When I was first started studying these methodologies I became very active on several of the Getting Things Done online forums and even started one of the popular discussion groups. I met a lot of wonderful people in those groups and I’ve stayed in touch with some of them over the years even though I’m no longer very active in those groups. One of those friends is Augusto Pinaud.

In November August emailed me and asked me if I would like to partipate in an an interview for his @Context Podcast. I thought it would be wonderful to actually talk with Augusto after emailing him for 6 years, so I agreed.

So, in mid-December I had a wonderful conversation with Augusto and his podcast partner Tara Robinson. They recorded it and it is now available–Episode Nine: Ricky Spears. So, if you’ve been wondering about my productivity system, how I work now, or my history with Getting Things Done, listen to the podcast. I had a wonderfully fun time talking with them and I hope you have just as much fun listening. If you have any questions, feel free to post a comment below!

My History in the Boy Scouts of America and Activity in the Merit Badge Program

I was very involved in the Boy Scouts of America program from 7th grade through 12th grade (12 to 18 years old). The path to Eagle Scout played a major role in shaping me and preparing me for my future.

One of the things I liked most about scouting was the merit badge program. I think there were 105 available merit badges at the time. I earned 25 merit badges in all including 11 that were required for Eagle. To illustrate the broad range of areas in which merit badges are available, my merit badge sash included badges for: Basketry; Model Design and Building; Firemanship; Rowing; First Aid; Camping; Fishing; Scholarship; Emergency Preparedness; Communications; and Citizenship in the Community, Nation, and World. I believe this broad scope of learning opportunities helped me to develop an interest in all sorts of learning and made me a very well-rounded person by the time I turned 18 years old.

How Does the Boy Scout Merit Badge Program Work?

There are seven ranks in Boy Scouts: Scout, Tenderfoot, Second Class, First Class, Star, Life, and Eagle. Although any scout may earn any merit badges he wants at any time, a certain number of merit badges are required for the Star, Life, and Eagle awards. This provides motivation to earn them.

Each merit badge has a set of requirements. The requirements for each badge vary greatly but are designed to allow the scout to develop and demonstrate at least a general working knowledge in the area. Merit badges are by no means an indication that the scout is an expert in the area, but rather that he has done enough research and application to have an understanding or working knowledge in the area. For a complete list of merit badges and requirements, visit MeritBadge.org.

Once a scout decides he wants to earn a badge in a particular area he would tell his Scoutmaster. The Scoutmaster would then help the scout find a qualified person to serve as a Merit Badge Counselor to help the scout with achieving the requirements for the award. While the scout would do much of the research and work on his own, he still had to meet with the counselor to demonstrate his knowledge and skill.

After the scout completed the requirements to the satisfaction of his counselor, the merit badge would be presented at a Court of Honor–a ceremony to honro scouting achievements. The scout would then add the badge to his merit badge sash–part of his uniform that showed off his accomplishments to his fellow scouts.

Merit Badges Get Replaced in Adult Life

After scouting, there really isn’t a close replacement for merit badges. Sure, we can: read books; take classes; attend seminars; join organizations; earn certifications, licenses, and degrees; and learn as we generally experience life. However, there is nothing for adults that comes close to the fun, excitement, and stress-free opportunity available in the Boy Scout merit badge program.

