Patent Attorney and Founder
Hi, I’m J.D. Houvener, and welcome to the Bold Today show where you, the entrepreneur, business owner, or inventor get your daily inspiration on how to make the world a better place. It’s so nice to be here; this place is awesome. I mean, this is where you get to see the ideas come to reality.
Okay, so to the challenge of the day, alright. Yesterday we had you do your challenge, your 10-minute challenge, and so today I want to encourage you to think about routines and habits. Since you’ve accomplished this goal, I hope you did—if you didn’t, you better do it—today is making that 10 minutes a habit, making a routine, something you do maybe once a day. Even if you want to do more than once a day, try to get that ten-minute block, maybe the same time every day, find a day, and maybe in the morning, the time of day that works well for you. By making a habit and a routine of this concentrated dedicated effort, you’re gonna see massive improvements in your productivity and what you want to do with your project or home life or even socially, whatever it is you’re trying to improve.
So today’s challenge is to make a habit out of the 10-minute productivity and make sure you just disregard any distractions. Put the phone on silent or turn it off, make sure you’re not in front of a computer, make sure all distractions are at bay, maybe even warn people like your wife or kids, make sure they’re not gonna bombard you. Ten minutes might seem like a long time, and it is if you concentrate your effort in a distraction-free environment.
Instead of sharing with you a new patent or a new product, I want to give you a list which kind of leapfrogs from the last thing we just discussed about habits. So, I pulled a list from Entrepreneur Magazine—the 25 best habits to have. I’m gonna read you the list:
- Wake up early
- Be appreciative
- Smile more
- Eat a healthy breakfast
- Drink water with lemon
- Size walk 10k steps
- Eat vitamins
- Have good time management
- Daily goal-setting
- Get inspired
- Save and invest
- Budget and track expenses
- Learn something new
- Organize
- Contribute to others
- Network
- Breakthrough fears
- Take action
- Follow a plan
- Have positive thinking
- Enjoy me time
- Read
- Get ample rest
These are some of the really good examples of ways that you could spend ten minutes of thinking or work time on one specific thing. Maybe it’s 10 minutes on making goals, setting your to-do list for the day; you’re gonna be able to take advantage of that, and it’s gonna leapfrog.
I want to share with you a historical quote relevant to habits and routines, and I’ve got one here from the late Mahatma Gandhi: “Your beliefs become your thoughts, your thoughts become your words, your words become your actions, your actions become your habits, your habits become your values, and your values become your destiny.” So, I encourage you, the entrepreneur, to think about just one of these types of habits. We listed all 25; don’t get carried away, just pick one so you can get that implemented. And the next best step when you start implementing and starting a new habit, we know it’s not easy, right? Find an accountability partner; someone’s gonna hold you accountable. It could be a friend, a wife, a husband, a good friend; someone’s gonna make sure that you’re holding to that new habit you’ve committed to.
So again, thanks for listening and being a part of the Bold Today show. I’m your host J.D. Houvener; be bold today.