As you may know, there are many reasons why you failed to build routine habits in the past, and once you understand why these failures occurred, you will be able to take the necessary first steps to stay in line with the daily work plan, what may help you do are daily checklists.
In this article, we will talk about seven psychological principles, and the way they affect your ability to build positive habits, and you will understand why you make certain positive and negative choices every day when you understand how they work.
Seven Psychological Principles that Affect the Building of Positive Habits
1. Decision boredom
A group of researchers analyzed the factors that affected the likelihood of a group of prisoners being paroled.
When the time came to decide whether or not to parole the prisoner it was not the crime committed, the length of the sentence, or the race of the offender that determined whether the prisoner would be granted freedom or not, the great impact seemed to be the time at which the prisoner stood in front of the judge all day. The later in the day the prisoners showed up, the less likely they were to be released on parole.
Judges were neither malicious nor deliberate in treating prisoners unfairly, they were just suffering from decision-making fatigue, so as the day slowly passed, every judge lost their ability to make good decisions; as a result they take the simple path, they deprive those who appeared before them during that time of parole.
You'll be exhausted at the end of your day due to making decisions all day to then look for shortcuts.
Here are some naive shortcuts people take when they feel overwhelmed with decision making:
- Writing emails in an angry way instead of spending time writing a reply that requires further thoughts.
- Having a quick meal instead of spending time preparing something healthy.
- Making an impulsive and unnecessary purchase that will blow your budget.
Another negative consequence of decision boredom is doing nothing. As we often feel exhausted and tired after a day full of hard work and maintaining will, what in many cases prompts us to procrastinate on the big projects we planned to do at the end of the day.
Why Are the Fun Decisions Often the Hardest?
Many examples show that making too many decisions in a short period of time leads to poor results, and this type of problem often occurs when couples or families wait until the end of the day to decide what to eat for dinner.
You've likely had this conversation many times before:
- You: "What do you want to cook for dinner?"
- Your partner: "I don't know, what do you want?"
After deliberations and confusion, you finally give up, and take the easy path by ordering a delicious pizza, but it is not healthy at all. You could have avoided this decision had you created your meal plans and shopped for the right ingredients earlier in the week.
We all think we would like to have more choices in our hands, but the truth is that too many choices lead to confusion, causing people to either make bad choices or stop doing anything.
Because routine limits the number of decisions you have to make, this increases the odds that you will do the right thing.
2. Cognitive load
“Cognitive load refers to the total amount of mental effort used in working memory,” according to Wikipedia, the digital encyclopedia.
There are three types of cognitive load:
- Substantial: relates to the amount of effort a particular subject requires.
- Insubstantial: relates to the way these pieces of information are presented to the learner.
- Relevant: Indicates the effort required to organize information.
To clarify, the more thought you have to put into the process of completing the activity, the less energy you have for future activities, therefore, the amount of cognitive load decreases when the subject requires less effort, for example: cognitive load when calculating 2 + 2 is lighter compared to the performance of a more complex calculation process.
It is important to keep in mind that everyone has a different ability when it comes to their ability to process information, and this difference is evident when balancing beginners and experts, for example, a young child who has just started learning mathematics must work hard to solve the math example we just mentioned, while it is a simple task for most adults.
Here's another example
Let us put into consideration the amount of mental energy needed by someone who is just starting to learn to drive compared to someone who has been driving a car for several years. A novice driver has to think through every step: from fastening the seatbelt to adjusting the mirrors, to starting the engine, and then driving the car.
In contrast, a person who has been driving for several years, passing the same way to work every day, can drive safely without even thinking about how to get there.
Daily routines can help reduce cognitive load because you somehow become an expert on the things you do day by day.
3. Ego depletion
The concept of ego depletion is important; because it concerns several aspects of the development of habit, of that daily routine.
The concept of ego depletion was mentioned in the book Willpower by Roy F. Baumeister and John Tierney. Ego depletion is defined in this book as "diminishing a person's ability to organize their thoughts, feelings and actions."
Willpower is compared with muscle; just like your muscles get tired of being used, so does your willpower
Moreover, the amount of willpower that you have decreases as you use it throughout the day, it's very difficult to show discipline once you've used up your willpower for the day.
It is important to keep this principle in mind as you work to establish a daily routine. This is because you are more likely to fail if you try to adjust too many things in your routine at once.
As you'll find out during your reading of this book, you're advised to focus on only one of the six areas. Do not worry about other areas until you've turned your new routine into a series of automatic actions, only then should you move on to one of the other areas of your life, and doing so will increase your chances of success significantly.
4. The “Binge” Effect
Willpower is an important aspect of a habit's development, including daily routines, and despite our good intentions, unfortunately, we are often shocked, mistaken and failing to do what we decided to do, or we end up doing something we swore we would not do, and this happens to everyone, but what really matters is how you respond to this failure.
You have two options: either learn from this mistake and get back into your routine, or succumb to what is often called the "binge" effect.
For example: Suppose you swore not to eat sweets, but you made a mistake and ate a biscuit, and if you ate one cake, your "binge" effect could lead to overeating biscuits, and you will only find yourself devouring a whole packet of biscuits.