What I’d Like to See In An Adult Merit Badge Program

• Available Badges – While the Boy Scout program currently only offers 121 different merit badges, I think there could be an unlimited number of merit badges in an Adult program. Here are a few ideas just off the top of my head: Cooking, Barbecuing, Lawncare, Automotive Maintenance, Microsoft Word, Coin Collecting, Podcasting, GTD–Getting Things Done, Online Marketing, Travel, Guitar Playing, Dog Ownership, Astronomy, Local Politics, Cake Decorating, Blogging, Personal Finance, Child Rearing, etc…
• The Requirements – Just as in the Boy Scouts, the requirements shouldn’t be designed to make someone an expert, but rather to ensure that the learner has a good working knowledge in the area. I believe that almost anyone who is an expert in a particular area will likely be quite capable of writing requirements. There should be some sort of review process, possibly by other experts in the field, to insure that there is some consensus that the requirements meet the working-knowledge objective and are also written in a consistent manner and style. The requirements also need to be reviewed regularly to ensure that they keep up with current technologies and social trends.
• Counselors – Unless things have changed in the last 25 years, there are no set requirements for merit badge counselors. When I earned my Computers merit badge, my Algebra teacher was my counselor. When I earned my Leatherwork merit badge, a fellow scout with leatherworking knowledge was my counselor. For many of them, I simply presented my work and demonstrated my skill to one of my scout leaders. I think that in an Adult Merit Badge program, adults should be able to seek out a counselor they feel will be able to properly assist them and answer their questions.
• The Award – The adult merit badge counselor would indicate that a particular candidate had completed all the necessary requirements for a particular award. The learner would receive some sort of certificate or other token to indicate he or she had completed the requirements. Perhaps even an icon or logo that could be put on their own web site.

How Would an Adult Merit Badge Program Be Managed and Administered?

Perhaps the reason nothing like this has been done before is because there is no system to manage and administer such a program. The Boy Scouts of America has a massive network of hundreds of thousands of volunteers to administer the program on a one-on-one level. While many people will serve in this capacity to prepare young people for their future, I’m doubtful that many adults would be likely to volunteer their time to make a similar program successful for other adults.

In this day of technology and the Internet, it might not be a huge task to create a web-based program through which it could be managed and administered. It could be a social networking type of site similar to LinkedIn, FaceBook, and MySpace. Each participant would have their own personal page to display their awards, locate others with similar interests, and to generally form community around their demonstrated skills and knowledge.

Talk with Me People!

So, what do you think? Do you think Merit Badges for Adults would be a good idea? What ideas do you have to execute the idea? How would you see something like this affecting your life? Let me know in the comments!

I joined Toastmasters to improve my public speaking skills, and I’ve really learned a lot. To earn this award, I gave 10 different speeches. I could choose my own topics and wrote my own speeches, but each speech had a different goal such as helping me to organize my speeches, include vocal variety, use body language, utilize visual aids, and inspire my audience. I’ve been speaking in some capacity for years, but these exercises have taken my speaking to a whole new level.

I’ve really enjoyed working with all the other club members too. In fact, since I work from home most of the time, the club members kind of fill the social role in my life that my co-workers used to when I went into the office every day.

My next goal is the Advanced Communicator Bronze award. For this award, I got to choose two manuals from the Advanced Communicator series of manuals. Each of these manuals has five speeches for me to complete. The manuals I chose are Technical Presentations and Interpretive Reading. I chose Technical Presentations because I’m a computer instructor and I’m giving technical presentations all the time, so I think these skills will help me on my job. I chose the Interpretive Reading manual just because it seemed like fun; it’s also something none of my fellow Toastmasters have done yet and I hope it will provide some extra variety for our members as they listen to my speeches from that manual.

If you are looking for a great way to improve your public speaking or leadership skills, I can highly recommend Toastmasters.  If you live in the Thomasville, NC area and are available for an hour at noon-time every Monday, I’d like to invite you to our Toastmasters Club in Thomasville. We meet for one hour every Monday at noon at the Thomasville Public Library. Just email me or leave a comment if you need more information.

I usually endeavor to choose my words very carefully and mean exactly what I say—nothing more and nothing less. If I congratulate a coworker on a promotion and tell them they deserve it then they know that I really think they deserve it. If I criticize an idea then I’m criticizing the idea, not the person that presented the idea. I’m not perfect with this, but I think that I generally do a good job with it.

Along with this, I realized that I use some words and phrases because they convey something other than what I really think and feel inside. I wanted to remove these phrases from my vocabulary:

I’ll Try to: This is perhaps one of the most meaningless phrases in the English language. I like the way Yoda said it in Return of the Jedi, “Do, or do not. There is no try.” Often, someone will ask us to attend an activity that we don’t want to attend so we say, “I’ll try to make it.” We say, “I’m trying to lose weight.” We say, “I’m trying to do better.” Usually, the truth is that we aren’t really trying–at least, we aren’t trying to succeed in the areas we say we are trying, but rather we are trying to fail. If we were to be honest, we would more often say, “I’ll fail to make it”,”I’m failing to lose weight”, and “I’m failing to do better.”

