Habits: Change Your Ways in a World of Distraction

A few years ago, I started waking up at three o’clock every morning. Over the years, I’d read many articles about the importance of rest, so I knew the research was unequivocal: Quality sleep supports cognitive performance and lowers the risk of diseases and health conditions such as type 2 diabetes, heart disease, stroke, obesity, and dementia. Knowing that, I’d toss and turn in bed, disappointed that I wasn’t following through on my plan to get seven to eight hours of shut-eye.

Something as vague and indiscernible as “luck” has no place in the business world, right? Except studies show luck can make all the difference between business success and failure. Turns out, it’s not a matter of being born lucky. You can, quite literally, make your own luck in business and in life.

As a clinically obese teen, my parents were desperate to get me to a healthy weight. My mom coaxed me on a walk through our boring, middle-class Central Florida suburb every Sunday. The road we walked was paved with good intentions, but for me, it was hell: the heat and humidity, the painful chafing between my thighs, the inevitable embarrassment of applying Vaseline to said chafing. … If I was going to suffer, I would need a reward, and it had better be a good one!

You know those people who just seem to get more and more successful? It’s as if each success gives them momentum to achieve even more. Bridgit Mendler is a former Disney child star turned singer, lawyer, and entrepreneur. Amor Towles was a very successful investment banker for two decades and then became a very successful author. Well, there’s a secret to their success, and no, it’s not the obvious money, privilege, and social class (although those certainly count for something). It’s not even their natural talent.

Winston Churchill predicted three to four million people might be forced to flee metropolitan centers after the first bombing raids of WWII. Tens of thousands of police officers were requested to prevent the stampeding exodus from trampling one another… Yet these predictions were wrong.

As a child of two parents who both struggled with alcoholism, Nick Allen had a choice to make when it came to his own drinking. He could follow the same destructive path his parents took, or he could swear off drinking altogether. But for Allen, and millions of others like him, all or nothing wasn’t much of a choice. Instead, Allen found a third way and co-founded a multimillion-dollar company in the process: Sunnyside.

Numerous articles detail the routines of the most successful people in the world: Apple CEO Tim Cook wakes up at 3:45 a.m. and exercises. Actor and producer Reese Witherspoon eats the same healthy breakfast. Society has become so focused on increasing productivity and packing the most into every day that we think of long-term, consistent routines as the gold standard for spending our time.

The end of the school year is a magical time. Kids have made it through a grueling year of groggy early mornings, rigid class schedules, piles of homework, and endless extracurriculars. Finally, they have two whole months of sunny freedom. It’s a well-deserved break. But this gift of time can easily be squandered.

So you want to write a book. Awesome! If you’ve made attempts already, I’m sure I don’t need to tell you that writing is hard work. I’ve written two books and countless articles, and it wasn’t, and still isn’t, easy. I wrote my second book, Indistractable, about controlling your attention and choosing your life because I had such a hard time fighting distractions. Indistractable is my living proof that you can write a book—even if your life is hectic and focusing seems impossible.

You wake up in the morning irritable and groggy but determined to be productive. Yesterday didn’t go well. You didn’t complete even the one big priority project that would have taken just a couple of hours if you’d focused. Still, you spent all day on the computer, even leaving your partner to handle dinnertime alone and canceling pickleball with friends. And for what?

The German writer and philosopher Goethe believed he could predict someone’s future based on one simple fact. “If I know how you spend your time,” he wrote, “then I know what might become of you.” Seeing how you spend your time reveals your values and, thus, shows where your investment of time, attention, and effort will lead you.

One of the most effective ways to change your behavior is to change your identity. I don’t mean joining the CIA or a witness protection program, or adopting an alter ego. I mean, rather, changing the way you see yourself.

It seems counterintuitive, but spontaneity can’t happen without a bit of advanced planning. Only people with spare time can be spontaneous.

These days, when someone says they want to form a “habit,” what they often mean is that they want to make drudgery effortless. That is, they don’t want to actually do the work, rather they want to have done it—past tense. The trouble is, trying to build a habit is often a self-defeating trap.

Bad habits can feel like an unbreakable cycle, trapping us in a loop of unwanted behaviors and frustration. Whether it's checking your phone constantly, smoking, or mindlessly snacking, these habits are often driven by deeper psychological processes that make them...

Meet Jennifer Aaker and Naomi Bagdonas, authors of Humor, Seriously: Why Humor Is a Secret Weapon in Business and Life. Dr. Jennifer Aaker teaches about human-centered AI, designing for VR/AR, and the power of story at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, where...

Nir’s note: I recently caught up with Dr. Amy Bucher, the author of Engaged, a compelling guidebook on designing products and services that change people’s lives. She talks about behavioral design, the science of crafting products and services in such a way as to...

Opinion: Telling ourselves that devices and platforms “hijack” our brains plays right into Big Tech’s hands.Does repeating a falsehood make it true? It seems so, at least when it comes to the myth that technology is addicting us all. While a reassessment of the role...

I had just finished giving a speech on building habits when a woman in the audience exclaimed, “You teach how to create habits, but that’s not my problem. I’m fat!” The frustration in her voice echoed throughout the room. “My problem is stopping bad habits. That’s why...

Trying to build good habits can often backfire. Here’s why it’s important to know how habits are formed and when it’s better to stick with a routine instead.Habits are hot. Self-help articles extol the power of habits and books on the topic sell by the millions. Yet,...