Harness the power of 1 minute for a happier and more productive life

Are you stressed about not being able to follow the “to do” list you made for developing healthy habits?

This 1-minute rule can help you achieve your goals stress-free! Gretchen Rubin, a happiness expert, first wrote about this super simple idea: if a task takes you less than a minute to complete, do it as soon as you realize it needs to be done.

By following this practice, you will be able to successfully keep all your small, nagging, and seemingly inconsequential tasks under control, and this will make you feel less overwhelmed and more serene.

These tips will help you follow healthy habits and record your daily progress:

1. Plan tomorrow: Deliberately think through when and where you'll do your multiple tasks each day and in what order. This will allow you to complete all your tasks on schedule, maximize the actual benefit you get out of this exercise, and also enjoy a quieter mind.

For example, if your goal is to climb up at least 40 steps a day, don’t plan to do it when you return home after a full day at work and your hands are full with your computer and the groceries you just bought to prepare dinner with! You’d be much better off if you had previously identified a specific time in the day to climb up the stairs without being so encumbered because it helps eliminate the hurdles that get in the way. Might you have been more motivated to do it upon returning from your morning walk or when you get back home after dropping off your child to school? Another way to achieve this goal is to do it immediately upon remembering to climb up the 40 stairs.

Similarly, “Fiber first” (eating a bowl full of salad or vegetables to start your major meals) and “Eat more protein” daily are easy habits to follow if you plan tomorrow’s meals today. A simple hack, while you cook dinner for instance, is to invest just 1 minute to put together a salad for tomorrow and refrigerate it. You can just as easily add a protein source to the salad and get the best out of both habits you want to follow.

2. Breathe to relax: The easiest way to follow this habit is to do it in conjunction with another planned activity. For example, do it immediately after you climb up stairs or the minute you lie down in bed for the night, or the moment you wake up and before you get out of bed.

3. Record your habit adherence: If you’re using the GeneClinicX app to help you get healthy, make it a habit to immediately record the full or partial completion of a habit. This way, trying to remember to do this later in the day won’t clutter up your mind!

What you do everyday matters more than what you do once in a while. You’ll be surprised at how much progress you can make with even the smallest lifestyle changes and modifications you make on a daily basis. Consistency and compounding benefits are the keys to success!