Megan Rand

Tag: productivity

  • 3 Tools from a Behavioral Analyst To Make Positive Changes in Your Life

    3 Tools from a Behavioral Analyst To Make Positive Changes in Your Life

     

     

    Ever found that you really want to change something in your life, but you just can’t seem to make it happen? Or when you do get around to making a change it just seems so hard that you give up?

     

    In a previous post  I asked a Behavioral Analyst, Courtney, how to overcome resistance to change and she walked us through 5 questions to ask yourself if you are really ready to change. Once you have confirmed you are ready, try out these 3 easy tools to set yourself up for success when trying to implement new habits.

    Enriching your Environment

     

    Enriching your environment is a process of setting your environment up to support you. What is your goal? Pick an aspect of that goal and start to mold your environment around it.

    For Example: Goal – Stop eating processed sugar

    Step 1) Take the ice cream out of the freezer and stop buying more

    In behavioral terms, this is called increasing the response effort.   By removing the ice cream from the house it takes much more effort to get a hit of sugar. Now instead of fighting with yourself the measly 7 steps to get to your freezer, there is much more involved. Is the ice cream worth getting dressed, getting in the car, driving to the ice cream stand, standing in line and ordering an ice cream?

    Step 2) Find a healthy alternative to keep on hand

    Getting used to each change you implement can take anywhere from a week to 3 months. I craved everything that I removed, or changed. So instead of creating an environment of deprivation, keep a healthier version of your favorite treat in the cupboard.

    Step 3) Surround yourself with people who like activities other than pie-eating contests

    Step 4) Read articles and watch documentaries about the effects of sugar to really remind yourself of why you wanted to stop eating it

    Step 5) Find an activity that gives you the same rush of dopamine to replace sugar consumption

    After practicing this for years, I have barely any foods in my house that have added sugar, I have healthy alternatives and I have greens in my fridge. But keep this in mind,

     

    Behavioral Momentum

    Big words, easy concept. You probably already do this many times a day without realizing it.

    What it boils down to: easy-easy-hard

    Start each task, by doing the easy item first and build up your momentum to complete the harder tasks. How often have you put off cleaning the basement because it’s huge and so unpleasant? These daunting tasks can be broken down into small steps in order to get our mind and body in motion without as much resistance.

    For example:

    I am going to clean the house

    First I eat (gotta get my fuel)

    Then I do the dishes (look at me doing chores already – woo!)

    Then I pick up a few things (because hey I’m up, and it will make it easier to vacuum and its easier than deep cleaning)

    Then I get out the mop and clean (go me!)

    Structure your time so that you don’t put the hard things first, that makes your hurdles higher, and it is not the most efficient way to get things done.

     

    Premack Principle

    Stupid name I know! This is also known as “grandma’s rule”.

    Get used to hearing the words “firstà then”

    Make a list of things that you like. This will help you roll through your days, and to make these life changes more tolerable.

    The things that you use don’t have to be “reinforcing” necessarily. When I was in grad school and I hadn’t been able to clean my house in 2 weeks I’d tell myself, “first finish your homework, then do the dishes” (no I’m not insane I hate dishes, but it was a better break from homework, and I was still getting all the things done that I needed to get done).

    You’re entire day can consist of this. My day looks something like this

    First get ready for work – then eat

    First get your stuff together – then get coffee

    First start with annoying emails- then do the behaviors assessment

    First finish your ISP paperwork- then eat lunch

    .. and I talk myself through this all day long.

     

    Now that we have discussed the three tools and you are ready to put them into action, I think this is a good time to talk about positive self-talk. I am in the therapy business, so I am pretty good at talking and I am a behavior analyst, so I know the importance of reinforcement (something that makes a behavior more likely to happen in the future) .

     

    I encourage you to embrace your inner dialogue. To notice the steps that you take, to praise yourself for these steps (Look court look at you! I’m so awesome, that recipe was awful- but I cooked – go me!)

