Leadership

Change Your Habits in 15-Minutes a Day

By Jessica Stillman

Updated on: January 9, 2009 / 7:00 AM EST / MoneyWatch

The Find: Want that New Year's resolution to actually stick? Leo Babauta of the massively popular Zen Habits blog explains how you can form new and lasting habits in his new book.
The Source: An excerpt of Babauta's new book, The Power of Less on the blog of Tim Ferriss, author of The 4-Hour Workweek.

The Takeaway: When it comes to changing one's life, Babauta has a lot of credibility. His blog, Zen Habits, grew from an audience of one (his wife) to being a Technorati top-100 blog in less than 12 months. In the same year, he lost 40 pounds, tripled his income, wrote a novel and a non-fiction book and eliminated his debt. Oh, and he has six kids.

So how does he make such dramatic changes in his life? His new book The Power of Less lays out his deceptively simple method:

Select.... only one habit per month. You can choose any habit -- whatever you think will have the biggest impact on your life.
Write down your plan. You will need to specifically state what your goal will be each day, when you'll do it, what your "trigger" will be (the event that will immediately precede the habit that's already a part of your routine -- such as exercising right after you brush your teeth), who you will report to (see below).
Post your goal publicly. Tell as many people as possible that you are trying to form your new habit. I suggest an online forum, but you could email it to coworkers and family and friends or otherwise get the word out to a large group.
Report on your progress daily. Each day, tell the same group of people whether or not you succeeded at your goal.

In addition to this framework, Babuta adds two more rules. First - and many readers will like this one - choose an easy goal. He explains, "choose something easier than you think you can do every day. If you think you can exercise for 30 minutes a day, choose 10 minutes -- making it super easy is one of the surest ways to ensure you'll succeed." Once you've mastered the simple goal, you can move on and expand into more difficult territory. Second, "choose something measurable. You should be able to say, definitively, whether you were successful or not today."
The Question: What new habit would make the greatest impact on your life?

(Image of simplicity quote by TheAlieness GiselaGiardinoÂ²Â³, CC 2.0)