Because you did it, and you binge-ate a whole box of biscuits, you can also have a piece of doughnut with your coffee the next day on your way to work, and you will of course do it all while telling yourself that you are going back to your sugar-free diet next week that you have already ruined for this week, but in the end you completely give up on changing this habit, because you feel like you don't have the will to keep going, it sounds familiar, doesn't it?
We know this very well, it is one of the fallacies that we all suffered at some point.
5. Monkey Mind
Monkey mind is a Buddhist term that means “unstable, restless, capricious, cheerful, unsteady, confused, timid, indecisive, uncontrollable.” Monkey mind is a big problem especially for those who suffer from attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), but most people have had this problem at some point.
Monkey mind can prevent you from adhering to your daily routine, this often happens when a procedure prompts you to consider a related procedure, for the second procedure to lead to a third, and so forth, to find yourself eventually doing something unrelated to the first procedure.
Suppose, for example, that part of your morning routine is blogging for 10 minutes, deciding to "quickly" check your email can lead to all kinds of distractions, for example: clicking on a link in an email takes you to a blog post that contains links to other blog posts, and of course there are comments on the blog, to which you will “only” have to reply, suddenly, that 10-minute creative routine turns into a 30-minute loop of unproductive tasks.
The reason why we emphasize the necessity of discipline in your work is that it avoids you falling into the trap of the monkey mind, and instead of giving in to it, you will learn to recognize when it is happening and avoid succumbing to the temptation of this type of thinking.
6. Inefficient multitasking
Multitasking was once described as a way to get things done, and people who are supposed to be good at it often feel proud when they declare, "I'm a great multitasker," usually with big smiles on their faces.
But now, multitasking is one of the multiple wrong practices that do not allow you to get more done, on the contrary, multitasking reduces productivity, but - of course - there are a few exceptions, for example: you may be able to listen to a podcast or an audio book while doing housework or walking your pet or doing exercise, but shifting all of your attention to the present moments is always important if you want to really focus on everything you do.
One enjoys listening to podcasts on thier daily walks because they follow the same road tracks, which reduces the cognitive burden, yet they turn off the podcast when they write, because they can't focus on all the words in his head and what is discussed in the program they listen to.
Let's remember that a daily routine is much more than just a task to perform, the idea here is to improve the quality of your life and the lives of those around you, don't expect to get good results if you do your work carelessly and practice multitasking all the time.
Here's a three-step process to help you be present at everything you do:
- The first step: Study carefully the things you are currently focusing your attention on, most of your focus may now be on your children, for example, a book you read or a project at work. So be aware of what occupies your focus in every moment.
- The second step: Set aside anything that does not enhance or enrich this matter, if you're focusing on your kids, turn off your cell phone and turn off your PC unless you absolutely need them.
- The third step: Set a time limit for your current focus, setting a time limit on what you focus on can make staying focused more doable and can also help achieve balance.
If you're focusing on your kids, for example, tell everyone you'll be away from your phone for the next hour or two, then check for messages at the end of the session.
You will get more done if you are fully present while you are doing the thing you are doing, and you can improve your relationships using this approach as well.
7. You need a downtime
How often do you take regular breaks?
You might be in trouble if you answered, "Not much," or even worse, "What's the downtime?"
Stopping work is not a form of laziness. In fact, it is a very important factor to take into account when it comes to your daily routine. The truth is, we need more downtime than most people think.
According to an article in Scientific American, workers in industrialized countries spend as much, if not more, time taking in information than they do completing actual work. This is because such an influx of information makes it hard to process things, and makes it more difficult to shut down our minds when it's time to rest.
American employees don't just deal with informational dumping, they also consider it one of the worst in dealing with vacation time. Unlike the European Union, The United States has no federal laws mandating vacation, sick leave, paid vacation, or any other paid leave.
The crazy thing is, although Americans get less paid leave in most industrialized countries, but it is not surprising that there are so many holidays that Americans did not use at the end of the year, worse still, when people go on vacation, they often feel the need to check email or attend virtual meetings in some cases.
Even if you don't have a rational manager, it's easy to feel threatened by your co-workers, those who stay in the office late, then work long hours after returning home in the evening. In the end, nobody wants to be the last person to come to the office every day, and the first to go home, unless he wants to be seen as a lazy slacker.
Why do we mention this? Because it's important to avoid indulging in a daily routine where you don't have any time to recharge your energy, and despite the fact that setting a schedule will make you more productive, the idea is not to act as a machine and never take time off.
This quote from the article from Scientific America referenced above offers some good prompts for thought about the need for downtime:
“Downtime replenishes the brain's stores of interest and motivation, and encourages productivity and creativity, it is necessary to achieve our highest levels of performance and to form lasting memories in everyday life, and mind wandering gives us the ability to learn from the past, plan for the future, moments of rest may be necessary to maintain an individual's moral compass in the work system, and to maintain a sense of self."
In Conclusion
Sometimes you need to put in a little effort in order to get more work done in the end, so when you think about the daily routine that you want to implement, make sure to leave enough room for downtime, and better yet, make downtime part of your daily routine.
Add comment