I’m a fan of building great habits. I think it the best way to grow as a person and achieve goals. Habits help me to incrementally accomplish large goals because I take an enormous goal like “create a successful blog” and break it down into a small habit, “write 20 minutes a day”. So, I want to share with you the list of habits I’m currently working to create and my thinking behind these habits. This is a long list, but I assure you it started very short, with just two items, and has grown as I feel my ability to create more habits has grown.

My Habit List, from the app Habit List 🙂

1. Rise Early (Daily). I get up every morning at 5 am, seven days a week. This gives me time to reflect, write, read, and just be with my thoughts before the day gets away from me. I’m not a morning person by nature, but I have seen the benefits of rising early, and they are tremendous.
2. Drink two glasses of water first (Daily). I do this before coffee or anything else. I got this tip from this guy, and it helps me to wake up and rehydrate my body from being without water through the night. Usually, by the second glass, I’m feeling awake and great.
3. Catch up on news (Daily). I do this as I’m waking up. By news I mean feedly, which is a combination of news, industry articles and blogs, friends blogs, funny stuff, etc. Doing this helps me to stay on top of what is going on, learn, and gain more ideas for my writing.
4. Read Scripture and Pray (Daily). This is for my spiritual growth and discipline.
5. Write for 20 minutes (5 days per week). If I want to have a good blog, I need to write. And, if I want to become a better speaker, leader, father, husband, person, etc. I need to continually seek to improve myself, which regular writing helps to facilitate. Blogging makes me a better person.
6. Brainstorm 3 post ideas (1 detailed post idea) (5 days per week). This helps to feed the blog. I have a ton of ideas listed in Trello for several blogs.
7. Write a Kid Story (Every 2-3 days). You can read more about this habit here, but I just want to be sure I’m preserving great memories of my kids.
8. Inbox Zero (all) (Every Weekday). I get all of my inboxes to zero each weekday. This is critical for me as it makes sure that nothing important is being missed.
9. 15 meetings this week? (Every Friday). My goal is to have 15 meetings every week for the purpose of networking and growing my company. This habit is a simple reminder of that, and a nice way to track what weeks I have been successful and which weeks I have not.
10. Family devotion (10 minutes) (4 days per week). This is a habit I’m trying to create. I’m just getting started with it.
11. Track personal finances (5 days per week). This habit reminds me to stay on top of where my money is going. I do this through a few apps that I plan to write about soon.
12. Clean (20 minutes minimum) (Daily, taking Sunday’s off). I hate cleaning, but there is a lot to be done in a house of seven. I have found that if I can commit to just 20 minutes each day, it goes a long way towards maintaining things.
13. Declutter (10 minutes minimum) (Every 3-5 days). Historically my desk has looked like a bomb went off. This habit helps me make sure that isn’t the case. I also use it to help me maintain organization within cabinets and other places that can be a “catch all” of junk.
14. Do laundry (4 days a week). A house of seven produces a ton of laundry.
15. Defend the (kitchen, girl’s room, living room, etc.) (Daily). I’m going to have to write more about this later, but the basic idea is that each day I try to defend these rooms from mess, clutter, and general dirtiness.