Lessons from Giant Puppy: Habits Grow Quickly

Just like work habits, habits for our now 8 month old, 100+ lb puppy grow quickly.

For our puppy, he had a habit of getting up and wanting to go out at 3:00 a.m. The first time, I thought it's better than cleaning up a mess, so I let him out. Then, he decided that was pretty cool and that he wanted to do that every night. I'm an early bird, waking up just after 5:00 most mornings, but 3:00 is too early so we had to nip that in the bud. Instead, we now have a habit that until my 5:10 alarm goes off, he knows he's not going to go outside unless it's a real emergency.

Same thing goes with work routines. I got in the habit years ago of ending my day by planning the big rocks for the next morning. That way I didn't have to think through priorities while waking up, I could just tackle the most important ones I had set while clear-headed at the end of my workday. The results were immediately evident with more efficient days and weeks.

Before I started planning the next morning's agenda to end my afternoon, I'd start my day setting priorities based on the messages I received overnight which didn't always lead to the most productive days.

Remember, that just like our Great Dane puppy, Nelson Nelson, habits grow faster than you'd expect and can get out of hand if you're not careful!