Developing new daily habits are tricky. With weekly habits, it should be much easier to build.
Building new daily habits, I’ll admit, it does get challenging from time to time, however what if I told you that there are still habits that you can do, that you only need to implement once a week?
This blog post will list 8 habits that will help you with your personal growth, and the bonus part is that you only need to do them weekly.
You don’t have to feel pressured to do daily tracking, or miss a day or two, you only need to allocate one time during the week to do these habits.
Here are the habits to practice weekly:
Eight Habits to Practice Weekly
1. Have a Weekly Reset
If you haven’t read my blog post on how to plan and prepare your week when your week when you’re busy, I highly suggest you do so!
It makes sense to want to become more organized with our days and enhance our overall productivity. That’s why we want to make sure that we save as much time as possible, so that we’re able to produce our best work.
Here are three reasons why you should have a weekly reset, at least once a week:
- You save valuable time each day – this is because whenever you start planning your day, on that same day, you waste valuable time that you could’ve used to just get started into what you need to do.
- Reassurance that everything you need to get done will get completed on time.
- Make less decisions throughout the week – because really, making decisions do take up time. Because we want to save time, it’s better to get it over and done with, so that throughout the week, we don’t waste time on trying to make small decisions.
As you can see in the reasons above, it is all about saving valuable time that we can use to work on things that are more important for us.
So as mentioned in the beginning of this point, check out the blog post which is a step-by-step guide of a weekly reset so that you can start your week off great! You can also check out the weekly reset mini guide and checklist in the Free Resources Library here!
2. Reflect on Your Week
Part of the weekly reset is to reflect on pretty much everything you do. Whether you work, study, or pursue anything else on the side, it is always so beneficial to reflect on:
- what you have done well.
- what you could’ve done better.
And to be honest, it doesn’t even have to take that long! Just answering those two questions would already give you a good idea on what you need to do for the week ahead. Imagine week by week you reflect on what you can do better, and every week you do better…. over and over again. Imagine how much progress you’ll make in a month!
Honestly, it is easy to get caught up with needing to complete everything that we don’t have the time to simply reflect on how we’re actually going.
If you don’t have time in the day to do a reflection, then at least once a week. Doing it as part of a weekly reset is the perfect time to do so. Once you you figure out what had worked and not worked, you can decide at the start of the week, that for the week ahead, you are going to make those changes to ensure that you’ll improve more.
Now, if you want to level up your game with all your long-term goals, here’s another step by step process that you can use:
- List your 3-5 year vision – this really gives you a great idea on the goals that you really want long-term. You may have heard the saying “we overestimate what we can get done in a year, but underestimate what we can get done in five years”. Vision how you want to live your life within the next five years, and form goals based on that.
- Every week (during that weekly reset), list the tasks that contribute most to accomplishing that vision, and tasks that will improve your routines/systems and bring you closer to your vision.
I have personally found this technique very lifechanging especially with all my goals! Doing it for one week didn’t seem like it would make a change, but over time I saw the noticeable difference! I recommend you try it out as well!
RELATED: 8 Personal Development Goals You Need to Start Setting
3. Plan Something You Look Forward To
This could be anything at all, something that you, and only you will enjoy and look forward to.
And it doesn’t have to be expensive, and it doesn’t even have to take up a lot of time… even fifteen minutes is okay. Set it in your calendar like it’s an important event (because it is).
Read the blog post on how to practice the five love languages on yourself to plan some things for yourself that you’ll enjoy. But honestly, you don’t have to worry if you don’t have enough time or money, because this is something that is for you, that will recharge your own batteries, and fill up your tanks.
Just do it. Once a week. Only once a week. I promise you, you have nothing to lose if you do this.
4. A Non-Negotiable Rest Day
This is pretty much, giving yourself permission to be unproductive for the day, at least once a week!
It’s easier said and done to say that not giving yourself a break may do more harm than good. However, think about this:
The work you produce while your under burnout may not be of high quality.
AND low quality work may lead to MORE work in the long-term.
AND more work in the long-term leads to wasting MORE time.
AND more time wasted leads to beating ourselves up.
AND more beating ourselves up leads to MORE stress…
You get it now?
There is absolutely NOTHING wrong with wanting to be productive on a daily basis, but it should not cost you your own mental and physical health. And it should definitely not tear apart your self image.
We all need to understand that no matter how successful someone is, everyone needs a break once in a while. And to be honest, we are all going to relate to that successful person who acknowledges that we are all human and can’t be functioning on productivity all the time.
We are like phone batteries. Our phone does everything for us, including sending messages, calls, social media, photos… so much! But of course, there will come a point when it needs rest through charging… SAME WITH US!
