Habits: Implementation Lag or It takes 1 day for every 1 minute of daily habit change

That’s it! For every 1 minute of daily habit to be developed, it takes about a day.

After years of working on mastering habits and life change, I’ve found it takes 1 day for every 1 minute of habit development.

For example, if you want to practice guitar (or spanish, or whatever) for 30 minutes a day. It will take about 30 days to embed this habit into your life. (This is a rough estimate, and the key is frequency!)

Two Key Points: First off, the key to anything is to start by eliminating (thanks Marie Kondo!). So, start by removing bad habits: wasting time on anti-social media, stop polluting your mind with TV, etc.

Second off, the good news here is that the key is starting small, and that you can embed a habit in as little as one day!

For example, pick up the guitar and strum it, or touch it, or look at it in your hands, feel the odd weight of it, see its beauty, or hear its tones. You’re done for your first day of creating a new habit! Remember, it’s always easier to make a habit bigger than to start one, so start small and eventually it will grow to what you want it to be!

This rule of thumb is super useful for planning, starting, and setting expectations with habits.

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