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Welcome back to the Pibytes podcast. Today, I want to share a part of our habits module of our upcoming practical productivity. With Pibytes course, you will learn why habits are king for top performers, the science behind them, and how you can use triggers to instill better habits. Hello, and welcome to the PY Bytes podcast, where we talk about Python career and mindset. We're your hosts. I'm Julian Sequeira. And I am Bob Baldebos. If you're looking to improve your python, your career, and learn the mindset for success, this is the podcast for you. Let's get started. Module four habits. Welcome back, everybody. Another very important topic on productivity. Yep, building good habits is key because you really want to make sure that you set a lot of your progress on autopilot as much as you can. So let's dive in. Yep, and here's a great quote that kind of makes it very explicit. Like, success is the product of daily habits. Not once in a lifetime transformations from James Clear, who wrote atomic habits, doesn't get clearer than that. Yep. So goals are paramount. Habits are king. As much as we hammer on about goals, it's the habits, the systems you put into place that will make you succeed. I mean, you can have a great goal, but if you don't have a structured way of implementing, you're just a thinker, not a doer. Right. Not a pragmatic programmer. Exactly. The things that you do to achieve these goals become so much easier to do when you have the right habits or systems in place. We have this stuff down most of the time, but then bad habits can take over and they kind of sneak in, like missing a workout, a little voice in your head saying, like, it's okay today, you don't have to work out, and then it can totally derail you. So as powerful as good habits are, bad habits can easily sneak in as well. And, you know, we always focus on the bad habits. Right? People tend to do that. And if you think about it, as you just mentioned, Bob, missing a workout, really easy thing to do, and then it's an easy thing to continue to do, and then we don't even realize it. It's been a week before since we did our last workout. The same thing goes with food. You know, it becomes so much of a habit to eat sugar and pour food and whatever else, especially at certain times of the day when you're doing other things that, that, you know, you just instinctively reach for that biscuit or that cookie, whatever it might be. So the key here is that you really have to be aware of your habits and what you're doing and catch yourself in the act if it is a bad one. But the good news is that habits will become easier, even automatic, after as little as two or three weeks. So they're very hard to build up. But once you have the habits, it's just clockwork. Yep. So as I was mentioning, with the bad habits as automatic as they can be, you can take this mentality or this, you know, aspect of being human where we fall into these habits, you can take that and make it work for you. So when you start pushing some good habits into your routine, when you start forcing yourself to do that, you train yourself and becomes easier. And that's the best part. It might be tough for the first two to three weeks, but once you get it in there, it's just, it's unstoppable. It's great. So a bit about the science then, how habits work. So if you read the power of habits by Charles Duhigg, he talks about cues, routines and rewards. You want to take this one? Yeah. So this is really cool to think about because it's a nice little experiment for you to take and apply to what you do throughout the day. And this is about being aware of what you're doing. So, for example, you look for the cue when you have a habit. When there is a habit in play, there is always a cue that triggers that habit. Right. There's a trigger there that makes you kick off a routine. Right. And then by performing that routine or performing that exercise, there is some sort of a reward. Good or bad. There is a reward on the other end. Right. So, Bob, do you have an example of what this might look like? Good or bad habit. Let's go with a good. A good habit. Exercise. What would that look like? Yeah, exercising. There you go. So what would the q be? So. Or maybe work backwards. Right. Like the reward is that good feeling you get from a workout. Right. Good workout, pumped, energized. The routine then is the actual workout. And the cue is, for example, okay, wake up workout is like the last thing I want to do, but I'm going to put on that workout outfit, you know, the clothes. So now I'm already moving my arms, putting on those clothes, and, well, now I'm kind of dressed, and I don't want to go the whole day with my workout clothes on, so I might as well work out. So then I do workout routine and then I get to reward. So that's kind of how a