Jesus taught us to, “Let your Yay be Yay and your nay be nay.” But because we are afraid of commitment we use loose and indecisive phrase like, “I’ll try”. At best, we should instead say, “I might” which gives no impression of commitment at all. If we don’t intend to do the activity at all, even “I might” is an outright lie and should be avoided. In the Bible Belt we often say, “Lord willing” as our cop out. Just because we don’t do something that we said we would do doesn’t mean that it wasn’t the Lord’s will–we shouldn’t blame our lack of integrity on Him.

We usually use this phrase to avoid making someone else feel bad, but ultimately we damage our own integrity in that other person’s eyes. We don’t want to fail in their eyes. We’re afraid to fail because we don’t understand what failure is or what failure means. We learn from failure. It’s a positive thing. Somewhere along the line failure has developed a negative connotation and we’ve become afraid of it. We fear what people will think if we say we are going to do something and then don’t reach our goal, so we use “try” as a wishy washy way to get out of it.

I’m Busy: What does this mean? Isn’t every one I know “busy”? The drunk on the bar stool is “busy” getting drunk; a housewife says she is “busy” watching television. Why do I think that anyone else cares that I’ve been busy. If someone asks me how I’ve been, wouldn’t it be better to say, “I’ve been doing …”? If someone asks me to do something and my initial response would be to say, “I’m too busy”, wouldn’t it be better to let the other person know what is more important to me than their request? This leads me to my next phrase.

I Don’t Have Time: Comedian Steven Wright used to say that “Everything is walking distance if you’ve got the time.” Saying that we don’t have time is just a socially acceptable way of telling people that their needs are not a priority for us. If someone asks me to fix their computer it’s a lie for me to tell them that I don’t have time. I have 168 hours a week that I could devote entirely to fixing their computer. The truth is that fixing their computer just isn’t a priority for me.

I have worked especially hard on eliminating this phrase over the past two years, and to my amazement, people seem to greatly appreciate it. When I was asked to serve as an officer in my Toastmasters chapter, I told them that other things in my life were a higher priority right now, and therefore I couldn’t give the position the focus and attention it deserved. When people ask me to fix their computer I explain that while I may handle my own computer issues, it’s not my area of expertise. Then I refer them to someone else who can do a better job in less time. If they are just trying to get a “freebie” this also lets them know that I realize they feel their money is more valuable than my time.

Tomorrow: I tend to think that our minds don’t really know what we mean when we say tomorrow. We’ve all heard the phrase, “Tomorrow never comes.” I think that when we tell ourselves, “I will get start the xyz project tomorrow” that our brains take that literally. When the next day comes, our brain still thinks, “I will start the xyz project tomorrow.” It is much better for us to say a definite day or even day and time when we postpone an action; for example, “I will start the xyz project first thing Wednesday morning.” Friday evening we may say, “I’ll clean out the garage Saturday morning.” When Saturday morning comes, we may consciously choose to renegotiate this agreement with ourselves, however, if we say, “Tomorrow I’ll clean out the garage, we can always tell ourselves, “I said tomorrow, not today.”

Spend Time: Time isn’t spent. it can be shared. It can be wasted. It is always invested. We don’t spend time watching television, we invest time watching television or waste time watching television. When I talk about doing things with my wife I always say “I’m sharing time with my wife”–to say that I’m “spending” time with her implies to me that I’m giving something away that I can’t get back. All investments provide a return—either positive or negative. What kind of return am I getting on the investment of my time, right now, as I write this article? What kind of return have you received on the time you’ve invested reading it?

Changing Course – Articles to help you live life on purpose, work at what you love, and follow your own road. Subscribe to Changing Course ezine. Read the Changing Course archives.

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The FlameThrower – Newsletter of motivational speaker Denise Ryan. Subscribe to The Flame Thrower e-zine. Read select articles from The Flame Thrower.

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Julie Morganstern’s From the Inside Out e-newsletter – Monthly newsletter for the New York Times best selling author, organizing and time management expert, speaker and corporate productivity consultant. Subscribe to Julie Morgenstern’s From the Inside Out e-newsletter.

