1 January, 2013 is the start of a new you. You’re going to wake up that day and not do one single thing you’re not supposed to and you’re going to start a load of new, good habits. Going against an entire life’s worth of experience and a full DNA sequence of genetics, you shall be reborn into the perfect person you know you can be. Sure, you’ve tried it before-every year, in fact-but the willpower wasn’t there. This time will be different.

Or. You can begin with just one habit. Any habit . Regularly doing one thing-be it exercise, eating healthily, studying regularly-has a positive knock-on effect on the rest of your life. People doing one good thing smoked less, spent less impulsively, exercised more and had more willpower in general (and that’s when those specific things weren’t what the person was trying to change).

So don’t try to change all the habits, just start with one.

Whilst you’re waiting for the one good habit to build your willpower, Productivity Owl can help, at least when it comes to reminding to stop staring at the internet and do something productive. Incredibly customisable, it also gives you a score for how well you use it (e.g. if you turn it off when you want to waste time). It’s Chrome only. Here’s a great post by the developer.

This is an excellent post about Four Strategies that Build Lasting Motivation , which includes the very useful SMARTER system.

This one builds upon one of the bits from the previous page, which is to start with small, easily attainable goals and explains how to expand on that to create a more complex, more productive habit. Then what to do when you break that very nice habit.

More pragmatic advice (and good news for those of us night-people who believe we have to get up at the arse-crack of dawn to be productive): Seven Productivity Myths Debunked by Science and Common Sense

So get out there, older you, and be productive. I’ll just be on the sofa fiddling with my iPod.