habit starts to form. Yeah. And the tricky part in that scenario is, you know, the first two to three weeks as you're building up to make this automated, rather is the getting up and forcing yourself to put the clothes on, forcing yourself to, you know, say, get up, brush your teeth and everything, but instead of going downstairs and potentially having a huge breakfast, reading the newspaper, having a coffee, chilling out, whatever it is, you go straight to the gym or you get outside, go for a jog, or you go downstairs, do some weights, whatever it is, you force yourself to do that. And that is the difficult part because once you start, you're not going to stop. Once you start your workout, you're going to see it through because you're well into it and you want to get that reward at the end. It's the starting that takes the habit building. So triggers, the good, the bad and the ugly. Hopefully from the science example, it became apparent that habit forming really goes together with triggers. Yeah, this one is something I think we all fall into. Hopefully not us. Pop. Let's just say it's not us. But the notifications, the social apps on your phone. The bad habit is checking your phone every 2 seconds, wasting time on your phone, essentially doing nothing and constantly scrolling doom, scrolling through Twitter, checking your LinkedIn messages, checking your Facebook notifications, whatever it is, right, these are bad habits to fall into. And one of the triggers in these instances is that notification that pops up on your phone and if you have a smartwatch, it pops up on your watch. It's a really frustrating thing that it's hard enough to tear yourself away from the pool of wanting to check the social app, but then to have something constantly nagging at you, it's like having someone sitting in your ear going, hey, have this chocolate biscuit. Hey, have some cake. Hey, come on, have some sugar. You know, it's the same, same sort of thing because they engineered the reward, because it's all about the likes and the retweets and that's your reward. And then the notification is the queue. And then the routine is to spend some more time on those apps, gain some more likes. It's purely designed on the other end. You get the, when you see those, you get that dopamine hit when you see that little red mark and you tap it and you're like, oh, someone messaged me or liked my comment. Yes, it feels good. Yeah, some brilliant psychologists there and it's deeply wired in your brain. Unfortunately, another nice example is eating foods. Like, I think the cue here was getting into the kitchen. Reward is the salivating over chocolate. Right. And the routine is, get that food. Right? So there's your habit. Getting to the kitchen. You start. It's like pavlov, right. And the salivating dog, like when the bell rings. Exactly. Could be the kitchen moment, right? And, you know, I. I still struggle with this one as hard as I push. Like today, just now, before we started doing this, I went downstairs and my instinct was, where's the sugar? Where's the chocolate? Now, thankfully, I don't have any in my fridge or my. In my pantry, but instinct was still there. I'm still trying to shake that habit. So. So let's look at some good ones then as well. Like, I managed to. Not that I don't like reading. I love reading. But obviously there's some discipline required to do some study in the early morning, right? So I made a queue of associating coffee with reading. Like, the coffee is. Well, it's kind of an addiction. But, you know, if you drink two a day, that's fine. But for me, the trigger is, like, coffee ready, and I get that study done. Right. So that's a good habit, I guess. And it's a. That's a good lesson as well, because it shows that you can link something that you already do without fail. That's already a habit. You know, it is a habit to go and grab a coffee first thing in the morning, but linking that to something even better, like, there's nothing wrong with a coffee in the morning. Well, a black coffee in the morning, I'll say, have that black coffee and then grab a book. It's a great pairing. I love that one. Yeah. And one is not on the slide here. I want to mention, we will do the demo later about the streak, but I'm seeing morning on the slide. But doing that daily tip post to social media Adm is just clockwork because I know, like, I keep track of my tips postings and I'm on the street now, so it's an automatic thing in the morning. Post a tip on. On Twitter, you know? Exactly. You don't want to lose it. Yeah. Not a good example. Then you want to take this one. Yeah. So this one is a really effective example because it's something that will trigger you, you know, no matter where you are. So if you happen to be sitting there watching tv in the afternoon, you've been caught out, you're not being productive. But then you

