How to Hack Our Own Habits to Focus on Growth Activities, Even When We're Busy, with Dorie Clark

Mo asks Dorie Clark: How can we hold ourselves accountable, hack our own habits, and keep doing what we know we should be doing?

The first chapter of the Long Game deals with the question of why we seem to be so busy in our modern lives. One of the most critical aspects of senior leaders is setting the strategy for their organization and yet when asked, 96% of senior leaders say they don't have enough time for strategy.
We need to be honest with ourselves and realize that many of the constraints of "busyness" are in many ways things that we put on ourselves. For many of us there is a culture of busyness and research has shown a link to busyness and self-worth.
We can set up structures in our lives to create pre-commitment and push us towards better behavior. Accountability groups are great examples. Creating accountability structures for yourself enables you to make habits of good behavior instead of negative patterns.
High achieving professionals generally hate breaking commitments. Having activities in your calendar that you know you should do will make it much more likely that you will actually follow through.
If you do the hardest but most beneficial activities early in the day, the rest of your work will sort itself out into your schedule. This avoids the chaos of the day from pushing those activities off indefinitely.

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