Oh thats f***ing cute

I Woke Up Early Today

I really did…no snooze nothing.

The epiphany came after I read the chapter on sleep in the book “Small Move, Big Change: Using Micro-resolutions to Transform Your Life Permanently”.

I highly recommend reading it because it has some great pieces of wisdom that can be used right away.

What is a Micro-resolution

A micro-resolution is a small promise you make to yourself to do a tiny task on a daily basis. There is zero-tolerance for missing this task as it is so easy to do that you have no excuse to miss it.

Let me give you an example.

I have a gym in my building, so a resolution I could make to myself would be to simply make it to the gym every morning and do 10 bicep curls.

Here’s why this is so genius:

1. It’s super easy to do — The gym is in my building, all I have to do is go downstairs. There really is no excuse and if I miss it, I have to look myself in the mirror and be honest with my failure.
2. It starts a chain reaction — When I’m at the gym, there’s no way I’m only doing 10 bicep curls. I’ve passed the hardest part, just getting my ass to the gym.

BJ Fogg, a researcher at Stanford University’s Persuasion Technology Lab, where his team has developed their own model for behaviour change called the “Fogg Behaviour Model”.

A behaviour occurs when three things happen at the same time:

1. Motivation — we must be motivated to do it.
2. Ability — we must have the ability to do it.
3. Trigger — a trigger must be activated to start the process

Looking at the graph, anything above the activation threshold gets done. So we can imagine three scenarios:

1. High motivation — Hard Task: If we are highly motivated, say on January 1st and we’ve made our new years resolutions, we can do almost anything for a short period of time.
2. Low motivation — Easy Task: If we have low motivation, say after Thanksgiving dinner and are told to do 2 pushups. It’s still possible because the task is so easy.
3. Low motivation — Hard Task: It’s just not happening.

Since we can never DEPEND on our own motivation, the key is to select easy tasks that WILL be done under ANY level of motivation (tweet this)

Doing these tiny habits over and over without missing a beat builds momentum and lets us tackle progressively harder problems.

BJ Fogg also offers a 5-day course on creating your first automatic habit. It’s a free email course which shouldn’t be missed.

Join the free email course

So? What is the Sleep Hack

It’s about 10pm at my place and I’m just about to plop down in front of the TV to get my nightly fix of Homeland.

I don’t know about you but 30–40 minutes into watching TV I start to fall asleep on my couch.

When I wake up I want to head to bed and just pass out but I know I have to go through my nightly ritual to get ready for bed.

So what do I do?

You guessed it — NOTHING — I just continue sleeping.

When I finally get up and brush my teeth, etc. after I’m done I’m wide awake from the nap and can’t sleep!

So now I do two things BEFORE I sit down to watch TV:

1. Plug my phone into the charger for the next day
2. Brush my teeth and prepare for bed

This may seem like a tiny change but the impact is IMMENSE.

Now there are no breaks in my sleep cycle and I can fall asleep much easier.

How many of these scenarios do you have in your life? Where a tiny change could make a huge impact.

Start with BJ’s course and then tweet at me:

Yo Imran, that sh*t worked. Thanks man and great stache

Oh P.S. — I’m doing Movember

Imran Esmail writes at Escape Your Desk Job where through stories and case studies he shares methods you can use to cut out distractions, implement sustainable habits and ultimately build the life you’ve always wanted.

If you are looking for hacks to be more productive, join his free newsletter.