James Clear who wrote the incredible book, Atomic Habits, shares a similar philosophy to me on habit change. Willpower only goes so far, so setting up your environment is vital. One of my favorite suggestions is a commitment device. You set up your environment so that you are forced to do what you want. His example—plug your router into an outlet with a timer that turns it off at a set time every night. Yes, you could go plug it in somewhere else, but what a pain. Most o

In James Clear's incredible book, Atomic Habits, he tells the story of the British Cycling team turning around a century of mediocrity into a decade of domination, including setting seven world records in a single Olympics. Their strategy? The aggregation of marginal gains. They broke down every aspect of riding a bike and strive to improve it by 1 percent. They redesigned bike seats and wore electrically heated shorts. The team even changed how they washed their hands to pre

When I lived in NYC, I meditated every day. I started with 5-minutes, but by the end, was up to twenty. Then I moved to DC a year ago and missed more days than not. Until a month ago. Now it's back as a daily habit. What changed? I found the right slot. I currently do it before I even get out of bed. Here's what's great about this slot: It's clear. Every morning before I get out of bed, I will meditate. It's consistent: I have to get out of bed every day, no matter where I am

I'll be honest. I've been struggling with my nutrition. I can list off the excuses (back pain, gut issues, stress), but in reality, I have just let things slip. I'm a Questioner, so external accountability doesn't help me. I need to internalize to make certain habits stick. So for all you questioners out there, here's a tip: Write your own rules. Below are mine for nutrition: No eating and drinking alcohol at the same time. Stretch things out by decoupling these. No eating o

The 5-minute favor was coined by Adam Rifkin, who supposedly has more connections on LinkedIn to the most influential people in the world than anyone else. The concept is simple. You should be willing to do something that will take 5 minutes or less for anybody. Givers get good karma. It also just feels great. So, I'm putting it out there to you. What 5-minute favors do you need? I'll try to help! #career #gratitude #habits

The tendency for women to over-apologize starts when we are kids, so it's not surprising that it's a hard habit to break. We need constant in-the-moment feedback to change. Enter the Gmail plug-in, Just Not Sorry, which warns you when you use words or phrases that undermine your message, such as: I think Sorry Just Does that make sense? Actually Try it today.  I'm no expert, but I think this might actually cause real change. #career #habits #productrecommendations #selfawaren

I'm a big fan of breaks during the workday. Breaks are proven to make you more productive and produce higher quality work. But, so often since I work from home, break equals a snack. I'll eat out of boredom or routine. Google DC had a brilliant solution: setting up a puzzle in their kitchen. The puzzle became the proverbial water cooler of the office, giving people something to do besides grab a free bag of Popchips. I've started doing the same, setting up a puzzle to work on

When I made calls to get voters out to vote, the call script wanted us to ask the exact details about people's voting plans. When will you go? How will you get there? The training guide said these specifics drastically increased turnout. Research shows this, too. If you make an exact plan for when you will make a new habit you want to create, you are almost three times as likely to do it. Apply this to your life. Tonight, plan precisely when and where you will do that new hab

The past two weeks had me slipping into some old bad habits. During Chloe's sickness, I caught up with late night working sessions. I was anxious and waking for the day at 4 AM. Once she got better, I didn't stop. I felt like I was on a train of work, work, work, and I didn't know how to jump off. To make things worse, my inner critic kept saying, "How can you help other moms when you can't even help yourself?" Jeez. Dark, right? The good news is that the simplest of acts set