Big changes are impressive, but great progress can be achieved by taking small actions consistently.
What we do every day matters
Happy New Year!
This time of year we often make resolutions, set goals, and develop grand plans. These are all good things, and I’d love to hear what resolutions you’ve made or what goals you’ve set for the year. Sometimes, though, the greatest progress is made, not through big leaps, but through small steps taken consistently. Today, I thought I’d focus on a few small things we can do each day this year to make the year more productive. For each, we’ll look at why it helps, and how we can make it easier.
◊ Make your bed ◊
Why does it matter?
- It’s a small task that has big impact. Your bed is probably the biggest thing in and focal point of your bedroom, so its appearance affects the whole room. By making your bed, you immediately make the whole room look better.
- It goes a long way to turning your bedroom into a relaxing retreat you can look forward to enjoying at the end of the day. Some studies show that bed makers sleep better at night.
- Orderly spaces are less stressful.
“Making your bed is a way to help you think more clearly, feel more calm, and get organized. Our living space is a reflection of our mental states. A bed that is made signifies mental clarity and leadership. The mind likes routines. Making your bed is a morning ritual that cleanses your mind of your night. It provides closure from the prior evening (dream, sex, conversations, thoughts) and allows for a new beginning and your positive day ahead.”
Katie Ziskind, a licensed marriage and family therapist based in Connecticut, quoted in…
The Benefits of Making Your Bed Every Day Are Actually Worth the Effort, Survey Shows
- Making your bed can make you happier.
“When I was researching my book on happiness, this was the number one most impactful change that people brought up over and over.”
Gretchen Rubin, author of The Happiness Project, quoted in…
9 Ways to Be Happier“Turns out, people are happier when everyday tasks in their lives are completed.”
- It’s a great mindfulness exercise if you practice being very present in the experience during the few minutes you’re doing it.
- Starts the day with a small sense of accomplishment, and will likely trigger you to adopt other productive habits. Charles Duhigg, in The Power of Habit (episode 147 Productive Reading recurring series) calls bed-making a “keystone” habit that can set up a chain reaction of developing other good habits.
“Making your bed every morning is correlated with better productivity, a greater sense of well-being, and stronger skills at sticking with a budget.”
Charles Duhigg, author of The Power of Habit, quoted in…
Make Your Bed, Change Your Life
How to make it easier
-
- Have simpler bedding
- a nice-looking comforter that you can easily put in place rather than a duvet cover you struggle with
- fewer pillows
- some recommend omitting the top sheet
- Have pretty bedding – Make it more enjoyable to look at when it’s made
- Have simpler bedding
Resources for more inspiration
- The Benefits Of Making Your Bed Every Day Are Actually Worth The Effort, Survey Shows
- Why You Should Make Your Bed Every Morning | The Manual
- Make Your Bed, Change Your Life | HuffPost Life
- 9 Easy Ways to Be Happier
- Why is it important to make your Bed | Amalia Home Collection
- Six reasons to make your bed every morning
- 5 Reasons You Should Make Your Bed Every Morning
◊ Write down your one thing (and then do it) ◊
Why does it matter?
- We all know the importance of writing things down. It reinforces it in our brain, and it forces us to get specific and clear.
YouTuber, author, and speaker Amy Landino makes it part of her daily morning routine to write out each of the goals she’s currently working on. She has a notebook for that purpose and simply rewrites them each day to keep them top of mind. Watch a video where she talks about this!
- Choosing one thing to focus on each day – the one most important thing – makes it more achievable than having tons of things on the list.
“Extraordinary results are directly determined by how narrow you can make your focus.”
“Big success comes when we do a few things well.”
Gary Keller, author of The ONE Thing
(Check out the Episode 133 Productive Reading recurring series)
To identify that one thing we should put at the top of our list, he suggests asking ourselves this question:
“What’s the one thing I can do today such that by doing it everything else will be easier or unnecessary?”
- This doesn’t mean you’ll only do one thing, but highlighting it, paying attention to it, scheduling it means you will accomplish the most important thing, even if nothing else gets done.
How to make it easier
- Make a time for it, either early in the morning or at the end of the day.