Home Office Weekly – A weekly newsletter with advice on how you can happily and successfully balance living and working under the same roof. Subscribe to the Home Office Weekly newsletter. Read the Home Office Weekly archives.

The PROductivity Pro – Monthly newsletter of Laura Stack, president of The Productivity Pro®, Inc., an international consulting firm specializing in productivity improvement in high-stress industries. Subscribe to The PROductivity Pro newsletter. Read the PROductivity Pro newsletter archive.

Jim Rohn’s Weekly E-zine – Weekly newsletter by the noted motivational speaker and author. Subscribe toJim Rohn’s Weekly E-zine. Read Jim Rohn’s Weekly E-zine archive.

Mark Forster’s Newsletter – Mark Forster is the author of three books about time management and personal organization. The newsletter contains articles not published on Mark’s blog. To subscribe, visit Mark Forster’s home page, and scroll down. You’ll see the sign-up box on the left hand side. There is no archive of previous issues.

AdvantEdge Newsletter – The weekly newsletter of Nightingal-Conant, the world’s largest producer of audio programs for personal development. Subscribe to the AdvantEdge Newsletter. No archive of previous issues appear to be available.

Goals to Action Newsletter – Goal Setting, Time Management, and Productivity Tips by Rodger Constandse, author of Master Your Time and developer of Achieve Planner. Subscribe to the Goals to Action Newsletter. No archive of previous issues appear to be available.

Self Improvement and Personal Growth Weekly Newsletter – SelfGrowth.com calls itself, “The Online Self Improvement Encyclopedia.” Subscribe to the Self Improvement Newsletter (there are several to which you can subscribe, but I only subscribe to the one). Newsletters seem to come from Self Improvement Articles that have been submitted by the site’s members.

The Inspiring Catalyst – Newsletter for Wendy Hearn Coaching. To subscribe, visit the home page of Business-Personal-Coaching.com. You’ll see the sign-up box on the left hand side. There is no archive of previous issues, but you can read other articles by Wendy Hearn.

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Although I carried a Treo 700w for a few months and an Audiovox 6700 for several months, I never developed much of an affinity for Windows Mobile operating system. On desktops I’m as comfortable with Linux and Mac OS X as I am with any flavor of Windows. I’ve always said that, “An operating system is just an operating system.” They all have their strengths and weaknesses. I always loved the intuitiveness of the Palm operating system though.

Now that I’ve been at SharePoint Solutions for over a year, where we are an entirely Microsoft shop, and my Palm TX has been giving me major problems again, it is time to give Windows Mobile 6 a try. I’ve been checking out the Verizon Wireless web site every few weeks to see when they started carrying the newer devices. I noticed Sunday night that they now carry the Samsung i760. We’re looking for a device we can standardize on at work, so my boss gave me the go-ahead to get one, put it through its paces, and report back on how well it works.

So far, I’m impressed with the hardware overall. It has a good feel in the hand. After using 320×480 screens on my Palm devices for the last couple years, the 240×320 screen on the i386 will take a little getting used to. It is nice to have the slide-out keyboard though, and the keys are much easier to use than the ones on the Audiovox 6700.

I’ve been paying close attention to what I really use my Palm for in recent months. I don’t use the built-in PIM applications very much at all. The main functions for me are:

• Worldclock – It’s my primary alarm clock both at home and on the road.
• YAPS – For easy access to hundreds of my User IDs and Passwords.
• My Bible – For Bible study–I have lots of Bibles, commentaries, and resources.
• Note Pad – For quick handwritten notes and drawings.
• Pocket Tunes – For listening to MP3 files (mostly while traveling).
• TCPMP – For watching movies (mostly while traveling).
• Handmark Solitaire – I typically play a few games each day as a de-stresser, or to get my brain in gear first thing in the morning.

I have several other programs that I use a couple times a month, but these are the really big ones in recent months. Others that I use occasionally are Documents to Go, Blazer web browser, Opera web browser, Note Studio, iSilo, Calculator, eReader, Audible, and mobileClock.