have this daily alarm that happens to go off at, say, 08: 10:52

00 p.m.

09: 10:56

00 p.m. Whatever it is. You might sit there and just be triggered to go and do that. It sounds very simple in concept, but the reality is it's super powerful and we should do things like that because we forget. It's very easy to forget to do things, especially in the evening. And for me, I love this one, because with all the distractions I have, this is an effective mode of getting me to remind myself that it's time to get into the business. It's time to get to work. So setting an alarm at a fixed time, to code something, to code a byte or do a pomodoro on your project, that's something we'll discuss later. But Pomodoro meaning set aside, say, 15 pure minutes of uninterrupted work, you know, so, yeah, setting an alarm, very effective technique. Yeah. And we will deal with the focus in the later module instructions. So then it comes down to hacking the bad traders. Let's give an example each. So my example is the writing of the Python tips book, which we now reach 250 tips. We're growing it to 300. Immense job, have to break it down, chunk it down into digestible pieces. And habits was crucial with that, because only thinking about writing a book of 250 tips like you will put it out like that. That's too big. How can that be done? It's a pyramid kind of endeavor. Right. But building the habit of first thing in the morning, do one, two, three tips every day consistently. Well, after three, four months, we had hundreds of tips ready. So it was really, and I think, as you said, I used an alarm to really dedicate that block of time, cut out all distractions, and deliver two or three tips a day. And, yeah, habits was fundamental in that effort. That's awesome. And cutting out distractions, that included me. Yeah, I had to meet you. 2 hours. Yeah, yeah. Not the other 22. Yeah, that's fine. I forgive you. All right, so with my, my example here was building up an exercise routine. So since having kids, my example here is, since having kids, I stopped exercising. I found it very difficult to find the time. And, you know, it was recently that I figured in the recent, you know, past couple of years, I thought I'd, I really need to take care of my health. And I tried many different ways, and the bad habits kept slipping in. So I would say sleep in. I would choose to sleep in rather than get up and exercise because I was just so tired from the kids. I would get home from work and I would be exhausted, and I would choose that bad habit of just sitting on the couch or even coming and working, you know, at home, rather than going and do something like exercise, that was completely necessary. So there were the bad habits there. And one of the ways around that is not necessarily to continue fighting those bad habits to the point where you're just exhausted and you give up, because maybe those bad habits in, you know, rabbit is here. Maybe those are there for a reason. Maybe exhaustion after work means it's not the right time to be doing exercise for me. So what I did was I found another solution, and this obviously is not going to work for everyone. But my solution was to schedule time during the workday. Now, when I was not at home, I would leave work and go for a walk. And that was my exercise. When I

could be at home during the work day, it was an 11: 14:53

00 start. Every day without fail, I blocked out my calendar. I set the expectation with people, with my stakeholders, and let them know that is my time, that is my sanity time.

And through from 11: 15:08

00 for about 45 minutes, I would be working out. And I had it planned out. So going back to planning. Right, and your goal setting? I had it planned out exactly what I was doing for that day. So I didn't waste time thinking about it. I just went straight in, did what I had to do, got back to work after. That's actually a great point, having that workout defined, because if there's not a clear end and beginning and end of the workout, it's very easy to put it off. Like, then it really seems like a mountain. But if you're going to define, like, I'm going to do these five exercises, this amount of sets, maybe even down to the weights, then, then you have a clear path forward and it's just execution, and there's a finite amount of things you need to do. Same with the tips. Like two or three tips, nothing less, nothing more. It's very tangible. Very. Yeah. Digestible. Exactly. So the, one of the lessons here for everyone is the finding that sweet spot time wise for you is going to really help with hacking some of these triggers. Right. So again, for me, that time happened to be before lunch, because at the end of the workout, I'd build up a hunger and I'd just be go straight and grab, grab some lunch, protein shake, and I'd be ready to work as soon as lunch was done. And for you, Bob, it was first thing in the morning when you're fresh, that's when you know you're at your best and you get it done. Yep. So, yeah. Cool, cool, cool. We hope you enjoyed this snippet of our upcoming course. If you struggle with procrastination, maybe you should check this course out and gain some valuable time back into your schedule. You can find more information using the link below this episode. See you next time. Thanks for listening.