Make it easier to follow through on plans, habits and routines

Whether you’ve made plans for your week or if you’re starting new habits and routines, here are some things that can make it easier for you to follow through on your plans:

1 – make sure that the majority of the things on your schedule are important and/or enjoyable to you

If the things on your list don’t feel purposeful or right for you, it makes perfect sense that you don’t want to engage in them.

But – there’s a difference between what just doesn’t fit you and your life, versus what just feel like a bit of a drag in the moment but is still important to you. In those instances, remind yourself of why you want to do those things, what outcome you’ll get from doing them and how that makes you feel. The remaining tips will help with these types of tasks and activities, too.

2 – keep it to a manageable, doable amount

What the excited imaginative part of your brain can imagine that you can get done in a day is not the same as what is possible in reality, which is what makes the other part of the brain overwhelmed.

3 – prep as much as possible

Set yourself up for success, by making it easier to do the thing you wanna do and by making it harder to do the things you wanna do less of.

4 – use reminders

Set reminders on your phone, stick post-it notes everywhere it makes sense, or put items you need or visual trackers in a spot where you will see them.

5 – make it visual, track

Not only do visual trackers remind you yo do the thing, but they also help you see that you’re making progress and sticking to your plans.

This is why I like having checkboxes for my tasks – even if I don’t do a traditional to do list, I have a few checkbox items to do per day and it feels so good!

A little bonus tip: if you are having trouble prioritizing self care activities, you can make them checkbox items, too. This tricks your brain to think that they are just as important as your other tasks (but don’t do this, if this makes it feel like self care becomes another “have to do” – this only works if in general you’re making sure that your to dos are purposeful, like we talked about in point 1.)

6 – prepare a plan B

If you come up with an alternate for your plans up front, you’re not as thrown off if you’re suddenly pressed for time – you’ll know what you can do to honor your plans even if they don’t go exactly as planned.

For example if you usually practice a one hour morning routine, you can plan a 10 minute version to lean on when a busy morning sneaks up.

7 – accountability

Sometimes it’s helpful to be accountable to someone else, whether that’s a family member, a friend, a fellow business owner or creative – or maybe you keep yourself more accountable in a public way, like I do.

Side note –

The idea isn’t to try and do all these things per change or per habit you have. Pick the things that you think will work for you and pick them based on the situation.

For example, there might be some things that you have zero resistance around, that you don’t really need motivation for – but that you just forget. So for those things it’s good to have reminders. But if you’re the type of person who thrives with accountability, get that for yourself. If you’re the type of person who really gets excited to see visual progress, you’re probably gonna love having visual ways to track your progress.

8 – treat it all as an experiment

Instead of judging yourself and focusing on what you messed up, stay curious about why it didn’t work out. See what you can learn – was there something you could’ve done differently, or was it just the circumstances?

Remember that you are allowed to iterate again and again until you find what works for you – and allow yourself to tweak again when the thing that used to work doesn’t work anymore.

And when you get a "miss", remind yourself that as long as you keep trying again, the path for your new thing will keep getting stronger in your brain.

Eventually, it'll be just another habit, routine, pattern – which makes it easier to do.