     

    It helps you to create a positive spin on life, makes your good days better, and your bad days – hey I have bad days but I notice when I’m being negative, I allow myself to do so, and I try again tomorrow. Noticing helps a lot.

     

    Guest post by Courtney Buckley

     

  • My Favorite Life Hacks

    My Favorite Life Hacks

     

    There is one thing that I am more obsessed with than health and nutrition. I bet you didn’t think that was possible! Although I have a health blog and am always talking about nutrients, hormones and functional lab work, I absolutely love to research life hacking.

     

    My definition of life hacking is finding the most stress-free and streamlined process for everything that you do during the day. What’s makes you feel the best and operate the most smoothly? What allows you to produce specific focused results without entering a state of stress? What helps you have the time left over in the day to be with the people that you love or take time to refuel with a good book or a jog.

     

    When I work with busy moms, one of the most life and health changing concepts (once actually taken to heart and put into action) is scheduling time for themselves first. It is easy to end up last on the list and sometime this is even worn as a badge for the good mom award.

     

    The problem is that, as the stewardess will gladly remind you, if you don’t put the air mask on yourself first you aren’t going to be much help to your children. A hormonally imbalanced, overtired mom who is constantly battling the kid’s latest cold is not going to be able to bring their best self to their family, their job or their passion.

     

    Here are some of my favorite life hacks.

     

    Schedule time for yourself: I schedule everything that is important to my health. I schedule my exercise first. Having an appointment with a trainer also adds the accountability factor. I schedule time for grocery shopping, time for meal prep and time for cooking. I also schedule time with my family and friends. My hours to work are 9-4 (with the occasional evening call or webinar) and then I am done. I even schedule time for social media, time for clients and time for working on bigger projects that require a block of time to focus.

     

    Technology Blackout: When you are working on a project, turn off your phone or put it in airplane mode. Turn off the ding that notifies you that you have a new friend or a new comment. Pick a time (that is on your schedule!) to use social media or surf the web and give yourself a limit. After that, remove yourself from the addictive drip of social media.

     

    Multitasking: Don’t do it. Enough said. You don’t know how excited I was to finally be reading books and research about how much time we lose in the process of switching from one task to another. I have never been a good multi-tasker and had always seen it as a flaw but now I have a different view.  In The One Thing by Gary Keller (I highly suggest this book if you haven’t read it!) he says that “multitasking is a lie”. He later goes on to explain how we think that we are doing two things at once but that our brain is actually bouncing back and forth between the tasks, “people can actually do two or more things at once, such as walk and talk or chew gum and read a map; but, like computers, what we can’t do is focus on two things at once.  Our attention bounces back and forth.”  And as Steve Uzzell says “multitasking is merely the opportunity to screw up more than one thing at a time.”

     

    Batching: Batch activities together that are similar and do them all at once. If you get emails that you need to answer every 20 minutes save them until the end of the day and answer them all at once. This also applies in relation to food and cooking. When you return from the grocery store, try washing and preparing your vegetables all at once before you put them away. Cook double or triple batches of staples in your house and then keep some in the freezer to easily pull out in a pinch.

     

    Streamlining & Upgrading: I have to thank my old supervisor (well he isn’t actually old at all but you know what I mean) for insisting on constantly improving the process flow of our design work. We were required to take 10-15 minutes at the end of each project to upgrade something for the next time. We used an excel spreadsheet and checklists so that if one engineer made a mistake or learned a lesson we would be sure to pass that knowledge onto the others. When you find yourself doing something more than once it is time to look for a system. How many times have you sent a similar email or make the same grocery list? Create a template that you can pull from and update or personalize as needed.

     

    Everyday I am changing my workflow to see what is most efficient. It is a never-ending process of upgrading and tweaking that I really enjoy. Finding your flow will leave you energized at the end of your day or project instead of depleted. When we feel unorganized and pulled in many directions we are living in a state of dis-ease.

     

    I would love to hear what tools and strategies that you have found work best. Please share them in the comment section!