Thursday, August 23, 2007

Habits (again)

Stating the obvious, I have not blogged in a while. I slipped out of the habit.

I constantly look at my habits because we are the product of what we repeatedly do. Who we are is in part determined by our habits. This is a re-evaluation time for me and habits. Looking for which ones support what I want to do and be. Looking at those I need to substitute with healthier habits.

There is a good article on health habits on web MD. Of the 13 suggestions, I am good on:

1 - eating breakfast (80% of the time anyways)
2 - getting enough omega 3
4 - social connections (I might have too many)
5 - exercise
6 - dental hygene.
12- daily walk (90% of the days I walk at least 30 minutes. When I walk to work it is 45 minutes each way and I love that time to clear my thoughts. Best 45 minute commute anyone could have)
13 - plan (one of my strong points)

I am fair on

8 - protecting skin
9 - snacking
10 - drink water and eat dairy (not sure how that became one habit). I drink enough water, do not drink milk but love cheese.
11 - drink tea. I do drink tea (mostly green tea) but not as much in the summer.

And if I count business as a hobby, I am good on 7 - hobbies (for that matter, I do play bridge, run, read etc so do have some non-business hobbies)


I am bad on:

3 - sleep

Of course it is not all about health habits for me. It is about business habits, learning habits, growth habits etc.

4 comments:

  1. My experience is that developing a new habit takes me about a quarter. So I try to work every quarter on developing or strengthening a habit.

    I've also found that it's valuable to measure my performance on key behaviors. For me, sleep is one of them. If I pay attention to some key physical things, like how well I eat and how much I exercise and sleep, my life in general tends to be better.

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  2. I am so completely envious of a 45 minute commute that can be done by foot. When I was in university I walked everywhere (even though I had a car) and I found the time on foot to be extremely productive.

    Working from home eliminates commute time, but it doesn't make it easy to have a walk be a "natural" part of the day, because it's useful and takes me somewhere! Now, if I can just convince the internet startup that I'm working with that an office in Georgetown would be really cost effective....

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  3. I was starting to wonder about your bloging - this week I was thinking that I should check the blog feeder to see if it is still working and sending your blog posts to my email - Pam has a meeting scheduled in Sept for us...I look forward to have a discussion on leadership with you! Keep up the bloging!!

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  4. Monique -

    I think it's important for creativity to allow time for the mind to roam free while the body is on autopilot. Walks are great for that. My solution to "having" to walk is to have a dog. My wife does the morning walk, because that's my maximum productive time, but the afternoon and evening walks are mine. Afternoon is almost always a "thinking" process. Mozart on the iPod helps.

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