpful habits with ones that are more aligned with your goals. In the habit of mindlessly scrolling without purpose? It may be a good idea to train yourself to reach for your book rather than your phone when you feel the urge to unwind during your break.
How to Build Habits You Can Stick To
Whichever productive behaviors you want to turn into habits, there are certain things you can do to increase your chances of establishing them and sticking to them. Here are some practical strategies to get you started.
Keep New Habits Small
Have you ever decided to make a big change to your routine and found it petered out after a couple of days?
If something is hard or uncomfortable, you won’t be able to stick to it long enough for it to become habitual. Instead, try to make small, realistic tweaks that slot into your existing routine.
This is the marginal gains approach: if you focus on small improvements, the benefits will compound over time. In other words, start heading to the gym two days per week and soon that habit will build into your larger goals. On the flip side, the greater the chance of goal failure, which is certainly present with bigger targets, the more likely you are to experience negative reinforcement.
Make Intentions Specific
Professor Katy Milkman says to avoid thinking about a new habit in abstract terms. Saying “I will check my email less” isn’t something you can easily act on, whereas “I will only check my email twice: once when I arrive at work and once after lunch” is a specific goal you can achieve and measure.
You want your would-be habit to be something concrete with clear instructions you can follow without having to make additional decisions. These are known as “implementation intentions” and they’ve been shown to significantly increase the chances of success.
Use Trigger Actions
Habits rely on triggers or cues – signals to your brain to perform a particular action.
Think about the lead-up to the action you want to perform and how you can let your brain know that it’s time. It doesn’t have to be complicated – it could be as simple as picking a set time of day, sitting down in a certain location or saying an affirmation to yourself (or all three!).
A classic example is laying out your exercise clothes before going to bed. The simple act of mental planning could do the trick.
Stack Habits
To take some of the “but, when?” pressure off, you can use a habit you’ve already established as a cue for the new one.
This is known as habit stacking.
It enables you to piggyback on mental pathways that are already well-developed. As James Clear says in Atomic Habits: “By linking your new habits to a cycle that is already built into your brain, you make it more likely that you’ll stick to the new behavior.”
For example, if you’re already in the habit of checking your emails every day at 10am, add something into the following time slot that you want to do at the same time daily. The already-established habit of email-checking will make it easier to stack the new habit on top.
Or, if you already drink coffee every morning, why not link it to writing down three priorities for the day? That way, your caffeine boost comes with a productivity kick.
Be Consistent
While the number of days it can take to form a habit can vary massively depending on the particular behavior you’re trying to automate, it’s putting the work in day after day that matters.
But what happens if (when) you miss a day? The most important thing is not to panic – research has shown that missing a single day doesn’t materially impact whether you form a habit or not. It’s the recovery that matters. So just get back on the horse the following day.
Rewarding yourself for consistency can help, too. A study for the European Journal of Social Psychology found that people are more likely to stick to habits when they receive immediate rewards (internal or external), such as a sense of accomplishment or something as simple as a checkmark on a to-do list.
Evaluate Missed Habits
“You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated.” – Maya Angelou
A missed habit is just a bump, not a roadblock. When you do miss a day, don’t beat yourself up – use it to improve your chances of succeeding. You don’t want the miss to become negative reinforcement.
Do a self-review and think about what caused it – is there anything you can account for going forward? If you were just having a bad day or something happened that was out of your control, accept it and get back to putting in those reps.
Not only that, but your ability also to return to a habit after having missed, can make you more resilient.
Start Thinking of Yourself as Productive
Try to move away from viewing yourself as fundamentally “unproductive” or “not productive enough”.
Being hard on yourself for a lack of productivity won’t lead to long-term improvement as you’re just creating negativity around the process and adding to your stress. In contrast, there’s evidence to suggest that positivity makes you more productive.
Give yourself credit for what you’re already doing – chances are, you’re making lots of good choices every day without realizing it. Then, try to view any extra productive habits you are able to build as a bonus.
Good Habits, Better Productivity
Daily habits can streamline your workday and free up valuable mental bandwidth by making productive choices much easier (and even effortless).
By keeping them realistic, intentionally using triggers, and focusing on consistency, you stand a much better chance of automating the useful behaviors that will enable you to be more productive.
