The solution I employ is to simply live consciously, and attempt to do so at all times. When I find myself drifing off into la-la land and doing things which are unproductive/undesireable, I ask myself, "what are you doing? why are you doing it? focus!"
When attempting to instill a new habit or break an old one, I find that picking a single action and repeating it in my head several times before I walk out the door each morning significantly increases my odds of practicing that behavior.
For example, for the next day or two I'll pick something from my mental list of optimal habits (which reminds me; I really need a paper version to keep a list and manage it) and make sure I mentally commit to it before I walk outside of the house. "Repeat back what the other person said" is a good example of a habit I want to instill in order to improve my interpersonal communication skills. I may repeat that habit a few times out loud in the car as I drive to work. Later on that day, when I talk to somebody, the new habit often just pops into my head and then I'm like "oh yeah I want to make sure to do that" and make it so. A positive reaction from the other person only reinforces the new habit, creating an upward spiral of habit reinforcement. Unfortunately, I often don't reinforce the behavior enough times and it falls to the wayside, allowing the old habit to return. I think my tracking mechanism will help here...off to make that happen right now. Hey...thanks for
your help on my issue here!
