Implementing important good habits
Your brain is always trying to optimize the paths and build the neurological structures (the brain equivalent of muscles) to allow you to do what you need to survive. So, it looks for repetitive things that you do, and it tries to codify those repetitive tasks into structures that are easier to access, faster to execute, and require less energy.
That is why we are creatures of habit. Most of what you do every day are habits or routines, codified in our brains, so we can access them easily and quickly.
When those structures help you move forward and achieve your goals, we call them good habits. They are good for you. When they prevent you from advancing, hinder your results, slow you down, or cause you harm, they are vices or bad habits.
Either way, your brain loves to just run with them!
There are a few good habits that can really change your life. We have listed a few steps that we think are particularly important for you to create good habits.
Take action
When there is something that you would like to do, get in the habit of taking small actions. Taking action is the hardest thing for us to do, and not taking action is the basis for terrible vices such as procrastination and perfectionism.
Try to take small actions on things you want to do. Do you want to participate in an open source project? That seems big and fearsome. Take a small action such as accessing the page of the project and looking at it for a few minutes. Overcoming the inertia of things you want to do will help you do things even when you do not feel like it.
Write every day
Our brains can be cluttered with thoughts and ideas. To help you think better, your brain needs to externalize. Speaking with someone or writing about it will help you clarify your thinking.
That is why developers need to write code every day, focusing on solving problems. Take a few minutes every day to write about a problem. It can be writing the text for a blog or article, or it could be more technical and be code and pseudocode to explain or test an idea. It can also be just having a conversation. Doing this daily will help you think better and be more articulate.
Create routines to get yourself started
You know when you start a sports activity, your coach will do some exercises that are always the same? Things like stretching and warming up exercises. This primes your body and gets it ready for the activity ahead. Your brain needs that too.
Create small routines to start working. Start coding. Or any important activity that you need to be very sharp and focused.
A startup routine is a series of small steps, such as saying the following to yourself – before I start coding I will do these things:
- Sit down
- Put away things that are not needed
- Drink a glass of water
- Close the email
- Open the IDE
Try to repeat the same steps, with purpose, every time you start coding. It will prime your brain and get it ready to focus on the task at hand.
Plan your week
We live in a world that is full of distractions and we combat information overload coming from all aspects of our lives. We are busy and it becomes difficult and overwhelming to achieve the things that matter to us. If we focus on the things that are most important to us and that we want to accomplish, we not only gain focus but we also become happier and more productive. This is the idea behind the Three Big Rocks concept. It is a concept that can help us to prioritize our time.
The Three Big Rocks concept is mentioned by Stephen Covey in his book, The Seven Habits of Highly Productive People, which can be found on Amazon at https://www.amazon.com/dp/0743269519/ref=olp-opf-redir?aod=1<.
In this book, there is a time management expert giving a seminar to a roomful of people. He provides a demonstration of this concept by taking a mason jar and putting large rocks into the jar and asking the audience whether or not the jar is full. The attendees indicate that the jar does appear to be full. The speaker then adds smaller rocks into the jar, fitting them in between the large rocks, and turns again to the audience to ask whether the jar is full. The audience is not sure which way to answer at this point, so he adds some sand to the jar to fill in even more of the space between the large rocks and the pebbles. While pausing and asking the audience again to confirm whether the jar is full, he then pours water into the jar until it is at the point of overflowing. The speaker then asks what the objective of this exercise is. Some people may answer that no matter how busy or full your schedule may be, there is always room to put more things into your schedule; however, the point of the Three Big Rocks example is that if you don’t put the big rocks in first, you will never get them in at all.
This is a simplification of the concept and there is much more that you could learn and apply, but this gives you an overview of the main idea behind the term “three big rocks.” To implement this concept, at the start of the week, make sure you decide on your three big rocks for the week. They are the three most important tasks you have for the week, the ones where, if you complete them, you will feel that your week was worth it.
Schedule time to do them. To choose the three big rocks, look at your long-term goals, and make sure you choose the things that move you in the right direction.
Deploy habits
Those are just a few examples you can implement. To help you deploy those habits in your life, remember to start small. Your brain will resist any substantial changes.
Habits are implanted faster if you succeed than if you fail. So, it is better to create a writing habit by writing for 5 minutes every day and succeeding every day than trying to start writing for 1 hour a day and failing after a few tries.
Also, daily habits are easier to implement because they become ingrained faster. To implement a habit, experts say you need around 66 repetitions to create new pathways in the brain. That amounts to 3 to 4 weeks if you do 2 or 3 repetitions a day. So, it is better to do something you can repeat every day, multiple times a day, depending on the habit. That is another reason why you should focus on starting small.
Other techniques you can use to help you keep the motivation to implement powerful habits include doing things together with friends in a community (it increases your commitment) and organizing your day or your habit to be easier for you to do than for you not to do (making it easier for you to take action).
Building small habits or routines will help you stay focused and consistent and will lay the groundwork for you to advance fast in your career.
Heather interjects here, as an enthusiastic learner who enjoys having a variety of responsibilities, “I have found joy in being able to consistently bring new aspects and skills into my life and career by developing habits that set me up to be successful.”
As the senior director and chairperson of the JCP program, in her role, Heather is responsible for the leadership of the community and chairing the JCP Executive Committee. She has led and participated in several initiatives with the community (including JUGs) as part of her role, such as JCP.next, Adopt a JSR, Hack Days, and Java in Education, and is an internationally renowned public speaker at software development events all over the world.
She says, the work that I do to engage the Java developer community on a global basis is broad and vast – it could become overwhelming to think about all of the areas where I could focus. I have found that by incorporating habits to focus my time, it becomes energizing and exciting to always be evolving and learning. In order to establish consistency and focus to accomplish great things in the community, I have incorporated certain habits that are part of my routine. For example, every Sunday, I review my calendar for the week and block out time for my priorities for the week. I also identify those priorities and set aside time to prepare for the most important meetings of my week. I then identify a list of tasks that should be accomplished during the week. My week also includes time for creation, learning, and networking. I have set habits that allow me to build these activities into my week. For instance, I rise early and take time early in my day to focus on creation or writing, and I plan most of my meetings following that time, in my mid-morning hours. I incorporate some form of exercise in the middle of my day, and my afternoons are for doing tasks on my list. I also try to leave Fridays open for new initiatives or projects that I might be working on, as well as learning and networking. Setting up my habits to include these areas that I have identified as priorities for me has allowed me to grow and expand my career and my areas of influence over time.
Tips for learning new skills
Assess and focus. You need to identify the skills or knowledge you are missing – be as specific and focused as possible to narrow down the area to learn. Look for skills and knowledge you need to learn right now.
Study and review the skills to build and deploy your habits. Have a plan and stick to it. Look for ways to celebrate and reward your success along the way. Share and communicate those wins to other people.
Get feedback and check your progress. Validate that you are on the identified path. Adjust your learning process and plan as necessary. Ask for feedback from others to check your knowledge and learning progress.