How to Start (and Maintain) a Healthy Habit (2026)

This applies not only to the things you need to do, but also to the things you think you want to do. Maybe you think you should learn Spanish, but you haven’t done anything to actually learn Spanish. Admitting that you’re not committed enough to the idea to do the work of learning Spanish can help close this loop. Letting go of that feeling that you should learn Spanish might just be the thing that frees your mind enough that you decide to do it. take up paddleboarding on a whim. The fact is that the new year is not just a time to start something new. This is the time to let go of the things from this past that no longer serve you.

In many ways, it’s the antidote to that ever-popular “Just do it” slogan. Do it implies that you shouldn’t think about it, instead deciding what you really want to do or what you should do. Maybe spend some time remembering why you wanted to do it in the first place, and if those reasons no longer resonate with you, don’t do it do it.

If you like this idea, I highly recommend getting Allen’s book. He explains this idea in much more detail and gives some practical tips for letting go. You can always keep track of these things, in case you decide, years from now, when you’re paddleboarding on the Sea of ​​Cortez, that now you really want to learn Spanish and are willing to do the work.

Don’t forget to live

I admit, my enthusiasm for Getting things done has decreased over the years. Not because the system doesn’t work, but because I’ve found that my life has dramatically improved by doing less, not more. It’s not that I stopped getting things done. It’s that I discovered that a lot of the things I thought I had to do weren’t really my idea; these were ideas I had internalized elsewhere. I didn’t really want to do them, so I didn’t, and then I felt guilty.

While everything I’ve written above is still good advice for starting a healthy habit and maintaining it, it’s worth putting in the time and making sure you know why you want to do what you’re doing. I reread Bertrand Russell’s work Praise of idlenessand this sentence jumped out at me: “Modern man thinks that everything must be done for something else, and never for himself. »