Here are 5 five-minute habits that will significantly improve your life. Over time, you’ll see the impact of implementing these habits. These five-minute habits will increase your knowledge, focus, joy, productivity, and self-awareness.
- Daily news
- Deep focus
- Presence
- Pareto planning
- Daily reflections
Habits are important because they can make success inevitable. Consistent actions become habits and habits shape your identity. Success is a side effect of consistent action.
When you are reading, consider how these habits will help you.
1. Read the News Daily
There are two primary reasons why reading relevant news daily helps you. It’s even better if you keep up with industry-specific news. The first reason is that you can leverage information about current events at work to make informed decisions.
The second reason is it’s a good source for learning. When you’re reading about decisions companies (or politicians, advertisers, or sources related to your industry) make, you can begin to think about the strategy behind it.
This will position you to better understand strategies and tactics, which will ultimately help you successfully execute your own strategies in the future.
2. Focus deeply in 30-minute intervals
People are bad multitaskers. Scientific research supports this and actually demonstrated those who multitask the most often are actually the worst at it. So if multitasking doesn’t lead to increased productivity, what does?
People are most productive when they completely focus on one task at a time. My favorite method for doing this is in 30 minute intervals.
It works by completely focusing on the task at hand for 25 minutes. You avoid distractions like your phone or emails. Then after your 25 minutes is up, you take a 5 minute break.
This will increase your productivity because every time you pause your task to check your phone, your brain has to reprocess the initial task. Your brain cannot focus on two tasks simultaneously. Instead, it rapidly alternates focus between the two tasks.
If you keep switching tasks too often, your brain cannot reach a place of deep focus on the work. Researchers tested this concept with Microsoft employees, and it took them 15 minutes on average to reach a deep focus after switching to a new task.
Deep focus not only helps you get more done faster, it also helps you produce higher quality work.
3. Make a conscious effort to be present
There are many reasons why it’s a challenge to get into the deep focus mentioned above. One potential reason is that we don’t enjoy doing the task at hand. This third habit can help shift that mindset, let me explain.
The only moment that ever exists is now. The way you perceive the past and future is not reality.
The past only exists when we recall memories, now, in the present moment. The future doesn’t occur as we imagine it. It is only reality when we are imagining it in the present moment.
Anytime your focus is on the past or the future, you’re not focused on the present moment.
If you can intentionally focus on the present moment instead, you can find a deeper sense of peace and joy.
This is a difficult concept, so I highly recommend the book The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle. It’s a book about entirely about this concept, presence. If I could only recommend one book on any topic, this would be it.
4. Plan with the Pareto rule
The Pareto rule is that 80% of the results come from 20% of the work. That means each day you should prioritize the tasks that will result in the most progress towards your goal.
For example, let’s say you’re taking 5 classes and you’re doing well in all but one. Your goal is to get a semester GPA of a 3.8.
If you have small assignments in the classes you’re doing well in and a big exam in the final class, you would want to prioritize studying for the exam over the assignments.
Even though the exam only accounts for 20% of the tasks, it accounts for 80% of the results.
5. Reflect on each day
The more self-aware you are, the easier it will be for you to live your best life. One method I like to use is daily reflection. I note the best part of my day, the worst part, and one thing I learned.
I’ve been doing this reflection every day for over a year, and the true value comes from identifying common themes.
For example, I repeatedly noted the best parts of my days often involved going outside or talking to a friend. It helped me make an effort to make time to do those things more often.
Conversely, I often noted that long virtual meetings and Zoom classes drain my energy. To help with that, I started taking short breaks during class to get up and walk around.
Doing reflections can help you determine what is adding value to your life and what isn’t. This information will help you live the life you most desire.
Next Steps
How would these 5-minute habits help you? Would they help a friend too?
If so, share this post with your friends!
