The Two Habits That Changed My Life

I stopped smoking cigarettes 4 years ago. I was a heavy smoker. I smoked ±40 a day for a long time and in September of 2010 I decided I’d had enough and stopped.

Since then I’ve struggled to find a decent new years resolution. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t believe that setting a new years resolution is some big and important grand gesture that everyone needs to do. But I do feel like it’s as good a time as any to try and kick start a good habit or kick a bad one.

A lot happened in 2014 but there are two very distinct things that stand out as the habits that formed my progress throughout the year.

Habit 1 - Read More

At the start of 2014 I decided that I wanted to read more books.

I hadn’t read a lot before this year. I read the usual amount I think, but I had been feeling like I was missing out, watching too much TV and my views were quite linear. I thought that reading more could help me with these problems.

Much like smoking, I decided that if I was going to do something, I’d do it in an extreme manner (remember I smoked 40 a day).

For 2014 I set myself the goal of reading 3 books a month.

Three is a completely arbitrary number that I didn’t mathematically arrive at. I picked a number that sounded achievable but would still be a challenge.

There were no rules about what I read. The only thing I wanted to do was to read more books. I read articles all of the time, every day, all day but there’s something about a book that I felt I wanted in my life.

I kept a pretty decent record of what I read on Goodreads*. Up to right now, I’ve completed 27 books and am currently reading the 28th. By the end of the year I’ll probably get to 29.

That works out to 2.4 books per month. Some were massive and overwhelming like The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life and others were short and easy reading like The Road Not Taken: A Selection of Robert Frost’s Poems.

Three Books is a lot

After the first month I immediately realised that three is a lot of books to read in a month. I was either going to have to increase the rate at which I could read or make more time to read.

I chose the latter.

I read over weekends, at nights, between meetings, on my phone (I have a Kindle that syncs across devices) and any other time I could.

That meant less of other things that usually take up my time. Less Twitter and Instagram. Less TV. Less of just about anything else that wasn’t important.

I became obsessed with reading and talking about the books I was reading. It was quite liberating to have subject matter to engage with people about other than the latest tweet or Facebook post they had read. I began to intentionally drive conversations towards the content I was reading.

It also became very obvious who else read a lot. I could immediately tell if someone was really well read or if they were just skim readers who had read an article on a topic and claimed it as their own well researched opinion.

“But I Don’t Have Time To Read”

Bullshit.

You’ve got time to read this article. You’ve got time to browse Buzzfeed/9gag/Facebook/Twitter/Instagram. Then you sure as shit have time to read.

Stop watching so much TV and read for an hour rather.

Lessons From Reading More

Here are few things I’ve learned from reading a lot this year:

• Stop reading things you don’t like.
• Don’t read “the classics” because everyone tells you to. I read The Great Gatsby and hated it.
• Find your sweet spot and devour the content accordingly. For me it’s stories of how people build things (Polaroid, Ford, Amazon, Zappos).
• Read for your mood.
• Reading multiple books destroyed my focus.
• If you want to finish a book, don’t read it in bed.
• You’ll be amazed at how much you can read in a single, uninterrupted 2 hour sitting on a Sunday.
• Books create conversation. TV shows create stupidity. Obviously that’s a generalisation. If you’re watching and discussing The Newsroom, then TV creates conversation too.
• A lot of people don’t read.

My Favourite Book

This is a tough decision to make so I’m going to present my top 5:

1. American Icon: Alan Mulally and the Fight to Save Ford Motor Company
2. The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon
3. Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action
4. The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life
5. Ron Jeremy: The Hardest (Working) Man in Showbiz

Habit 2 - Wake Up At 6am

By March I had ripped through nine books. I was thoroughly enjoying my newfound habit and was always on the hunt for a new book.

One of the books that someone suggested to me was What the Most Successful People Do Before Breakfast.

It was at this point that I realised that I have a slight problem with reading books. I take on a lot of what I read and sometimes become slightly overwhelming. I remember reading the Steve Jobs biography and for a brief period, pointing out everyone’s shortcomings like an asshole.

After reading about what most successful people do before breakfast I noticed that they all had one thing in common; they all wake up early.

So in the middle of Winter I decided it was time to get hold of my sleep habits and go to bed early and wake up early. I didn’t waste time easing into it. I went to bed at 10pm and was up by 6am. Yes, some days are easier than others. Yes sometimes all I want to do is sleep past 8am and yes, it’s dark until 8:30am in Winter.

The first week was confusing. I’d wake up, be proud of myself for waking up and then plonk down infront of my computer and start “working”. What ended up happening was that I’d reply to some emails, mess around on my website, browse my Pocket reading list and then basically wait for the world to wake up. If that’s what I was going to do then why not rather just go back to bed?

Make A To Do List

So on Sunday night of the first week of waking up early I decided to write a list of things I wanted to do throughout the week. Little niggly tasks that I’d been battling to justify spending time on all the way through to major items like sending out our Nic Harry newsletter and putting client documents together.

I worked through the task list every morning.

The amazing thing that I started to notice was that I would work for almost 3 hours, uninterrupted and actually knock off the tasks on my to do list. One by one, day by day, I was achieving the goals I’d set out for myself every single day.

A task list is an imperative if you’re waking up to be productive.

Alternative uses of the three hours in the morning: Run, read, meditate (I’ve never meditated a day in my life but I hear it’s good for you) or do the things that you don’t find time to do through the rest of the day.

Do Not Answer Email

I made the decision to try and avoid email between the hours of 6am and 9am.

The crazy thing about email is that it’s not a resolution but an invitation for more email and therefore, very often, more work.

Occasionally I’ll use one of my mornings to smash my email down to inbox-0. But most often I will ignore email until the actual work I have to do is done.

Email = more email.

And that’s not productive for me.

“But I Work Best At Night”

Sure, that might be true. But have you tried the alternative?

Do you know what your optimal sleep pattern is? Have you tested out various options for your body and mind? I bet not.

Do you really need to watch another episode of Seinfeld/Friends/Bob’s Burgers/Homeland? Isn’t the one enough for today?

I challenge you to be in bed by 9:30pm for a week and to wake up at 6am and see how you feel and well you work in the mornings. Then compare how you feel about your work and your time.

Why These Habits Changed My Life

Waking up earlier has given me a lot of time to really focus in on the things that I want to achieve every day.

Before, when I woke up between 7:30 and 8:30am, I had to dress and get to any 9am meetings. Now I have had a solid 2 hours of focused work before even having to get ready for the meetings in the morning.

Sleep. Sleep has been a welcome by product of waking up early. Obviously the key is to go to bed early enough to give yourself the sleep you need. Burning the candle at both ends is not the point behind waking up early.

Reading more has really opened me up to a lot of opinions, views and new ways to try things. Before reading the Amazon story I thought I knew how to think big. After reading it, I realised that Bezos really knows how to think big. Buffet taught me about saving to wealth and Hsieh taught me to love my customers.

There’s a lot to learn from other people and one of the most vivid ways to gather those learnings is through a book. I know this now.

Reading 3 books a month is a tough ask and probably not sustainable. It is a great goal to work towards and I’ll keep giving it my best shot.

Thanks for reading.

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*You can see all the books I’ve read over at my Goodreads profile.