My task management system is mostly a single Word document. I do edit it on the Palm with Documents to Go if I’m traveling, but most of the time, I just interact with it on my desktop instead of the device. I’ll keep you updated as I integrate this device into more of my life. If you have any helpful hints for migrating from a Palm mindset to a Windows Mobile mindset, feel free to let me know in the comments.

• Office Stuffer
• The Daily Saint
• Yanko Design
• My Personal Organizing Tools Review
• Laura Stack

Most of the reviewers gave it an overwhelmingly positive review. This made me want to try on out, but it wasn’t yet for sale. So I decided to make my own. I bought a 4″x6″ clear acrylic picture frame from my local Wal-Mart–they didn’t have a 8-1/2″x11″ frame, but I like the idea of having something that doesn’t take up a lot of desktop real estate. The piece of acrylic that usually serves as the bottom when it is in picture frame mode makes a good stand to keep it at the perfect angle for writing while it is in writeboard mode.

The Jot-It comes  with a fine point dry-erase marker that has n eraser on one end. I already had a fine-point dry erase marker (without a built-in eraser), so I decided to use that instead.

The Jot-It comes with several cool templates to help you write down your task list, organize projects, and to assist with other notes. I decided to design and print my own template for it.

I’m well pleased with the way it turned out, and you can’t beat it for the price. I’ll admit that it’s not as sexy as the Cocoa Writeboard, but it’s a nice way to see if the Cocoa Writeboard is a good fit for how you work. If this simple and cheap one works well for you, then you can always buy one of the sleek looking ones from Cocoa later.

If you’re a practitioner of Leo Babauta’s Zen to Done system, this is a great tool on which to write your 3 Most Important Tasks each day. It is also a great way to collect thoughts that come into your mind while at your desk for later processing–of course, it does limit how much you can collect before you have to process it all and erase it. Most of all, writing on a small-size board like this is fun–which means that it’s a productivity tool that you’ll probably actually use.

Perhaps the best use for a tool like this is for frequently used checklists. Create templates for your morning pre-flight checklist, evening post-flight checklist, weekly review checklist, travel checklist, or other checklists that you use. Just put them in the frame, work your way down the checklist, then erase your check marks when you’re done. I used to laminate some of my checklists so that I could use a dry-erase marker to check things off each time. The Writeboard method makes it much easier to update the list if things change; just make changes to the electronic master of your list and print it out–no need to laminate.

I just visited the Cocoa web site and I see that their Desktop Writeboard is now avalable at Target.com for $24.99 (plus shipping and state sales tax, where applicable). It isn’t yet available in the Target retail stores. According to their web site, they are planning to produce a smaller version. I like my 4″x6″ so well that I’ll probably wait for that until I buy one. Until then, my Poor Man’s Desktop Writeboard is working just fine.If you decide to make one of these, let me know how it works for you in the comments.

No. It’s actually Day 31. The truth is that I fell off the wagon back on what would have been Day 24 and Day 25.

On Sunday, August 12th, I taught Sunday School at church, so I decided to polish my lesson that morning instead of walking. I knew that I could make it up later in the day. During the afternoon, temperatures were near 100 degrees, so I decided to wait until it cooled off in the evening. Our dog had been having stomach problems for a few days and by Sunday evening she was dehydrated and unable to keep water down. We had to take her to the Veterinarian Emergency Clinic about 8:30pm, and we didn’t get back until nearly midnight. I had missed my chance to walk during that day.

On Monday, I had my own little pity party over not making my 40-days-in-a-row goal, so I didn’t walk then either. 

On Tuesday, I decided that none of that really mattered very much anyway, so I started walking again. I stressed a little bit over whether I should start back over at Day-1 or not. Over the next few days, I realized that it was no longer about reaching the 40-days-in-a-row goal; it was just about forming the habit, and after 21 days, the habit had been formed. I could break the habit if I chose to, but that would be my choice. I think the 2-day break was a positive thing because it gave me an opportunity to prove to myself that I had really formed the habit.

While walking yesterday morning, I got another great revelation. I don’t have to improve at exercising. Exercise doesn’t have to be challenging or competitive. But I do need to it regularly, and there is benefit in doing so.

