Building Good Habits: What Science Tells Us

Posted on March 13, 2019 by David Motto

When you think of the word “habit,” I’ll bet you instantly think of something bad for you. Smoking, drug use, and binge eating may come to mind.

What about good habits? Things like regular exercise, saying “please” and “thank you,” and brushing your teeth? There are many lists of good habits online, and these lists can make us smile and say, “Well, of course I should do all these things.”

Knowing we should do these things and actually doing them are two pretty unrelated realities! And, these lists lead to an obvious question: What’s the best way to build good habits?

Turns out that this is a huge research topic with plenty of written information and advice. Here are a few resources to check out to learn more about what current science tells us about building good habits:

The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg. This is an informative and entertaining read on the subject. I highly recommend it!

The Habits Academy: James Clear, author of Atomic Habits, has a training course on building good habits.

“How to Crush Your Habits in the New Year With the Help of Science” was a Smarter Living article in the New York Times right around New Year’s of this year which offers a good overview of various ideas on building good habits plus links to resources.

Wouldn’t it be great if everyone in our society built good habits instead of dangerous ones? We could transform the world! My hope is that every person decides on a meaningful goal for their life and then builds strong, daily habits to work toward achieving that goal.

Posted in Achievement, Achieving Goals, Decision Making, How to Practice, Performance Optimization, Positive Thinking, Skill Acquisition, Success | Leave a comment

Do You Need to Protect Your Cognitive Overhead?

Posted on March 12, 2019 by David Motto

Recently, I’ve been seeing the term “cognitive overhead” in a few different places online. I had never heard of this term before, so I looked it up.

There are a lot of websites that give the same definition, attributed to web designer and engineer David Demaree: “how many logical connections or jumps your brain has to make in order to understand or contextualize the thing you’re looking at.”

Ok, great. So web designers clearly want to make things instantly understandable so viewers will click or take whatever action simply and automatically (think of the Amazon orange “Buy Now” button for instance).

But, that’s not how I’ve seen the term used at all. Instead, people are talking about saving or protecting their own cognitive overhead as if there’s only so much stuff they can have rattling around in their brains. If one more item gets stuffed in their brain, then some other – and likely more important – item will no longer be accessible to them.

Here are two examples:

Some people eat the same lunch at work every single day so it’s one less thing to think about. It just takes takes this decision off their plate, so to speak. This was mentioned in a recent Joe Pinsker article in The Atlantic, and this idea of eating the same meals is also something that the late neurologist and author Oliver Sacks mentioned in interviews.

And, other people – siting the inspiration of Steve Jobs – are wearing the same outfit every day. They buy multiples of every item of clothing and simply wear the same thing over and over again. They stare into their closets and see 5 pairs of black jeans and 10 identical shirts and get dressed with absolutely no thought.

In both these cases, people are saying they want to save their thinking and decision making for more important parts of their lives.

Ok, fine. I understand their frustration with the number of decisions we all have to make every day.

But, is cognitive overhead really affecting us? By making a custom omelet for breakfast, are you truly running the risk of not being able to solve an important problem at work today?

I’m hoping to see more information on this idea. For now, eliminating small decisions to save brain space for big decisions isn’t a strategy I’ll be suggesting to my coaching clients. I’ll wait to hear more about this topic.

Posted in Achievement, Achieving Goals, Decision Making, How to Focus, How to Practice, Learning Tips, Performance Optimization, Success | Leave a comment

Make More Time: Only Check Email Three Times a Day

Posted on March 11, 2019 by David Motto

Email. Texts. IMs. You are bombarded with communications throughout the day. Some of these communications are actually important, and a whole lot more of them are not important at all. Yet, if you’re like most people, you check email at least 15 times a day and you likely look at a text or IM immediately after you hear your alarm notification.

This constant checking of communications is terrible for your productivity and basically wipes out a lot of time each day. Forbes even ran an article on the subject entitled, “The Way You Check Email is Making You Less Productive.”

Let’s talk about email specifically since this is the main culprit that kills time, undoes your concentration, and stops you from gaining forward momentum on projects that are truly important to you.

