Its easy to say,
Prioritizing things he wants to do. It’s simple.
Yes, prioritizing things is simple.
The fact is, it takes time and a lot of efforts to get into the habit of doing things accordingly.
How Long it Really Takes to Build a New Habit?
Phillippa Lally is a health psychology researcher at University College London. In a study published in the European Journal of Social Psychology, Lally and her research team decided to figure out just how long it actually takes to form a habit.
The study examined the habits of 96 people over a 12-week period. Each person chose one new habit for the 12 weeks and reported each day on whether or not they did the behavior and how automatic the behavior felt.
Some people chose simple habits like “drinking a bottle of water with lunch.” Others chose more difficult tasks like “running for 15 minutes before dinner.” At the end of the 12 weeks, the researchers analyzed the data to determine how long it took each person to go from starting a new behavior to automatically doing it.
The answer?
On average, it takes more than 2 months before a new behavior becomes automatic — 66 days to be exact. And how long it takes a new habit to form can vary widely depending on the behavior, the person, and the circumstances. In Lally's study, it took anywhere from 18 days to 254 days for people to form a new habit.
In other words, if you want to set your expectations appropriately, the truth is that it will probably take you anywhere from two months to eight months to build a new behavior into your life — not 21 days.
Interestingly, the researchers also found that “missing one opportunity to perform the behavior did not materially affect the habit formation process.” In other words, it doesn’t matter if you mess up every now and then. Building better habits is not an all-or-nothing process.
Thanks for your detailed contribution on habit formation.
Making a list of things he wants to get done according to how important and urgent they are is easy. And it could become a routine, but not a habit. Habits are done automatically, while routines are done frequently but not automatically. He would likely not make a list of his to-do every day.
Routine is a set of habits.
A new routine is something requires thought. It is made up of many habits. So, if you feel stuck in your habits, change your routine.
It requires a lot of energy, especially in the beginning, to create a new routine. But don’t get disheartened, once you build a routine, it becomes an unconscious set of actions that you can rely on.
True.
Routines and habits are both done repeatedly. The only difference is that one is done subconsciously (habit) while the other requires intent. It's why it's hard to break or form a habit. Definitely, some routines can become habits.
which is basically the process of a routine becoming a habit.
There is an answer on Quora with similar ideas to yours and google's algorithm prefers it.
Just as there are different theories about procrastination, there are also different theories about routines and habits.
Whether developing habits is about turning routines to automatic actions - or routines are a set of habits - developing good routines/habits to overcome overwhelm will always be good.
Cheers