The Best of Lifehack: February 2012

This is the continuation of our Best of Lifehack series that we will be featuring the first week of every month showcasing articles from the month before. We bring you a bunch of amazing content every single month, and sometimes some of the most important and interesting ones aren’t seen by our busy readers for whatever reason (probably because they are busy!).

So, here is The Best of Lifehack for February, 2012.

Karol Krol, the same guy that brought us our awesome series on GTD in January, shows us the 5 essentials tools we need to Get Things Done. A great article that supplements his series.

Lifehack Editor, Mike Vardy gives us 101 quick ways to make our lives better, get unstuck, and just be an all around awesome person.

The Young Entrepreneurs Council brings us 13 rituals from some amazing people that keep them on the straight and narrow and not going crazy. These are some good tips to keep you sane, especially if you are a new entrepreneur.

The Gen Y workforce is upon us in full force. Marissa Brassfield gives us 5 lessons about productivity that we can all afford to learn from these Millenials.

Instead of obsessing over what we have to do, Leo Wildrich argues that we should keep track of what we have done and base what we should do off of it to be more productive and effective. This is a truly inspirational piece.

Thanh Pham gives the road warrior 7 tips that can save them time and frustration while they are traveling. These are also great for anyone that needs to get their work done in different, disparate places.

Caz Makepeace shows us how to make this year the simplest one ever in this prolific article. Go back to paper productivity, go to sleep early, and improving your diet are just three of the ways she offers to get rid of the junk in your life.

Chris Skoyles, a guy who knows a thing or two about social networking, shows us some tools to use to tweak our Twitter accounts by getting rid of people that don’t follow us, unfollowing inactive accounts, and whether you should friend or follow someone.

Burned out? Not sure? Royale Scuderi provides us with some handy lists to identify if we are burned out as well as some ways to fix our burn out.

Instead of regretting our past actions and mistakes, Judy Belmont suggests that we create a “second chance checklist” so we can start to look at how we can correct an issue rather than regret it.

Sometimes we need big changes to start being more productivity again and Ciara Conlon shows us 5 habits that will rock our non-productive worlds.

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Why You Should Start Your New Year in February

I haven’t made any new year’s resolutions. It’s not that I don’t believe in them or think that they don’t work. It’s that I don’t believe in them in January and know they don’t work at this time of year. So I don’t start my new year on January 1st.

I hold off until February.

Why do I buck traditional trends and wait an entire month to start anew? It’s simple: I’m too tired in January. And the truth is, so are you.

You’ve just come off of a hectic holiday season – and for some of us that started back in early November. You’ve been on the move since then, attending holiday parties, eating copious amounts of food and frantically trying to wrap up all of your open loops before the end of the year hits. So when January rolls around and you finally have time to catch your breath, what do you?

You try to take on new habits, attempt to abolish bad ones and tackle projects while not giving yourself the time to recharge your batteries and really reflect on the year that has just passed you by.

While taking on this type of approach to mapping out your new year may not be as unconventional as, say, starting your week on a Sunday, it certainly won’t be popular with everyone. But think about the benefits of taking January to put yourself in a position to really succeed and polish up your plans for the year ahead. Even if you made a single resolution to take the first month of the calendar year to focus on the future through reflection and planning without the baggage of a worn out body and mind, wouldn’t you have a higher chance of achieving what you set out to do?

Rather than take on a series of resolutions now, keep them in mind and plan properly for them during the month of January. Make this a month of setting yourself up rather than sprinting in to the new year with full intentions and not enough energy to see them through over the long haul. Remember that a year is a marathon, not a sprint.

That’s not to say that you shouldn’t do anything in January, just take on projects that won’t make or break you.

1. Clean out the clutter. Clear out everything from the past year (and years prior, if applicable) and give yourself a clean slate come February. You have far more energy for this type of project in January than you do for ones that will take plans involving the future.

2. Start a journal. This type of activity allows you to reflect and start a new habit. It puts you in the position to have started a journey during a month where everything should be as low-impact on the mind as possible. Yet it allows your mind to think back to the year before to see what you did (and would do differently) and put it on record.

3. Gather your tools. January is the month where you can start to assemble the tools you’ll need for the year ahead. A paper planner (which often is sold at a cheaper price once hte year starts), a new domain for a website you’re going to start, and things of that nature are ideal things to gather so that you can start off the next month with most of what you’ll need at your disposal.

January is the perfect month to look back and prepare yourself for the months to come. Don’t saddle yourself with resolutions and intentions that are going to be difficult to maintain throughout the month – let alone the year – because you’re not fully prepared for them in mind, body and spirit.

Focus on making February the month to hit the ground running. Plan your route in January. You’ll have a better chance of not only finsihing the race, but being pleased with your results as well.

(Photo credit: Wall Calendar February via Shutterstock)

Mike Vardy is a writer, speaker, and "productivityist". You can follow him on Twitter, listen to him regularly on his podcast, ProductiVardy, and read more from him at MikeVardy.com and at Vardy.me.

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