You can choose when to check your email and when to respond to it. There is no law saying that you have to reply to emails immediately. You can put them on a schedule that is successful for you and your needs.

Try this:

First, tell everyone important in your life that you’re only going to check your email and reply to emails 3 times a day.

Then, set up a schedule for checking email that sounds good to you. A common schedule for people using this strategy is this: (1) in the morning, (2) midday or afternoon, and (3) in the evening.

That’s it. No more being pulled away from something important by a long list of email messages, most of which don’t need your reply. No more back and forth between projects and emails. No more wondering where the day went. No more checking email right before you go to bed.

Leave all the craziness behind and create the hours in the day you need to do something important! Limiting your exposure to email will seem to manufacture more time.

Posted in Achievement, Achieving Goals, Flow, Motivation, Performance Optimization, Success, Ten Minute Virtuoso | Leave a comment

Make More Time: Understand How Technology is Designed

Posted on March 10, 2019 by David Motto

Working for just a few minutes a day on long-term goals is an effective means to change your life for the better and is one of the principles of my Ten Minute Virtuoso method for mastering skills and learning efficiently.

I’m obsessed with how you can manufacture more time in your day so you can do things that are important to you but that you often skip.

I recently blogged about making more time by shutting off social media and by having a news blackout.

One reason both of these strategies are so important is that media today – social media, news outlets, music streaming services, video streaming services, etc – are purposefully designed to keep you involved with the media. There are thousands of engineers specifically working to keep you engaged with the media their companies produce. Our brains are no match for this.

One of the best discussions of this I’ve seen recently is in a BBC News article entitled “How to stop ‘digital gangsters’ stealing your time.”

Yes, as always when I recommend a link while simultaneously suggesting that you take back your time, I understand the irony of learning how to make more time in your day by reading yet another online article. Believe me, it’s fine with me if you skip my suggestion and go do something to accomplish your goals. If you do read the BBC article, I hope it scares you enough to take a break from many digital media services you’re using so you can focus on something you truly want to do!

Posted in Achievement, Achieving Goals, Decision Making, How to Focus, How to Practice, Learning Tips, Motivation, Skill Acquisition, Success | Leave a comment

Ten Minute Virtuoso Tip: Do One Small Thing Today

Posted on March 9, 2019 by David Motto

I talk to a lot of people who want to:

  • learn a new skill
  • start a new hobby
  • improve a professional skill
  • begin a creative project
  • absorb and retain some new information

Nearly all of these people contact me because they’re having trouble getting started. They’re asking for performance coaching, and what they’re often actually asking for is a quick fix.

Here’s the quick fix:

Do one small thing on this new project, skill, or information today.

This idea has two incredibly simple and incredibly profound parts to it:

First, do just one thing. Really, only one. That one thing might not make you feel like you’re making any progress that matters. That’s okay. Don’t worry about how you feel. Accomplishing one small thing is always better than accomplishing absolutely nothing!

Second, do this thing today. Yes, today. Not tomorrow. Not on Monday at the beginning of a new week. Today.

Getting something done today is imperative. Too many people have this unreasonable expectation that there will be a future day, week, or month when they’ll have plenty of time to start working on something new. I’ve got news for you. That day is just a dream in your fertile imagination. You’re busy now. And, you’ll continue to be busy. Your future is likely to look like your today looks.

So, buckle down and do something toward your goal today. Getting that one small thing done will be a major accomplishment that will allow you to feel proud of yourself and start you on a positive spiral toward accomplishing that goal!

Posted in Achievement, Achieving Goals, Learning Tips, Performance Optimization, Performance Preparation, Positive Thinking, Skill Acquisition, Success | Leave a comment

How to Protect Your Time

Posted on March 8, 2019 by David Motto

On this blog, I’ve got many suggestions for how to make more time in your day. I include these strategies here because nearly every one of my coaching clients reports that they feel they don’t have enough time in the day to accomplish what they truly want to accomplish.

In addition to the strategies I write about, I’ve got another resource for you:

BBC Capital’s Owning Your Time series.

There are some wonderful topics covered there, and I’m sure you will find at least one article that will address an issue you’re dealing with.

