Hello everyone, this is Helen Huang @ Organizing, based in Beijing, China. In order to better learn and practice the YiXiaoNeng Time Management System, after finished publishing 100 Chinese articles, I decided to continue writing and publishing a daily English article in another 100 days based on the "YeWuBin Time Management 100 Episodes" audio program. Today is the 118th day.
Today's topic is: Focus on The Little Things
Almost all my YiXiaoNeng students have successfully developed good habits.
They wake up early in the morning, exercise and meditate every day;
They eat frogs, and use the Pomodoro technique every day;
With the help of their calendar and contextual lists, they complete important things first, followed by unimportant things;
At the end of the day, they write in a diary, review and reflect on the past day, and examine how to improve their behaviors.
They have developed good time management habits, which has made them work more efficiently and resulted in a higher quality of life. They've successfully done it.
Now it's your turn. Are you willing to develop these good habits? If you are, then listen on and I will tell you the core principle that I have shared in over 300 time-management lessons to a live audience over the past three years and in more than 30 cities in China. After that we'll discuss the theme for today's lesson.
You now know that there are many kinds of habits, and some of these habits are very good and very helpful for our life, and others are not. Now is the time to change. It is critical that we change. But do it slowly. Slow is fast. Slow deliberate lasting change is better than immediate, inconsistent temporary change!
The secret to developing good habits is that you can only develop one habit at a time! Again, you can only develop one habit at a time!
For example, if you want to build the habit of waking early, then you should only be concerned about getting up early during this period of time, and focus all of your efforts on learning that habit of getting up early.
If you've chosen to work on getting up early in the morning, then do not also begin the habits of exercising, and reading, and eating frogs, and using the Pomodoro technique. It's too much. If you try to do all of those things all at once, it will be overwhelming and fatal. You will fail. So I recommend you start with "one" habit!
Now if you are really serious about developing a good habit, I will tell you the second secret: Habits can only be developed successfully if you do it every day!
If you must, you can set your alarm clock. If you remember I did say that alarm clocks are deadly but you may still want to use it at first. Set it for 5:00 AM. Wake up at the required time. Getting up so early means you will be sleepy at noon. So take a nap for a while. This will help you go to bed early at night. Getting up early will make you want to go to bed early.
There is a saying "Do not do for three days what you don't want to do forever." This means both good and bad habits will be forgotten if you don't do them for three days. So if you're going to build a new habit, you must stick to it and be consistent or else you will lose it. Or if you won't do it for three days, you will lose it.
You won't be perfect and perhaps you may forget or fail to wake up at the right time one day. As long as you correct it immediately, the next day, then you will be ok and the habit will be continued to form.
Remember that you must deliberately create new habits. It will require effort and focus first before it becomes automatic. Remember: Only one habit can be developed at a time. Do it every day. Begin with developing the most important habit first. And you now know that the most important thing is getting up early in the morning.
After you have successfully generated the new habit of getting up early, you can start writing a morning diary next, and begin reviewing your past diaries to improve. Reviewing and writing in your diary for one minute is as important as 10 minutes of action!
After that, you can begin to exercise. And then eating frogs and using the Pomodoro technique. Step by step, slowly accumulate and master these new habits. We have to be ambitious, but also practical.
When you can accomplish one thing consistently each day, you will develop confidence in yourself. When you can do it for a month, your confidence will grow into self-love. You will be amazed at what you can accomplish if you start out small and build slowly and consistently.
So start with one habit. The time it takes to develop the habit will vary for different people. For some it might take a long time, and for others it may take no time at all. When you have developed your habit consistently over time, you can move on to the next. You will become a master of this habit for months and years to come.
However, if you try to do too much too soon and attempt to learn too many habits all at once, then you will fail on all of these habits and you will accomplish nothing. So start with the most important thing and start small, one day at a time. Beginning the right way is half of the battle.
You may feel it's not difficult to complete one little thing, and it may seem easy to stick to it; but you will find meaningful if you do these "important little things", and you will see how focused you can be on each task. Do each task to the best of your ability.
Today we are talking about developing one simple habit at a time. After many months and years, you will see how easy it becomes, and how automatic it will be, like the slow drip of water into the vast and flowing sea.
That's all for the lesson. Thank you being with me together today. Have a wonderful day!
