Ten Daily Habits of Successful People
By Jennifer Taylor In Business, Info Worth SharingPhoto by AbsolutVision on Unsplash
In the words of Gretchen Rubin, “What you do every day matters more than what you do once in a while.” The daily habits that we practice shape our weeks, months, and years, for better or worse. We can learn how to intentionally shape our own lives by studying the habits of successful people. We loved a recent article by Inc. that compiled a list of simple things that nearly two dozen top-performing executives claim help them get ahead in business and life. We picked out our ten favorites to share with you!
1. Be clear about what you need from others
“I’ve spent a lot of time on my own personal development to become a better leader, and one of the tactical but important things that I’ve implemented is to put in writing the expectations of my team. Whether that’s sending an agenda before a meeting, sending a follow up email after a discussion to capture the next steps, or sharing my candid thoughts on the business, I have made a dedicated effort to communicate clearly and put things in writing to help people I interact with each day have a better understanding of what I need from them for our team to be successful. This helps everyone work more effectively, fostering an atmosphere of accountability and collaboration.”
–Jude McColgan, CEO of Localytics, a digital intelligence platform that supports over 400 enterprise customers and handles three billion contextual consumer data points each day
2. Listen intently
“In today’s technology-driven, gadget-enhanced world, we are often together alone. We find ourselves operating remotely, focusing on work and collaborating online. As such, I make a conscious effort to listen intently, ask questions, remember interests and more. The goal is to make each engagement more personal, and to engage in each conversation as if it were the foundation which to build a relationship. This focus on fostering personal connections has enabled me to have strong relationships at work, which yield trust and collaboration. To achieve this, fun needs to be part of the equation. The truth is that laugh therapy needs to be part of our everyday existence, especially at work.”
–Craig Maloney, CEO of Maestro Health, an all-in employee health and benefits company that was recently acquired by AXA for $155 million
3. Manage your email brutally
“Email is a necessary evil so I’ve had to learn to manage them well otherwise too many things would fall between the cracks. In the mornings I recommend responding to anything that’s quick to answer, and for everything else I read the first couple of lines and then leave as unread until you find time to get back to your inbox (my Gmail is set to have them stay at the top in conversation view). Critical messages should be typed out quickly, then if needed you can let them sit in draft form, but try not to overthink things too much and never re-read a message more than once before sending. Everything else can be left unread until you can find a chunk of time to really put your head down and blow through emails one by one to reach a reasonable level of unreads. Lastly, on days where you aren’t able to even look at emails until late at night, do your best to only answer those that are the most critical, and remember sometimes things can wait.”
–Kurt Goodjohn, cofounder and CEO of Dvele, a customizable, pre-fabricated luxury home company which raised $14 million in funding in March 2019
4. Subscribe to daily or weekly newsletters that aggregate content relevant to your industry or goals
“This could be an industry newsletter focused on technology or one that does deep dives in various subjects, like McKinsey and Company’s. This will allow you to get away from day-to-day tasks and elevate your thinking, without having to spend lots of time seeking out this content. What you read might provide inspiration that helps you be a better leader, encourage you to explore a new technology solution, or provide you with an idea from a different industry that might have applicability to your business.”
–Mike Gomes, chief experience officer at Cortland, a multifamily real estate investment, development and management company that is involved with more than 180 apartment communities with over 60,000 homes in the U.S., while also expanding in the build-to-rent market internationally in the U.K.
5. Take time to do what’s right for those around you
“While it’s easy to become distracted by meetings, activities, and deadlines any given day presents, it’s also important to take the time to think. Think about doing the right thing for the people around you. Think about being kind. Think about being present. Think about making a difference for someone else. So often, we rush projects to meet the deadlines or cross them off our to-do list, often at the expense of doing the right thing or quality work. At the end of the day, ask yourself: Did I listen and support the needs of the people who rely on me? Did I help someone to learn and grow? Did I fully engage and support the needs of my team so we could all be successful? Did I serve as a good leader, friend or partner and make a difference by doing the right thing?”
–Dan Knotts, President and CEO of RRD, a global provider of multichannel solutions for marketing and business communications with more than 50,000 clients across 34 countries
6. Live by the calendar
“As part of my preparation for each week, I transfer tasks from my to-do list to my calendar. This means that meetings, errands, events, and specific work tasks each get their own block of time. It helps me to be more efficient in the use of my scheduled and free time, gives me a higher chance of getting things done, and helps me be more accountable to myself and others.”
–Tomide Awe, founder of Olori, a brand that offers high quality handbags which showcase the African cultures, and has served hundreds of customers across the globe, doubling revenue by 100% in the past year
7. Schedule a learning workout
“Like many, I struggled to balance work and health. I felt guilty taking time off in the middle of day to hit the gym because I felt I should be working. If I worked through to the end of the day, I often was too tired to work out. Then, I found a great way out of this dilemma: the learning workout. I select a book or podcast I should be reading for work, queue it up on my phone, then listen to it at the gym or while on a run. This gives me an hour of uninterrupted reading time (which I rarely get sitting at the office), has tripled the number of books I read a year, and keeps me in shape.”
–Kaihan Krippendorff, author of “Driving Innovation from Within: A Guide for Internal Entrepreneurs” and founder of Outthinker, a growth strategy firm which has generated over $2.5 billion in new annual revenue for clients to date
8. Start with your top priority for the day
“I spend the first part of my working day tackling my top priority. It’s when my energy has been restored through a good night’s sleep and I’m able to give the work my best self. I think most of us would agree that as the day goes on the risk of being pulled into other people’s priorities or being distracted by intervening events only increases. Starting the day with what matters to you is how you give it your best self and mitigate the risk of losing the opportunity to focus on it.”
–Jamie Brown Hantman, author of “Heels in the Arena: Living Purple In a Red/Blue Town” and former senior White House and DOJ official
9. Turn off your notifications
“Humans love being socially included and modern technology has found a way to tug at our sleeve to alert us to every moment of social interaction. Not only do we tell ourselves that we feel happier to be kept updated in the moment, but we also judge our own bosses on how quickly they respond to our own messages. But when we take a breather from this, it seems to have a disproportionately refreshing effect on us. Researchers from Telefonica and Carnegie Mellon University set out to see the impact on people’s well-being of them turning their phone notifications off for a week. They couldn’t get anywhere near enough people to participate. Cowed by the rejections, they revised their ambitions and asked people to turn notifications off for a day. The participants reported feeling they had clearer thoughts, and their concentration improved as their itchy need to check devices subsided. The researchers reported that — remarkably — half of those who had turned off notifications for a single day still hadn’t returned to their old alerts two years later.”
–Bruce Daisley, VP of Europe, the Middle East and Africa for Twitter and author of “Eat Sleep Work Repeat: 30 Hacks for Bringing Joy to Your Job”
10. Learn something every day and write it down
“With knowledge so readily available, it now comes down to a willingness and dedication to learn. Today, we all must be curious and open to learning something new every day. Learning to not block, judge, reject and automatically categorize ideas and beliefs, allows for openness that may lead you to some of the best opportunities of your life. By learning something new every day and writing down your thoughts, you will create a deeper understanding of the world and the different types of unique people who inhabit it.”
–Nikolaus Kimla, CEO of CRM platform Pipeliner Sales, which has thousands of customers in 34 countries and author of over 50 e-books
Original Article: https://www.inc.com/christina-desmarais/22-simple-daily-habits-that-separate-high-achievers-from-everyone-else.html?icid=readmoretext_ab