When I first started this experiment, I felt that I needed to increase my walking speed, or continually push myself to walk further and to walk more strenuous routes. In retrospect, that was a ridiculous thought. Here is my current perspective. If someone didn’t bathe daily, and wanted to build the habit of showering every day, they wouldn’t likely try to scrub a little harder every day, or try to spend a little longer under the water each day. They would simply bathe at whatever level fit their perception of good hygiene and be done with it. If someone wanted to develop the habit of getting their email inbox to zero every day, they wouldn’t try to get more email so they could process more, nor would they be likely to race against the clock to see if they could get to zero faster than the day before. They would probably be content to just get to zero every day and form the habit, and the associated comfort level, of having an empty inbox.

So, where did I get this warped idea that I had to continually improve at exercise? I was meditating on this during my walk this evening, and the best I can tell, it was taught to me in Physical Education class during my 12-years of school. We weren’t taught to just be active, nor were we taught the benefits of being active at a moderate level. We were taught that to compete against each other, and ourselves, to continually improve. We were taught that by the end of the semester we needed to be able to run faster, or do more push ups, or make more goals than we could at the beginning of the semester.

I was academically aggressive, but I was physically challenged. Physical fitness wasn’t one of my strengths–pardon the pun. It was no problem for me to be able to read a higher level, or do more complex math at the end of a semester, but it was a real challenge for me to do better physically. And it was a challenge that I didn’t like. My poor marks in this area reinforced that.

Schools offered math and English classes for students that had various strengths or weaknesses in those areas, but physical education classes were for everyone. The starting quarterback for the football team, and the kid that was 50-pounds over weight and 6 inches under tall, were likely to be in the same P.E. class. The quarterback learned to continue excelling in his strengths, and the over-weight kid learned that he wasn’t cut out for sports and exercise.

If a student was poor at math, he was placed in a class where he could continue to use math, but at a lower level. If a student was poor at reading, she was placed in a class where she could continue to read, but at a lower level. I believe this may have caused many of those students to continue using the math or reading skills they did have, long after they left school. Students that were poor at physical fitness, on the other hand, were never taught the benefits of continuing to do some physical activity every day, even if it wasn’t at a high level. We were never taught that it was OK to walk for 45-minutes every day. In fact, if we walked around the track when we were told to run, we were scolded and ridiculed by both the teacher and our peers.

There is some challenge to my daily walks, but mostly it’s a matter of just getting started each day. Even if I never get any faster, or make my routine more challenging, yet I walk at least 3 miles every day, I will have walked over 1,000 miles at the end of a year, and probably burned an extra 200,000 calories. That’s no small accomplishment!

If someone didn’t read well, but read 5 pages in a book each day, she would read over 1,800 pages in a year, or probably about 6 or 7 books a year. According to one survey, 58% of the US adult population never reads another book after high school, and 42% of college graduates never read another book. Even at a very moderate pace, a poor reader can reap major benefits by reading a small amount each day.

It’s very liberating after all these years to finally realize why I’ve always hated to exercise. Now that I have come to terms with my own weaknesses in that area, I don’t have to compare myself to others, yet I can still reap some benefits of daily exercise. Some people may be fine running for an hour a day, or lifting weights, or playing basketball. I don’t have to measure up to that. I’ve found an activity that works well for me. I’ve joined the ranks of people that exercise daily, even though I’m no athlete. Little by little, over time, I’ll even do more than many people who consider themselves to be athletic. I have the habit of walking every day, and it feels great!

A couple weeks ago I bought an Olympus WS-300M Digital Voice Recorder. I had been having a lot of great thoughts during my walks, but didn’t have a real good way to capture them. I had my Palm T|X in my pocket, but I couldn’t very well use the notepad while I was walking. I also had my cell phone in my pocket, but the voice recorder on it was just too clunky to use. I own a micro cassette tape recorder, but it is bulkier than I wanted to carry around with me. I knew that I needed to get a small light-weight digital voice recorder. I didn’t really want to spend hours trying to figure out which model was best, so I depended on a friend. Back in January, Matthew Cornell posted his Notes on using a digital voice recorder for taking reading notes. In that post he talked about the research he had done and why he chose the Olympus WS-300M. I didn’t see any reason to do all that work again myself, so I bought the same model. Thanks Matt!

