Weekly Habits

[Torie Crivello]

Ifyou read the book, Atomic Habits, you may recall these important notes: success is the product of daily habits and goals are about the results you want to achieve. Systems (routines) are about the processes that lead to those results.

My goals include raising my family, taking care of my health and fitness, supporting myself and my family through my work, keeping an organized and tidy home. But those goals only happen when I put daily, weekly and monthly routines in place.

That is precisely why I try to relax and nap on the weekends. We do have sports, but I try to get one afternoon weekend nap in when the house is quiet and everyone is chilling. That always feels so good!

I am not this organized bit would definitely love to be.

I work from home for a corporate role so my day is packed, but we do try to keep a daily/weekly schedule to make life easier.

I love your meal prep ideas, and all the get organized topics.

I love how gratiously you raise your kids. Hope they see what an awesome momma they have!

I LOVE your routine! Thank you for laying it out in a list format. I love a routine and a list! LOL

I have daily routines that are so helpful, but I got some great ideas from yours. Thanks for such a great blog. I look forward to it every day!

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Elite performers will often measure, quantify, and track their progress in various ways. Each little measurement provides feedback. It offers a signal of whether they are making progress or need to change course.

Habit formation is a long race. It often takes time for the desired results to appear. And while you are waiting for the long-term rewards of your efforts to accumulate, you need a reason to stick with it in the short-term. You need some immediate feedback that shows you are on the right path.

The most basic format is to get a calendar and cross off each day you stick with your routine. For example, if you meditate on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, each of those dates gets an X. As time rolls by, the calendar becomes a record of your habit streak.

Placing an X on each day is the classic look. I prefer something a little more design-oriented, so I shade in the cells on my habit tracker. You could also use checkmarks or fill your habit tracker with dots.

The most effective form of motivation is progress. When we get a signal that we are moving forward, we become more motivated to continue down that path. In this way, habit tracking can have an addictive effect on motivation. Each small win feeds your desire.

First, manual tracking should be limited to your most important habits. It is better to consistently track one habit than to sporadically track ten. I tend to keep my habit tracker simple and limit it to my three or four most important habits.

Sure, a perfectly filled-in habit tracker looks beautiful and you should strive to achieve it whenever possible. But life is messy. In the long run, what matters is that you find a way to get back on track.

A habit is a lifestyle to be lived, not a finish line to be crossed. You are looking to make small, sustainable changes you can stick with for years. And a habit tracker is one tool in your toolbox on the road to behavior change. It is an effective way to visualize your progress and motivate you to show up again tomorrow.

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James Clear writes about habits, decision making, and continuous improvement. He is the author of the #1 New York Times bestseller, Atomic Habits. The book has sold over 20 million copies worldwide and has been translated into more than 60 languages.

I like to use Weekly Notes, and I am trying to create a Habit Tracker that tracks daily habits, inside the weekly notes. The challenge is that most of the cool habit tracking plugins expect daily notes!

So as mentioned in the beginning of this point, check out the blog post which is a step-by-step guide of a weekly reset so that you can start your week off great! You can also check out the weekly reset mini guide and checklist in the Free Resources Library here!

There is absolutely NOTHING wrong with wanting to be productive on a daily basis, but it should not cost you your own mental and physical health. And it should definitely not tear apart your self image.

We do everything that we need to do, but there will also come a point when we need to charge our batteries. How you do that is different for everyone, as long as it gives you a chance to rest and recharge your batteries.

For example, a person listening to a positive podcast may have began thinking uplifting thoughts about the goals that they have and the potential they can reach. Those thoughts will lead to their actions to work on their goals, and have more belief in their full potential.

Over the years, I refined the practice. I used a timer to ensure that the weekly update would not take longer than 15 minutes to write. I used a simple template where I could pop in information, so as to expedite the process.

Finally, we all need to maintain habits that encourage physical and mental health. Studies show that people who get at least two days of exercise per week are happier (with each additional day boosting happiness further) and as little as 20 minutes of exercise can boost mood and 11 minutes of lifting weights can boost metabolic rate. For mental health, daily meditation can be a lifesaver restoring some order and balance in disordered and imbalanced times. Apps like Headspace and Calm have made practices like this more accessible than ever and easier to track and maintain. For both of us, the simple act of reserving 30 minutes each day for reading or writing can also promote mental health, a task that seems to be backed by science.

Three years ago, we welcomed our fourth child. In the past, we\u2019ve written about how to navigate careers, stress, and even \u201Cannual planning.\u201D You\u2019d think we\u2019d be prepared for wonderful but disruptive life events like these, but as Mike Tyson famously quipped, \u201CEveryone has plan until they get punched in the mouth.\u201D

The past few years have been a time of radical prioritization for us. We\u2019re constantly optimizing \u2014 identifying our most essential priorities and activities while reluctantly and painfully cutting things that are important but not urgent.

Maybe you\u2019re facing a life event that forces this type of radical prioritization. Whether it\u2019s changing jobs, taking care of a sick parent, relocating, or facing a diagnosis, disruptions in life can make it hard to maintain moment-by-moment focus and well-being, much less think months or years in the future. Long-term goals remain important. But in the fog of life\u2019s most intense moments, long-term focus can be hard.

Daily or weekly habits aligned with your long-term goals can keep you on track even when it\u2019s hard to think ahead, and they can add stability in an otherwise unsteady time. Each of us have regular practices we try to maintain to give our lives structure, to remain mentally and physically healthy, and to assure we\u2019re approaching life consciously. These habits, important at any time, are essential in our busiest and most chaotic periods. So what do these habits look like?

The first step in maintaining regular habits is to articulate and track them. We find the key is to keep this simple. What are the 5-10 things you need to do daily or weekly to keep life on track? Once you\u2019ve written them down, track them. The Momentum app, for example, is an easy way to set daily and weekly habits and be reminded of them. There are many others. If you\u2019re more old-fashioned, you can use a simple Excel sheet or paper planner. The important thing is to reflect on the right habits, write them down, and stay accountable.

The first is personal reflection. This can look radically different depending on the person. For us, as people of faith, this involves prayer and scriptural study. It also includes religiously agnostic habits, like keeping diaries, documenting the funny things our children say, and crafting gratitude journals in which we can record what\u2019s happening in our lives and what we are grateful for multiple times per week. Studies have shown that these kind of practices can help us better process life events and remain joyful about the good we experience.

Relatedly, we need time for professional reflection. For years, John has maintained the same professional routine. He sits down on Sunday night with a weekly Moleskine planner and maps out his most important meetings and priorities for the week. This helps him assure he\u2019s focused on not simply what\u2019s most visible or immediate, but what\u2019s actually important. And it offers structure so that when new demands arise he can more easily prioritize them. Then, each morning, he inserts a note card into the planner where he prioritizes what needs to be done that day. Simple, daily reflection on priorities and to-dos can make a meaningful difference in productivity and focus.

A third category of activities is building and maintaining relationships. Social science is crystal clear on the centrality of relationships to personal well-being. It\u2019s important to prioritize and manage relationships. For us, right now, the primary relationships we\u2019re focused on are with our kids and with each other. Each day, we structure a bedtime ritual with the kids where we all get together and spend time together, reading and talking about our highs and lows. As a couple, we try to make time to speak every day, and we try to get out of the house together, without the kids, once per week. We also each try to make at least some time to spend with a friend or two once a week. These sound like small things, but they can be critical to maintaining positive relationships and emotional well-being.

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