Original photo by Carf

There are two parts to lifestyle design; which are called tortoise and hare. One is slow and lumbering, the other is like a tornado.

I’m going to focus today on the tortoise elements, or life habits. These are like a gentle lapping wave. It looks calm and serene, and doesn’t seem to do much. However, over thousands of years, those little waves can erode an entire coastline. In the same way, there are things in your life that aren’t big, but that will pretty much define who you are, what you do and how much you enjoy your life.
Tortoise Life Habits
So what are they? Life habits are things that you do every day. They literally define how you live on a day to day basis. So what do you do every day? I want you to write down now any and every action that you take on a pretty much daily basis. Do you answer emails at certain times? Do you answer it all the time? Do you have a morning routine? (By the way, I’m going to do a post next week on designing your morning, so watch this space…)

Now look at your list. Those are the things that define your life. How many of them do you actually need to be doing? How many are actually being productive? How many are helping you have the you actually want? I’ve got three principles that I think will apply to any item on that list:

The Pareto Principle. The Pareto principle states that 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes. In my experience, that’s actually incorrect. For me, it tends to be around 95% and 5%. That means that you’re probably getting 80-95% of all the enjoyment you experience in a day, from just a few things that you’ve written down. The first thing to do then, is work out which ones those are, and which you just do out of habit. The habitual ones, you’re going to be replacing with other things.

Parkinson’s Law. Parkinson’s Law states that “Work will expand to fill the time you allot to it”. In this case, that’s pretty much correct. Any task you want to accomplish will have a minimum amount of time it requires to complete. It won’t however have a maximum amount. So the minimum level might be an hour, but if you decide to give it 5 hours, then you can pretty much bet it’ll take 5 hours. To apply this to your life, look at some of the things you do that take a long time. Now, do they need to? Or could you make them take less time, and then devote the rest of it to doing other things? Things that are more enjoyable and productive? I’m betting you could probably cut the time you spend noodling around outside of work in half, if you wanted to. So look at the activities you’ve got to do on that list, and try and come up with ways to slim down the time they’ll take.

Student Syndrome. Student syndrome is the theory that people will only fully face a task when they can no longer put it off. Another way of looking at it, is that desire is not as strong a motivator as need. And that’s true isn’t it. Look at smoking. People know that it’s bad for them, but they carry on. Why? They probably want to stop smoking. But they don’t translate that into need. As a result, they don’t stop, until it becomes a need to them.

The things you’re going to do in the time you free up by getting rid of the rubbish parts you’ve filled your days with won’t stick unless you make them needs. If you want something, that’s nice, but wanting won’t make it happen. Absolute need makes things happen. So fill it with things that you know you should do, and make them into needs.

Come back Friday and I’ll be talking about life hacking hare style!

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