How to Have a Good Day: Harness the Power of Behavioral Science to Transform Your Working Life pdfdrive com

Include mind-body maintenance.
Put exercise, rest, and other physical

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health goals on your list alongside your other tasks. If you take a moment to
put “take a walk” on the list, you’re way more likely to build it into your day
rather than let it be crowded out by other demands—just as defining goals for
anything makes it more likely you’ll get it done.
S
ETTING
 G
REAT
 G
OALS
Take a moment now to think about your priorities for today.
Set some behavioral goals.
Personally,
what behavior of yours will
support your intentions for the day? 
Specifically,
what tangible actions
can you plan to take? Put these on your to-do list along with your
regular tasks.
Articulate your goals for the win.
Phrase them so that they’re
positive, meaningful, feasible, and situation-specific.
•
Create “approach” goals.
Make sure your goals are about doing
desirable things, or doing more of them, rather than avoiding bad
things happening. If they’re negative in tone, turn them around.
•
Find a personal why.
Can you articulate why the goal matters to
you or how it will benefit something you care about?
•
Break off bite-sized chunks.
If the actions to take are unclear, break
your goal down into smaller, bite-sized chunks. Get especially clear
on the very first step to take to make progress.
•
Make a “when-then” plan.
Define clear situational prompts (“
when
X happens, 
then
I will do Y”) to increase the chances that you’ll get
your most important goals met today.
Create a brain-friendly to-do list.
Whichever approach you take to
task management, make sure you don’t overload your brain’s working
memory and that you feed your reward system.

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THREE
Reinforcing Your Intentions
You’re now set to take a much more deliberate approach to your day, one that
acknowledges that your aims, attitude, and assumptions can deeply influence the
way you experience the world. Your goals are clear, and they’re articulated in a
way that’s going to give you the best possible chance of success. Now I’m going
to show you how to raid the scientific toolbox for techniques that will help you
stay true to your good intentions as you tackle the most important or elusive of
your priorities. The three tools are mental contrasting, priming, and mind’s-eye
rehearsal.