Most professional tend to agree that if we do any activity for 21 days in a row that it will become a habit. I am now 2 days past the habit forming stage. I set a 40-day goal, which will give me an extra 19 days of confirmation to myself that the habit has been firmly established. I chose 40-days because, throughout history, 40 has been a number associated with testing and completion.

I have noticed that over the past few days it has actually been much more difficult for me to walk. Part of that has been due to the intense heat wave in our area, but I think there have been other reasons as well. I also haven’t been eating very healthy in the last few days. I have eaten more high-carbohydrate foods such as french fries and bread, I’ve eaten more sweets and deserts, and I’ve even drank some beverages with both sugar and caffeine in them. I tend to think that my diet has been the primary reason that my body has felt tired and my joints have felt stiff. I’m sure that when I would eat like this in the past that it had a negative effect on my overall feeling as well, but I didn’t notice it because I didn’t have a single point that I could focus on to reveal to me how much of an effect it had.

In this sense, the habit of walking has served much like a compass for me. When I am eating well, the walk is easier and my body feels better. As I eat more poorly, the needle of the compass shifts, revealing how much of an effect those poor diet choices actually have.

This past week I was traveling for four days, teaching a class near Nashville, Tennessee. I’m usually there at least once, and sometimes twice, a month, but I rarely leave the little area between the hotel and the office because they are right next to each other. Since I had four different walks this week, I trekked out in a different direction each day. It was really nice to explore the area and see some area I’ve never seen before. I even found some new restaurants that are within walking distance–of course, as Stephen Wright says, “Everything is walking distance if you’ve got the time.”

When I’m at home, I usually walk the same route, and walk it in the morning. When I’m traveling, I typically walk in the evening. This affords me some time to change gears after teaching all day. I also tend to walk further when I walk in the evenings because I don’t usually have time-sensitive things to do in the evenings. I walk in the mornings on my last day because I know I won’t have any other opportunity to fit in an hour for walking that day. Because I have to be in class at a certain time, that walk is usually only an hour long. When I walk in the evenings, it’s not uncommon to walk for two hours or more.

Overall, I don’t feel that I’ve changed much in the last two weeks, but when I look at those things I can quantify, I can see a lot of changes in a small amount of time:

• I’ve lost five pounds.
• I haven’t made a conscious effort to change my eating habits, but I’ve noticed that I’m eating less and making healthier choices. If I really want a desert, or a bigger portion, I’ll get it, but I find that I want these much less than before I was walking daily.
• I’m sleeping better and sleeping less.
• I’ve shaved 8 minutes off my regular 2.7-mile walk around my neighborhood–what used to take me an hour now takes me 52 minutes.

I’ve been thinking about some of my reasons I’ve been particularly successful with this goal. I think the biggest reason is because I’ve made it the perfect size for me. I’ve allowed a lot of flexibility as well. I think that most of us make our goals far too rigid when they don’t have to be. Then we beat ourselves up and get discouraged when we don’t meet those goals. My overall goal is to, “Walk for 45-minutes for 40 days in a row.”

• It includes a relatively short time frame that I ought to be able to work into most days, regardless of how busy I may be.
• I can exceed the specified time frame if I want to, and I have exceeded it every day, but the minimum that I allow myself is very doable.
• It’s not dependent on any particular location. If I had added, “on a treadmill” to the goal, then I would limit myself to only those times and locations where a treadmill was available. By keeping the goal flexible I increase my options and also the likelihood that I’ll be successful.
• I can walk any time that works for me. If I had added, “first thing every morning” to the goal, then that would also be a limiting factor that would discourage me the first time I over slept.
• The goal isn’t dependent on many external pieces. I don’t need much special equipment or a special location. I do need to travel with my walking shoes, athletic socks, and t-shirts now, but other than that, I don’t need much else to be successful. I’ve already proven that I can walk in the rain (after last Friday’s thunderstorm), but I could also walk the halls of a hotel or a local mall if I needed to.

I think there is a clear lesson here that when we are building a habit, we need to be very careful to make those steps the perfect size for us, with the perfect amount of flexibility so that we will stick with them. What have you discovered about  the flexibility with your own goals?