Little bit of a different post today, rather than a review its more of a look at some specific tools to leverage in order to improve planning efficiency. There is a lot of research out there that talks about how quickly (usually by February) New Year’s resolutions fall off, so knowing that I wanted to look at how I can get in front of that trend. The Panda Planner I previously mentioned (via Amazon – add the discount code PANDAFAM for 10% off) well as the book Habit Stacking (also via Amazon) seem to be a great one two punch in terms of identifying a plan for being more efficient as well as having a tool to track it all.
The book Habit Stacking by S. J. Scott takes a look at the small 5 minute type habits you can partake in that roll up into larger systematic changes in your life that can lead to big change. The book expands on how to take these small changes and create larger patterns or routines, but more importantly gives you examples of 127 specific small actions that you can “stack” into bigger goals.
The similarity that Habit Stacking has with the approach of the Panda Planner is that in the Panda Planner, you are encouraged to identify daily habits that roll up into a weekly goals as well as larger monthly goals and focuses.
My plan that I want to hold myself accountable to by sharing here is to use the Panda Planner daily pages to identify and track the smaller habits identified as part of my daily Habit Stacking, and then documenting them on the daily Panda Planner pages. The daily Panda Planner pages roll up into weekly summary pages to help build a foundation for the larger habits and focuses that the Panda Planner helps you hone in on and document at a monthly level.
I figure that since as I said before, most New Years resolutions fade out around February, I might be able to start getting into better habits now in October and November so that even if they do start to fade, it will happen as we roll into the traditional time of year for New Year’s resolutions to motivate me to keep them going. So between leveraging the Habit Stacking (via Amazon) concept with the Panda Planner (via Amazon – don’t forget the PANDAFAM 10% discount code) tool and timing it to get a running start into the traditional New Year’s resolution season it should maximize my chances of building and maintaining some stronger habits. I’ll be sure to keep everyone updated on how it goes.
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