Earning habits: the experience of 3 Russian businessmen

I am developing the habit of dismissing weak people

The main habit that allowed me to build a business of this magnitude is sports. Every morning I stand in the plank for 3, 5-4 minutes and take part in races to constantly push myself over. If I was able to run in the rain on an uncomfortable track, then in the office I will be able to solve problems.

Sport forms steel inside: trains willpower, not muscle strength.

I also developed a habit of writing down my thoughts and reflecting. Sometimes, even during work, I open my diary and immediately write something down. In order to work on myself, I turn to psychologists and coaches. Experts help to direct energy in the right direction, and I overcome myself and grow up.

I also have a few business rules:

Now I am developing a habit in myself - to fire weak people. I think this is an extremely important skill. When you clearly understand from triggers that a person is weak, you must immediately part with him. Not a second per second, of course - you need to understand when to do it. These decisions definitely affect the size and movement of my business, although emotionally it is always difficult.
Another important habit is to delegate tasks right away, not to leave them to yourself. Otherwise, the question will hang somewhere in a bunch of small tasks and will never be completed.
I don't stop working on weekends - I do 2-3 small tasks. This keeps me thinking about the business in the background, and it helps me find solutions. And I like to devote a few hours to business these days - without straining. Although, of course, it is necessary to switch. But I don't see the need to do this every week.
I immediately give feedback to employees and receive it from them. Noticing the mood in the team and separately communicating with people is also my habit. I specifically set aside time for this.
I always write a pool of tasks for the day. The minimum is six, the maximum is 10.
Everything in my life goes through the calendar. This is a basic hygiene item.

Daily I have a bar, I keep task lists and a calendar, I read books about business and motivation, I listen to podcasts and audiobooks, I watch videos about entrepreneurship. I live by learning: as soon as I have a free minute, I immediately take out a book and read, but not fiction, but professional literature.

Weekly I'm running.

My dad instilled in me the habit of going in for sports. But reading books and reflecting are your own habits that help you work on yourself through pain and mistakes.

The most important thing is to push yourself out of your comfort zone all the time. As I feel that it’s uncomfortable, I go and do it. And then I analyze why it was uncomfortable.

You need to get in the habit of constantly checking your goals

Roman Kumar Vias Founder of a marketing agency.

Of course, I have habits that help me build my business.

I think the main one is never to give up.
You also need to believe in yourself and your people.
You need to get in the habit of constantly checking your goals, because clear goal-setting in business is very important.
It is also important to be able to defend your position in the negotiations, regardless of external factors.

Personally, I instilled in myself such habits:

do not respond to push notifications;
read 20 books a year at least;
write articles.

And there are habits that can hurt a business. For example, drunkenness. As well as self-pity, passive thinking, and unwillingness to take responsibility.

If you want to develop a habit, just corner yourself. You have no idea what a person is capable of in this situation.

The habit of working in transport helps me to do more

Anastasia Pogozheva Founder of the lecture hall.

I haven't developed many habits, but some of them help me in my business.

I run regularly. It is while running that important ideas come to my mind - everything related to strategy, solving complex problems, or coming up with daring projects. These are examples of things that won't happen by itself between the planning meeting and the signing of documents. You need an environment that makes you think actively, but at the same time do not jump thoughts on routine things. For me, this situation is running. I developed this habit when I signed up for the Berlin Marathon a year before it started. If you have made a decision to participate in the marathon, then you cannot but prepare for it: it is life-threatening. The closer the date was, the more I trained. As a result, regular exercise has become a habit. Moreover, one that gives me the opportunity to achieve the most creative states.
The habit of working in transport allows me to perform many small routine tasks on the road. I appreciate this skill because it helps me to concentrate in all circumstances: when I have only five minutes, when there are many people around, or when I am standing on the subway with my laptop in my hands. Somehow I had to prepare for difficult exams in a short time and I had to devote literally every minute to this - and in transport too. It turned out that the change in the situation may not interfere. The ability to keep focus on my tasks remained with me.

If I need to solve a problem, I can do it even in the subway among many standing people.

I have two children - so at the right time I close my laptop and go home. This is a habit that I recently acquired. Previously, I could count on the fact that at night, at the last moment, I would solve a bunch of problems. This is a good approach: it helps you make an important leap in a short time, work very effectively and without procrastination. However, now there can be no breakthrough, because at night the forces will end when everyone goes to sleep. We need to do everything in a day, so planning is built differently: I learned how to better delegate and prioritize among the tasks that I do. This is similar to how some Japanese companies turn off their electricity after the end of the working day. Such inevitability keeps you in good shape.

Running, transportation and smart planning are changing the way I do business. But from the point of view of the project, it is not my personal habits that matter, but the habits of the team. I include everything that concerns established processes: how we discuss plans, what meetings we hold regularly, how we maintain a knowledge base or respond to force majeure. One of the most important team habits is how we release all of our products. At some point, it became clear that this should happen like a metronome, with the maintenance of a given tempo.

It's great when deadlines feel external rather than internal. Because you can move yourself, but it is more difficult to disrupt external deadlines.

Such an external factor for us was the schedule for the release of mailings: twice a week, on weekdays and on weekends. We tell them about all the releases and plan to fill them two months in advance. We can say that we live in weekly sprints. If something goes, then everything else slides away, far ahead. However, after we agreed that any news must appear in the mailing plan in advance, everything became more predictable, no one wants to jeopardize the work of others.