We do everything that we need to do, but there will also come a point when we need to charge our batteries. How you do that is different for everyone, as long as it gives you a chance to rest and recharge your batteries.
BUT don’t ruin that rest by feeling guilty about not being productive.
RELATED: 7 Productivity MistakesThat Lead to Burnout
5. Review Who You’re Following on Social Media
Just like with our own bodies where we need to take care of it, we also need to take care of our minds.
Now, would a person in their right mind eat a food that they know is poison? Of course not. But when it comes to our minds, it’s so much easier to let so much “poison” in and let it influence our lives.
What “poison”for the mind am I talking about? I am talking about the TV shows that you watch that make you feel bad about yourself. The news that you read… but more specifically for this one, the people you follow on social media.
For example, a person listening to a positive podcast may have began thinking uplifting thoughts about the goals that they have and the potential they can reach. Those thoughts will lead to their actions to work on their goals, and have more belief in their full potential.
On the other hand, a person looking at their social media, and see posts of other people with flawless skin, “perfect body”, perfect lives, etc may begin thinking negative thoughts about themselves, especially with comparison. Those thoughts will lead to their actions to compare themselves to others, and have low-self esteem.
Now, it is not always social media, it can be a lot of other things, but if you look at your social media and feel bad each time you see an account’s post, you may need to reconsider whether you should still follow that person.
Every week (or at least once in a while), take the time to see if there are people you should be following. And each week, the more times you review and even unfollow/remove those accounts that don’t add value to you, the more clear your mind will feel.
6. Declutter One Area
I don’t know about anyone else, but for me, cleaning and decluttering my room all at once gives me a headache just thinking about it, especially on how much that will all actually take.
So instead, I started decluttering any space in my room only once a week.
I’ll admit, it’ll look a bit weird in the first few weeks, especially since you may have one area that is cluttered and one area that is cleared. But within a month, you have a cleared out room!
However, if you’re someone that needs the clutter out immediately, then by all means do it all at once!
We can also adapt this habit to just a simple deep clean of your room or space instead, where you of course clear out everything, put everything back where they belong, declutter (of course), mop/vaccum floors, wipe windows… go all out.
And you only have to do it once a week.
RELATED: 7 Ways to Motivate Yourself to Do Self-Care
7. Catch up with ONE friend
I have learned during lockdown last year in COVID-19 the importance of having a support network and talking with friends.
During lockdown, without fail, I had a long phone call (by long, I mean like 2-3 hours long) with at least one friend a week, and let me tell you, even if it’s just one friend, that can make a huge difference to your mental health!
Now, since restrictions have eased, I turned those long phone calls into lunch/coffee/dinner catchups with at least one friend a week. Just like with phone calls, I have felt a difference to my mental health and because it’s in person interaction, it feels so much better!
I honestly 100% reccommend to turn message/text conversations, into real-life conversations whether in person, or through call/video call. It’s easy to think that we are bothering other people, but when was the last time that someone reached out to you and you felt bothered about it?
You never know who’s going to make a difference to your life, and how much of a difference you’ll make to someone else’s life!
8. Have a social media free night
I mean this, but you can live without social media for ONE night.
Just one night.
People years, decades, and centuries back lived without social media, so can we, for one nightonly!
I’ve started doing this just recently when during my non-negotiable rest day, every Saturday night (even in the early afternoon) I would just not go on social media.
I don’t know but there’s something about being disconnected from the world that feels good! I get time to myself, I get time to think, and I don’t even have to worry about anyone else.
RELATED: Ways to Have a Better and Healthy Relationship with Social Media
Ultimate HABIT (that you MUST practice every day!!):
Stay kind to yourself
I’ve mentioned this in several blog posts, that when it comes to implementing anything, especially something that is initially challenging for you, stay kind to yourself.
Remember, we had all grown up differently and the things that we were exposed to and learned were all beyond our control.
It’s already a great first step to have already taken action to make the change by gathering resources that will help you grow. Ultimately, at the end of the day, take it one small step at a time. Because even though doing these weekly habits for two weeks, three weeks, or even four weeks may not show a noticeable difference in the moment, I promise you, that you’ll eventually see the change in the long-run, and you’ll be glad you started when you did, instead of delaying it.
Now go for it, implement these weekly habits, and be patient with yourself 🙂
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Hi, this is Lauren! I’m a law grad from Melbourne, Australia. On laurenbarri.com, I create content on all things personal development, productivity, self-care, and habits! I am super passionate about these topics because of how they helped me in all areas of my life, and I want to share it with others!
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