Win the Day Ch 5

Habit Stacking: Creating Beneficial Daily Routines

• Habit stacking is leveraging existing habits to build new, more beneficial routines. It pairs simple, easily-formed habits with those requiring more discipline.
• Example: Drinking coffee (easy) combined with reading the Bible (more disciplined) is habit stacking.
• Key idea: Don't try to change everything at once. Start with small, achievable changes.

Importance of Daily Rituals

• Daily rituals, even seemingly insignificant ones (like making your bed), create compound effect over time.
• They can streamline life by reducing decision fatigue.
• Admiral McRaven's commencement speech emphasizes starting each day with a completed task, focusing on the first activity of the day.
• Mark Wahlberg's example of a complex early-morning routine highlights that individual routines should be tailored to personal needs and circumstances.

Building Routines: The Power of Ritual

• Twyla Tharp's ritual of taking a cab to the gym exemplifies how a predictable routine, like taking a specific route, can cement a habit.
• Rituals help eliminate excuses and build predecisions.
• Routine is key to long-term growth but needs reinvention to avoid diminishing returns.

Morning Routine: Prioritization and Leverage

• Prioritize important tasks in your morning before urgent ones.
• Plan your morning routine the night before to foster success. A good morning ritual is like a lever; it can move heaven and earth.
• Include time for "God time" (prayer and spiritual reflection) as the highest-leverage activity.
• Habit stacking for morning routine can involve coupling routine activities like showering with prayer or studying, or leveraging coffee breaks to read Scripture simultaneously.
• Take advantage of small, non-time-consuming activities for significant gains.

Sleep and Readiness Score

• Sleep quality significantly impacts daily readiness and performance.
• Prioritize good sleep hygiene and gratitude to enhance REM cycles and overall well-being.
• A sleep and readiness score, measured by a device, illustrate impact of sleep on daily readiness.

Time Management

• Time is not found; it's made, by prioritizing tasks and scheduling them.
• Eating the frog: Completing the important, but often difficult, tasks first thing in the morning; prioritize important tasks, rather than the urgent ones.
• Curse the barren fig tree: Identify and eliminate time-wasting habits.
• Set healthy boundaries: Limit commitments to avoid overextending oneself; this creates prioritization.
• Putting tasks on a calendar: Schedule important tasks to ensure they get done and map out your routine.
• Example of planning: Eugene Peterson's scheduling of meetings with a deceased author as part of a personal growth habit.

Habit Stacking and Routine Reminders

• Leverage everyday activities and environments for habit formation.
• Use existing routines (like commuting) to incorporate new habits (like reading or prayer).
• The value of routine reminders, like mezuzahs, and how to replicate them.
• Using repetition to create habits that feel like a way of life, illustrated by the example of Jewish blessings.
• Identify times for activities (such as "when you lie down and when you get up") for integrating routines into daily life and routine reminders.

Creating Momentum and Sustaining Habits

• Momentum is vital for sustaining progress.
• Build on morning rituals to maintain momentum throughout the day.
• If your day starts poorly, recover and don't let setbacks derail your plans.
• Maintaining spiritual momentum through intentional prayer times.

Long-Term Growth and Self-Analysis

• Reevaluate routines frequently to adapt to changes and avoid stagnation; recognizing the law of requisite variety (routine disruption) and the law of diminishing returns (lack of routine disruption).
• Recognize that you are not Mark Wahlberg, and that your routine must match your life.
• Evaluate your morning routines regularly and adjust them when necessary.
• Recognize personal blind spots to address bad habits. Seek guidance and support from mentors or advisors. A coach, pastor, or mentor's observations can expose ingrained, unproductive habits.