Category: habits

This challenge has its origin in several places. I’ve been reading Stephen Covey’s book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, in which he talks of the circle of concern (which is everything we care about) and the circle of influence (which is everything we have control over or...

The evening routine challenge is just about over. Here’s Day 5 of the Asian Efficiency evening routine challenge. It addresses a key issue that your routine needs to help you stick to it: Your why. One of the reasons a lot of habits don’t stick is because you don’t...

The evening routine challenge is going well. Moving on with it, Day 4 of the Asian Efficiency Evening Routine Challenge is to make improvements to your sleep environment to help you get a better night’s sleep when you do get to bed. There are a tonne of resources out there...

Day three of the Asian Efficiency Evening Rituals Challenge  is to track your rituals. Gretchen Rubin discusses habit tracking in what she calls the Strategy of Monitoring  in her book Better than Before. She says: “Monitoring has an almost uncanny power. It doesn’t require change, but it often leads to change,...

Before I launch into 30 days of trying to sort out my evening routine, I wanted to explain how I understand this is all supposed to work. The idea behind having a regular predictable routine is basically that, because you have everything lined up to do one after the other,...

If you’ve been following my Travelpod blog, you’ll know that we’ve just got back from a family holiday in Victoria and South Australia. As you might have suspected, my attempt to holiday-proof my routines and continue the Stepping on the Cracks project was a spectacular failure. I ate more,...

Since I started learning about habits, and about stitching habits together to form routines or rituals, I’ve been using a morning routine to start my days. I’ve found this is helpful in making sure I get important things done that I probably wouldn’t get around to doing if I...

I think I’m relatively safe in saying that I made it through the 30 days alcohol-free challenge! It’s Wednesday, and it’s yoga night, and I never follow yoga class with a glass of wine. So I can report 100% success! Woo hoo! Challenge 1 is over. It really wasn’t...

All is well. This is probably the longest stretch that I haven’t had alcohol since I was pregnant – in 2006. I’m quite liking feeling tired at a one-digit hour rather than keeping myself a bit wired and staying up until midnight or later. This morning I got out...

I’ve passed the half way mark of 30 days alcohol-free, the first challenge of my #steppingonthecracks project. It’s been easier than I expected. I haven’t really felt much like having a drink, and times when I have I haven’t felt so strongly about it that I’ve had to do...