Today we finish what we started yesterday and provide examples on how to form new habits. This article is the follow-up from yesterday’s article, so If you haven’t read it, please go back and do it now. It will give you some context into what this article is all about.

HAPPY NEW YEAR and welcome to 2020!!! I hope you have an excellent 2020 with all the best for you and your family.

Let’s start the year with the right mindset and work on our better self. Here are some ideas of new habits that can help you start the year on the right foot. I’ll split them into categories to make it easier to understand. I hope some of them will help you to become your better self.

Personal

  1. Meet one new person a month – It’s essential to meet new people and share some ideas or gain some new friends.
  2. Try one new thing a month – It’s not important what it is; try something that you never did once in a while. You never know when you find the next hobby, career opportunity, or have fun doing something.
  3. Call a friend or family member weekly – People get busy and time flies, but it’s important to keep friendships active and healthy. That’s why it’s essential to make a habit of calling someone close to you frequently.
  4. Get back in touch with someone that you haven’t talked in a while – I consider this habit the extreme of the previous one. Sometimes people don’t keep in touch for a while, and recovering a broken connection is super important, especially for your well being.
  5. Get rid of toxicity in your life – This is quite broad, but you can have toxic friends, relationships, habits, or addictions that you remove from your life. Social media is a good example. Limit yourself to the social platforms that bring you the knowledge, make you happy, or keep good relationships/communities.

Learn

  1. Read 15 minutes a day – Try to read as most as possible. Currently, with audiobooks, ebooks, and other ways of reading, there’s no excuse to read books. Making this a habit is essential for you to learn new stuff and
  2. Listen to podcasts – Podcasts are, in most part, free and provide a wide range of topics for you to pick. Just install a podcast app and listen to a few. You’ll learn something, and it’s a free way to have fun and use up time when you’re doing annoying times like doing the dishes, cleaning, or just commuting to work. I recommend The Joe Rogan Experience with its vast backlog of interviews and Revisionist History. I have to admit I don’t like history, but Malcolm Gladwell has a special gift of making everything enjoyable. He explores events in the past that were forgotten or misunderstood and explains them.
  3. Educate yourself – As with podcasts and books, there are a lot of only courses available for you, a lot of them for free, with excellent content. Try following some and see what works for you. You have a lot of sources that you can choose from
  4. Follow Blogs – Blogs are still an excellent way to find information. I’m biased since I’m writing this on my blog, but the idea behind most blogs and people is to provide information that can help people doing whatever they want to do. There are millions out there, but stay away from the big ones and find the small ones that do it for love and extending knowledge.
  5. Get a mentor/trainer/advisor – Having someone that guides you in improving in a particular area is another right way to improve. You lean against the experience of another person and educate yourself in the process. Please be careful about who you pick and always consider what they say advice and not orders. The final word and decision should always be yours.

Health

  1. Walk 10000 steps a day – If you’re not able to reduce it but walk a little. If you can, go to a place where there’s trees or a park and use that time to stop your brain. Ideally, do this during your lunchtime. It’s, without question, an excellent way to recharge for the afternoon.
  2. Meditate for 10 minutes daily – I’ve been doing meditation for years, and I like it a lot. It’s fantastic for your mind and great to recognize when your brain goes into overdrive, and you need to stop it.
  3. Do some sport weekly – Can be anything. You can run, do yoga, go to the gym, dance, or anything that helps your body to be as healthy as possible. As long as you sweat a little and stop to workout, your body and mind will thank you for that.
  4. Drink Water – There are a lot of different opinions on the amount of water to drink, but make an effort to drink at least 1l per day.
  5. Remove Sugar – Try to remove sugar from your life. A lot of the foods we eat already have sugar, so try to avoid drinking sodas and other sugary drinks. If you can, drink your coffee without sugar. It takes time to get used to it, but you’ll save yourself a lot of unnecessary consumption of sugar.

Organization

  1. Week Plan – Plan your week Sunday or Monday. It will allow you to reach the end of the week with stuff done, instead of continually trying to figure out what to do next. Most people don’t do this and think it’s wasted time, but you’ll understand the advantages once you start doing it. This is an excellent time to check what new habits can be added to your routine.
  2. Have a to-do list and organize it daily – Dump everything that is in your brain into a todo list and forget about them. You need to use your mind to think and learn new stuff not to remember to pick up the dry cleaning next Tuesday.
  3. Keep your significant events in a calendar and review them daily – This is similar to the previous point, but don’t commit to memory all birthdays and activities that you need to attend. Just book them in your calendar and let it do the work for you. Also, this is a great time to ensure you have time for it like, for example, booking the time to work on the new habits you’re defining now.
  4. Block time in your calendar and review it daily – If you have a shared calendar, don’t let every slot open for people to use. Block times to work, to eat, and to finish up to leave on time. I recommend blocking the first 2h of the day, your lunchtime, and 1h before your time to go home.
  5. Block time to do fun stuff and review it weekly – Don’t commit yourself 100% to something to leave other important things behind. It’s with things like this that some people only work and leave the family behind or don’t have fun and burnout.
So what new habits are you going to work on this year?

Have a suggestion of your own or disagree with something I said? Leave a comment or interact on Twitter and be sure to check out other Productivity-related articles here.

Photo by Drew Beamer on Unsplash

Manuel Gomes

I have 18 years of experience in automation, project management, and development. In addition to that, I have been writing for this website for over 3 years now, providing readers with valuable insights and information. I hope my expertise allows me to create compelling, informative content that resonates with the audience.

View all posts by Manuel Gomes →

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *