I’m excited to announce The Power of Less New Year’s Challenge — it’s free, and it’ll help you form a new habit in 30 days, in just 10 minutes a day.
It’s a great way to start the New Year, and to make 2009 a great year. Forming a new habit is better than making a resolution, because if you use the effective habit-change principles in The Power of Less, the habit will stick with you much longer than the resolution.
How It Works
Here’s how The Power of Less New Year’s Challenge works:
  1. SIGN UP for the Challenge by joining THE POWER OF LESS Challenge forum … it’s free and easy to sign up. Read the FAQ for the forum when you sign up for more info on how to use the forum.
  2. PUBLICLY COMMIT. Once you’ve joined the forum, go to the section that asks you to post your new habit. Start a new topic, introduce yourself and tell everyone what your habit will be for the 30 days. This is a public commitment that will hold you accountable and motivate you.
  3. FOCUS on the new habit for just 10 minutes a day, EVERY DAY. No exceptions. No excuses. Everyone has 10 minutes a day. You might need to plan your schedule to ensure you’ve set aside the 10 minutes for the day, but do not make exceptions! Read more: 9 Rules to Form a Habit (pdf format).
  4. REPORT your progress each day on THE POWER OF LESS Challenge forum. It’s simple and takes 2 minutes: log in to the forum, go to the daily progress thread (there’s a new one each day) and
That’s it. Just four simple steps: sign up, publicly commit, focus on the goal for just 10 minutes a day, and take 2 minutes each day to report your progress. In 30 days, you’ll have a new habit!
See 9 Rules to Form a Habit (pdf format) for strategies that will ensure your success in the Challenge!
Go to The Power of Less New Year’s Challenge for more!
My New Year’s Challenge: To Become More Present

To get things started, I’ll report my New Year’s Challenge:
For January I’d like to practice mindfulness — being more present as much as possible. To start small, I’m going to create the new habit of doing Zen meditation for 10 minutes every morning.
I actually want to be more present in everything I do — from washing dishes to showering to walking to driving to talking to people — and I’ve been practicing this more and more the last few weeks. But as always, I will start small — if I start with 10 minutes of zazen (sitting meditation) then I can use the progress there and carry it to other parts of my life.
My trigger: first thing in the morning, after I have my cup of coffee, before I go on my morning run.
To increase accountability: I’m going to tell my friends and family about this and of course post about it here on Zen Habits. I’ll post about it in a couple weeks to let you guys know how things are going, or check out the Challenge to see my daily progress.
Wish me luck! And best of luck to everyone participating in the Challenge!
Leo
</img>
</img> </img> </img>