- Make a place for it–both a location you sit down to do it and a notebook or file to write it in. I recommend hand-writing it. Maybe it’s in your regular planner, but you make a space at the top of the day’s page to write down the one thing.
Resources for more inspiration
- 5 Reasons to Write Down Your Goals | Spark Your Vitality | Customized Coaching & Training Solutions
- The One Thing You Need to Do to Meet Your Goals | Issue 12 | Setting Goals
- You Can Achieve Anything If You Focus On ONE Thing – Darius Foroux
◊ Declutter and tidy a small area of your home/office for 10 minutes◊
Why does it matter?
- Clutter distracts, which hampers our ability to focus on what matters most. Clutter costs us time, energy, and attention.
- Even just a few minutes, invested consistently over time, can make a huge difference
How to make it easier
- Make a routine out of it – choose a time when you’ll do it
- One article I found suggests taking before and after photos so you can celebrate the progress. Here’s her process:
How to Do a 10-Minute Tidy
(From the following Article: How to Do a 10-Minute Tidy to Restore Calm in Your Home)
-
- Pick an area to tidy up.
- Take a picture of it with your phone or a digital camera.
- Set a timer for 10 minutes. I usually use the one on my phone or the one in our kitchen.
- Tidy up the area for 10 minutes. Don’t let yourself get distracted!
- When the timer goes off, snap another picture.
- Compare the before and after pictures.
- Celebrate the progress, even if it’s very small!
This can work anywhere: your closet, your kids’ closets, the kitchen, the bathroom, your office!
- Use waiting time
- While the water boils for pasta, clean out one drawer or shelf in the kitchen, pull 3 items out to toss or donate
- When you’re waiting for the kids or spouse to be ready to leave, straighten a bookshelf and pull out 3 books (or even just one) to donate
- While you’re waiting for a load of laundry to dry, tidy a drawer in your dresser or a small section of your closet, and pull out a couple of items to toss or donate
- Make it convenient – Keep a box in the coat closet into which you can drop the to-be-donated items as you find them. When it’s full, put it in your car to be dropped at the charity shop on your next trip out. Keep wastebaskets and recycling bins in convenient places so you can drop things in right away.
Resources for more inspiration
- The 10-Minute Tidy – Organizing Moms
- Declutter 10 Minutes a Day! – The Peaceful Mom
- 10 Minutes a Day to a Cleaner House: How to Declutter Your Home | Dengarden
- How To Declutter Your Home In 10 Minutes A Day
- 10 Ways to Declutter in Ten Minutes or Less | Living Well Spending Less®
◊ Say aloud 1 thing you’re grateful for ◊
Why does it matter?
- Gratitude affects our mental and physical health and productivity (Check on Episode 167-Gratitude & Productivity). There is tons of evidence from research on the topic that feeling and expressing gratitude positively affects our health AND our productivity.
- One Psychology Today article lists a number of benefits from gratitude: Increased resilience, bolstered self-esteem, enhanced empathy, improved physical health, enriched social life, improved sleep, and increased happiness (from This Daily Habit Will Make You 15 Percent Happier)
“gratitude is a process of seeing and metabolizing what we already have — amidst the chaos of our schedules — which helps us feel connected to other people and life.”
- I love this quote!
“Gratitude is a frame for reality, which enables us to align with the good in the world as well as the evolutionary progress of the human race. It is the opposite of resentful entitlement. Gratitude allows us to accept things as they are even as we try to improve them. It enables us to see ourselves as participants in creating the good in life. Gratitude puts us in more positive relationship to life and others around us. It separates our attitude from our circumstances so that our current reality does not drag us down. Gratitude is a way of being that lets us participate fully in life without concern for rewards and status. It gets our ego out of the way.”
- Studies have also shown that those who keep gratitude journals are more likely to make progress on important goals.
“In a nutshell, giving and receiving thanks increases release of dopamine, therefore raising your energy. This neurotransmitter plays a critical role in the function of the central nervous system, and it is also linked with the brain’s complex system of motivation and reward. Who doesn’t feel more productive and content where higher levels of motivation and reward are involved?”
