Habit instead of intention

Have you ever had someone ask you why you doing something a certain way and found no good answer other than “it’s how we’ve always done it”? It’s amazing how the most inexperienced people can often pose the toughest questions since they haven’t been conditioned to the routine.

The autonomy I have as a business owner is a major draw to why I work for myself. I don’t have to ask anyone permission or explain my thinking. But with no one there to challenge me, it’s easy to get caught in a trap where I do things out of habit instead of intention.

Lately I’ve recognized this cycle in how I structure my day and I’ve started to question whether I’m using my time most effectively or if I’m just operating on autopilot.

When I took a step back and mapped things out, the traps I had unknowingly set for myself became crystal clear. Not only were my days unoptimized, some of the things I was doing were self-sabotaging.

This lead me to make a few small changes to my routine that immediately made a significant impact:

1. I moved my meetings to the afternoon. As you know, stopping down for a meeting is a huge momentum killer (and, for me, a drain on my mental energy). It can sometimes take an hour (or more!) to get back in the groove. Instead of scheduling calls in the middle of the day, I moved them to the end so I didn’t have to worry about getting back on task afterward — I could just call it a day.
2. I started tackling little to-dos first. Starting my day with a series of quick wins has been huge for not only getting those items that tend to linger off my plate, but it helps me build momentum and feel productive.
3. I started batching wherever possible. Although I feel like a great multitasker, I know there are too many tabs open in my brain 😅. By batching similar tasks, I spend less time context-switching. This requires a little bit of planning up-front, but it’s made a noticeable difference on the back end.

It’s a shame to realize I had been setting myself up for failure this entire time, and all it took was 10 minutes of honest self-reflection to see a few obvious opportunities. And a tad embarrassing that all of the changes I made are pretty obvious once you see them.

But in hindsight, I think that’s why they’ve worked so well. I didn’t need to overhaul my entire life — I just had to make a few intentional tweaks. The tweaks themselves are easy — it’s recognizing where you might be setting traps for yourself that’s the hard part.

When was the last time you took a few minutes for a self-assessment?