Skyscraping Habits: A Constructive way to Build Multiple Habits into a Skycraper Habit -

Skyscraping Habits: Learn how to turn several habits into one super habit.

I love to learn new things. And I do that mostly by reading. One of my favorite things to read are books that help improve the mind. These self help books fascinate me. But if they have a great concept I can use to help improve my life, well that’s even better.

One concept I learned was taking things you need to do to achieve goals and turn them into habits. But from what I have learned a new task takes an average of 66 days of repetition to become a solid habit. But what if you have quite a few tasks you need to accomplish in order to achieve a goal? And if the best way to achieve goals is to focus on a single thing, then how can you do this with multi-task goals?

This is where Skyscraping Habits Works…

Each morning I would wake up and try and roll out of bed. I worked from home, so my commute to the office was a few feet and a right turn into my home office. But for some reason it would take me sometimes 2 hours to finish my morning ritual and sit down to work. Then when I finally sat down to work, I had other problems like focusing on the most important things. But that’s a story for another article.

So back to my original problem. How to make my time more productive. That is when I ran across a book called habit stacking which gave me the idea of Skyscraping Habits.

Skyscraping habits is basically where you take small tasks and do them in order to create a Skyscraper Habit just like a super habit. Build you Skyscraper Habit with tasks floor by floor, then you simply take the elevator through those tasks from the ground floor to the penthouse.

And once you have traveled through all the floors of your Skyscraper you will have achieved something huge. A ton of tasks, in a short amount of time. It’s a productive time saver that makes you sail through the day getting things done in the shortest amount of time.

The Basics of Skyscraping Habits

Define the Skyscraper Habit you want to achieve, in this case I wanted to make a productivity habit that will get me ready to work from the time I wake up. To the time I sit down at my desk.
Next write down all the things you NEED to do to achieve this habit. For me it was the following:
- morning prayer
- brush teeth
- put dirty clothes in hamper
- go to kitchen and fill food and water bowls for the dogs
- then do the dishes in sink
- clean kitchen counter of clutter
- empty dishwasher or start it if full
- start breakfast (I usually start my eggs on the pan)
- while breakfast is cooking turn on computers in home office
- check breakfast (I usually cook eggs, oatmeal and sausage) I would put oatmeal in microwave here.
- fill aroma therapy diffuser with water and essential oil and login into computer
- take vitamins
- check breakfast (I usually put sausage in the microwave here)
- Check trash and empty if needed
- plate breakfast, and wash out non-stick pan I cook the eggs in
- sit down in office, eat breakfast and look at the news, and sports scores.
- then when done, go to the plan my day Skyscraper Habit
Now you run through your Skyscraper Habit, step by step, floor by floor till you hit the top floor and just like that you are done.

What took me hours now takes me about 20 minutes. When I ran through the Skyscraper Habit the first few times I refined it and took out things I did not like and added things that would be easy and necessary to do.

Then I did it over and over, day by day until all of those little habits became one big habit and I saved myself a ton of time and got a bunch of benefits. A clean kitchen, good breakfast, and many thanks from my wife.

In retrospect that seems like a lot of tasks to do in a small span of time. But it was surprisingly easy to learn and did not take me long to memorize it and do it without looking at my list.

Now it is your turn…

So lets give it a try. Pick something small that you can easily do and give it a try. And if you are having some trouble thinking of anything then here are some ideas that you can use.

morning shave and shower routine
getting ready for work
Saturday morning errands
getting dinner ready
putting children to bed
when you first sit down to work
going to the gym

But wait there is more..

So by now you should have at least tried one Skyscraping Habit to see if it works for you. If it doesn’t, well then at least you tried. It works for me and I continue to be productive at it. In my daily schedule I use 4 Skyscraper Habits that make my life easier. I think of them as my own personal Habit City, and it is littered with the success of these “tall building” super habits.

Most of all I enjoy the freedom I get when I fine time all of my tasks into one Skyscraper Habit and then execute it. And I get an immense amount of satisfaction in knowing I accomplished something each day. In the end I give myself a precious gift, the gift of time back, that before was wasted. And who cant use a little more time.

Conclusion:

It does not matter how you want to attack your goals. It just matters that you choose a system that helps you achieve them. A system that you will stick to and use daily. When you achieve your goals you empower your mind, body, and spirit to new heights of productivity. Skyscraping Habits is just a fun way I use to help me achieve a lot things in a short amount of time. And the best way to do it consistently is to make it a habit.