Practice #8: Build Elephant Habits for Ongoing
Projects
We’ve all heard this piece of advice before: “How do you eat an elephant?
One bite at a time.”
The idea is that whenever you’re faced with a large, complex goal, all you
need to do is chip away at it in small chunks.
Unfortunately, many people don’t apply this mindset to their lives. When
they’re forced to tackle large projects, they procrastinate or even avoid
them completely because the tasks seem insurmountable.
You, on the other hand, can take any large project and chip away at it
using what I call elephant habits, which I discussed at length in my book
Habit Stacking: 127 Small Changes to Improve Your Health, Wealth,
and Happiness
.
Elephant habits are designed to overcome the natural resistance we all
feel whenever we’re forced to do a potentially unpleasant, massive
project. We know it must be done, but we avoid starting because
dedicating a few days to it sounds as fun as getting a root canal.
Thankfully, an elephant habit will help you complete a project one bite at
a time.
The goal here is to chip away at a simple but time-consuming project in 5-
to 15-minute daily increments. You can do this with many of the larger
tasks on your to-do list, such as:
decluttering your home;
packing for a move;
organizing your paperwork (e.g., in preparation for tax season);
studying for an exam;
completing a time-consuming homework assignment; or
reading a difficult book.
I use elephant habits whenever I’m faced with something unpleasant.
Rather than building it up in my mind as a horrific ordeal, I overcome
inertia by scheduling a 15-minute daily block where I can chip away at the
project. (Usually, it’s tacked on to my morning routine or part of an
existing habit stack, which we’ll cover in the next step.)
Elephant habits have a similar framework to the mini-habits concept that
we’ve just discussed. When you tell yourself that a task takes “only” five
minutes of your time, it’s easier to convince yourself to get started. And
usually, once you get started, you’ll find yourself doing more of that
activity than you originally planned.
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