My only recommendation? Before you read anything there, put in a small amount of work toward an important goal! Go spend 10 to 30 minutes on a single task that will give you a strong sense of accomplishment for today.

Posted in Achievement, Achieving Goals, Flow, How to Focus, Learning Tips, Motivation, Performance Optimization, Ten Minute Virtuoso, The Zone | Leave a comment

Your Work Environment Might Be Damaging Your Memory

Posted on March 7, 2019 by David Motto

Do you believe these statements?

  • You can’t multitask.
  • You retain more information when you stay in one location.
  • You’re unlikely to brainstorm or collaborate with others just because they’re nearby.

    • These statements are all made in a wonderful BBC Capital article on “Why Open Offices Are Bad for Us.” The really funny thing about this article is the actual URL, which I suspect was the original title is: open-offices-are-damaging-our-memories.

    If you work in an open office environment, this article is a must-read.

Posted in How to Focus, Performance Optimization, The Zone | Leave a comment

Practice Quote: Vince Lombardi

Posted on March 6, 2019 by David Motto

Practice does not make perfect.
Only perfect practice makes perfect.

Vince Lombardi

Posted in Achievement, How to Practice, Learning Tips, Muscle Memory, Performance Optimization, Practice Quotes, Skill Acquisition, Success, Success Quotes | Leave a comment

Make More Time: News Blackout

Posted on March 5, 2019 by David Motto

Here’s a simple and effective way to create more time in your day:
Stop paying attention to the news.

You can choose how to do your news blackout:

  • Total news blackout. No exposure to the news whatsoever.
  • Limited news blackout. Only look at one source of news for a set number of minutes per day.
  • No news for a day. For a week. For a month.

No matter where you get your news (news websites, newspapers, television, social media, radio, etc.), staying away from these news sources will give you a lot more time in the day. You’ll also notice a sense of freedom – that your thoughts are your own and you’re not being influenced by the often-negative reporting of the news. Many people say they’re more focused and positive when they stay away from the news.

If you read this suggestion for creating more time and say to yourself, “There’s no way I could do that,” then this is absolutely a MUST for you to try. I predict you’ll be delighted by the results.

Posted in Achievement, Achieving Goals, How to Focus, Performance Optimization, Positive Thinking, Success, Ten Minute Virtuoso | Leave a comment

Ten Minute Virtuoso Tip: Slow Down

Posted on March 4, 2019 by David Motto

Working on mastering a new skill? If you want to learn that skill as efficiently and effectively as possible, there is one absolute must-have strategy:
Slow Down!

To truly hone a skill, you must be able to analyze what you’re doing. Self-analysis is actually pretty difficult, so you need to do whatever you can to make that analysis easier.

When you work on the skill in slow motion, you can see and feel details that are impossible to notice at full speed. Here are some examples:

  • Golf or Tennis: Working on your golf swing or your tennis backhand at normal speed will feel like a blur of activity. If you slow down – way down – you’ll be able to feel subtle changes in your grip or your weight distribution. At full speed, you’ll never notice these details.
  • Playing a Musical Instrument: It’s only when you play very, very slowly that you’l be able to recognize changes in your technique that are affecting you negatively. Watch out for the curve of your fingers, your breathing, and other changes in your biomechanics that can affect you adversely.
  • Addressing an Audience: For public speakers and performers, your body language can be as important as your content. Are you fully aware of how you make eye contact and how you use your hands and arms? Work on these elements of your performance in slow motion so you can truly sense each position you use.
  • Speaking a Foreign Language: The sounds used in some languages are very different than your native language. To make these sounds properly, you need to shape your mouth and place your tongue in positions you’re not used to speaking your native language. Go very slowly and pay attention to each aspect of what you’re doing to create the sounds.

Moving in slow motion can actually be a very satisfying experience. Some people say they only fully recognize their strengths and weaknesses by working on skills very, very slowly. I highly encourage you to give it a try.

Posted in Achievement, Achieving Goals, How to Focus, How to Practice, Learning Tips, Muscle Memory, Performance Optimization, Performance Preparation, Presentations, Public Speaking, Skill Acquisition, Success, Ten Minute Virtuoso | Leave a comment