I take an extra long time to get ready in the morning, even without a morning commute. And now and then I question whether I need to take all that time. And if I don’t take time to examine it, I start to feel guilty for not putting the time to better use (before I even verify I am or am not using the time wisely)!
Examining our habits
In the book Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habit & Break Bad Ones, author James Clear presents the concept of a ‘habits scorecard.’ He suggests that we list our daily habits, then score each one. With his system, good habits get a “+” next to them, bad habits get a “-“, and neutral habits get a “=”. With this system it’s easy to visualize which habits you may want to examine further and perhaps discontinue.
In Clear’s example he lists some habits at the start of the morning including wake up, turn off alarm, check phone, and take a shower. He scored these as: wake up =, turn off alarm =, check phone -, take a shower +.
He admits that determining if a habit is good, bad, or neutral can be complicated. A good habit for one person may be a bad habit for another person. Or a habit may have a short-term positive result but is not productive or healthy in the long-term.
Clear has a couple of questions to help with this ambiguity:
“Does this behavior help me become the type of person I wish to be?
Does this habit cast a vote for or against my desired identity?”
James Clear, Atomic Habits, p. 65
When I did the scorecard exercise for my morning habits, I did find one thing I can move out from my morning routine. However, that one thing won’t save a lot of time. And, I’m OK with this. I’ve verified that what I’m doing in the morning I’m doing with intention. Everything I do is a vote for the type of person I wish to be. This is comforting.
engineer your life
Are you questioning any of your routines and asking if these are productive, healthy, or wise? If yes, try the scorecard approach and determine if each of the habits making up the routine are good, bad, or neutral. You’ll know what to do (and if you don’t, read Atomic Habits 🙂 ).