By Leo Babauta

In yesterday’s article, I asked you not only to revise your chosen habit and your habit plan, but to start your habit.

If you were able to start today, great job!

If not, don’t worry, just start tomorrow.

Some of you might have forgotten to start the habit today, in which case, let’s talk about creating reminders.

It’s important to have reminders in the beginning of a new habit, and it’s one of the Getting Started habit skills.

Here’s what I recommend:

  1. Create a physical reminder around your trigger. For example, my trigger is “when my coffeemaker is done making coffee in the morning”, and my habit is “stretch for 1 minute” … so I put a note next to my coffeemaker:

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You might have your meditation cushion on top of your laptop, or your writing notebook next to your bed or toothbrush, for example. Make sure you’ll see it when the trigger happens.

  1. Also create phone or calendar reminders. That way, if you miss the physical reminder, you’ll get the phone reminder.

Set up your reminders now, so you don’t forget the habit tomorrow!

ACTION STEPS

Two things:

  1. Set up your physical and digital reminders.
  2. Do your habit again tomorrow (and every day this week).

I’ll have more short articles for you this week about the Getting Started habit skills.