Our daily lives are made up of habits. Some of them have a beneficial effect on our health, physical and mental state, while others are vice versa.
According to scientists, to feel safe, we need to be 85% familiar and only 15% surround ourselves with something new.
Everything you want to see in a child's life should become a habit.
It takes effort, awareness and patience to introduce good habits or get rid of bad ones.
Habits can relate to different areas of our lives.
What habits are there?
- Preventive: brush your teeth, take vitamins, dress warmly when the temperature is low outside
- Diet-related: bring a snack to work or school, eat fruits and vegetables every day
- Communicative: look the other person in the eye during a conversation, do not interrupt
- Mental: keep a gratitude diary, tune in to a positive outcome
- To improve productivity: create to-do lists, remove distractions while working
- Unwanted habits: procrastination, getting stuck in the past, consuming too much sugar.
What are the benefits of habits?
When we do something on a regular basis, we have to put less effort and less conscious effort into it.
By creating new habits, we can influence and improve life. This increases our self-confidence and brings us closer to the version of ourselves we want to be. We feel that we can achieve something, and this motivates us to new achievements.
In addition, habits structure life and provide a sense of predictability and security.
How do you introduce new habits?
Realistic view
Assess your life or your child's schedule at the moment. Will you be able to set aside the necessary time to practice a new habit? Reorganize your daily activities to make it possible. If not, figure out how much time you can find －sometimes even fifteen minutes is enough.
Take care of your comfort
Prepare everything you need in advance －have everything you need at hand. For example, you enrolled your child in an online school. Get him a nice notepad and a pair of new pens. Prepare your workplace, remove everything unnecessary, clean the memory and charge your laptop －let nothing interfere with your studies.
At the same time
Habits come into our lives more easily if we do things at the same time.
Support yourself and your child
Praise yourself and your child for the slightest success －this will motivate you to continue what you started. If you missed a day, don't scold yourself－instead, note why this happened and draw a conclusion for the future.
More fun together
Doing things in a company is always easier than doing things alone. Find like-minded people who adopt the same habits, stay in touch and support each other.
Habits for productive studies and successful work
Habit 1: Be able to enter the flow
When you study or work in a state of flow, you stop being distracted by extraneous thoughts and your productivity increases. This will save time, remember more material and do better work.
Habit 2: Looking for a positive example
Always look for people who already know how to do what you want them to do.
If they did it, you could do it too.
Successful examples can inspire and show the shortest path to the goal.
Habit 3: Give thanks
Gratitude practices help develop the ability to focus on good things, as well as reduce anxiety and improve sleep.
Habit 4: Prioritize
Choosing an important skill is an incredibly useful skill. Using this skill, you decide which work or life task is most important right now and focus on it.
One of the most well-known tools that help prioritize and structure tasks is the Eisenhower Box method. The technique is named after the 34th US President, who was famous for his ability to set goals and achieve them in the shortest possible time. “I have two types of problems: urgent and important. The urgent are not important, and the important ones are never urgent,” he said.
Eisenhower's approach has interested many researchers, including Stephen Covey, author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. Based on a study of the President's habits and strategies, Stephen has created a simple tool for setting priorities.
How does the Eisenhower matrix work?
All tasks should be divided into 4 categories:
important and urgent －tasks to be completed first;
important but not urgent －projects that are long-term and promising, but can be done gradually;
not important but urgent －what can be delegated;
not important and not urgent －what is best removed from the to-do list if possible.
Habit 5: Know what you want
Realizing your true desires and needs and following your own path is the basis on which to build any life strategy. When we know where we're going and see the end result, it's easier for us to motivate ourselves to work every day and do our best to succeed.
If your child enjoys an activity, tell him about the prospects and how he can use the skills and knowledge he has learned in the future.