- Feeling gratitude is important, but expressing gratitude has benefits all its own:
“there is actual scientific evidence that expressing gratitude is beneficial for health. First of all it is a good way to ward of depression. This is because it encourages an optimistic outlook and provides the opportunity to focus on positive events and people. Secondly it is known to help combat anxiety because of the feelings of peacefulness that it promotes. Research has shown that practicing gratitude is particularly useful to those who suffer from stress related problems and conditions such as PTSD. Finally, there is also research to suggest that it will mean good things for your sleep pattern. This is generally because of the improvement to your mood.”
Why It’s Important to Express Gratitude
“It’s one thing to think a thought and another to say it out loud. Speaking our beliefs not only facilitates retention by involving more senses, it also enhances the courage of our convictions. Thinking something vs. saying that thought out loud is the difference between potential and reality. Thoughts are fleeting. Words are permanent.”
Express Gratitude for Where You Are Right Now, and Say It Out Loud
- It’s especially good if you can speak it aloud to another person – express gratitude for something about them or something they’ve done, but even if you just say it out loud to yourself.
How to make it easier
- Start a list – write it down and then read it aloud
- Set a reminder
- Get the family involved: create a family ritual of sharing something at dinner or breakfast that each of you is thankful for
Resources for more inspiration
- Why it’s Important to Express Gratitude
- Express Gratitude for Where You Are Right Now, and Say It Out Loud
- This Daily Habit Will Make You 25 Percent Happier | Psychology Today
- Does Gratitude Make Us More Productive? – Taking Note – Medium
- 20 Ways Gratitude Improves Productivity
- Increasing Productivity with Gratitude | Inc.com
- This 1 Act of Gratitude Will Make Your Workplace Happier and More Productive | Inc.com
- 20 Ways Gratitude Improves Productivity
◊Spend 10 minutes doing something just for you◊
Why does it matter?
- It’s easy to buy into the idea that productivity is measured by how much we do, and thus to feel guilty or unproductive if we’re not doing, especially doing for others. When we have a lot on our plate, the first thing we usually drop is self-care.
What is self-care?
“Self-care is a broad term that encompasses just about anything you to do be good to yourself. In a nutshell, it’s about being as kind to yourself as you would be to others. It’s partly about knowing when your resources are running low, and stepping back to replenish them rather than letting them all drain away. Meanwhile, it also involves integrating self-compassion into your life in a way that helps to prevent even the possibility of a burnout.”
- If we don’t make time for self-care, whatever that means for each of us, we can lose sight of what matters. Check out Episode 160 – Self-Care Matters.
- What is Self-Care and Why Is Self-Care Important identifies the “top 6 benefits of self-care”, and the first one it lists is better productivity. In addition: improved resistance to disease, better physical health, enhanced self-esteem, increased self-knowledge, and more to give.
How to make it easier
- Start small
- Cup of tea and a few pages of a book you enjoy?
- Facial mask or quick self-manicure?
- A bit of yoga or some stretches?
- Walk outside?
- A nap?
- Phone call to a friend?
- A few rows of knitting or crocheting or some other craft you enjoy?
- Write a few sentences of that novel, or work on a sketch or painting . . .
- Call to make an appointment for a massage or highlights or your annual physical, or to schedule a lunch date with a friend?
- Start compiling a list of things you enjoy or want to try. Sometimes we spend so much of our energy caring for others that when we have a few minutes for ourselves we can’t even think of what we want to use them for. So compile a list. When you think of something, add it. Use one or more of your 10-minute times to add to the list.
- Gather what you need and have it ready – good book, favorite coffee, art supplies, walking shoes, candles . . .
- Schedule the time. Will it be first thing in the morning, before anybody else gets up? Or on your lunch break? Or in the evening, after the kids have gone to bed?
Resources for more inspiration
What do you think?
There are lots of other things we could talk about or commit to doing daily. These are just a few that I thought of for myself and that I thought were worth sharing.
Do you have any suggestions for small actions to take daily this year to make the year better and more productive? Please share your thoughts in the comments section below this post or in The Productive Woman Community Facebook group, or send me an email.
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Laura – Happy New Year! One of my new year resolutions is to enjoy your blog more often. Best, Beth
Thank you, Beth! I hope you find it worthwhile. Best wishes for a very happy new year.