Sounds like I got a lot done, right?

This post originally appeared on theBuffer blog.

Im a big fan ofworking smarter, not harderand finding small ways tomake my work more efficient.

Now Im excited to be back to show you exactly how I came by these wins in 2015.

Basically, I used small, everyday habits to build up into big, long-term outcomes.

There are four principles I take a stab at stick by whenever Im building a new habit.

Through everything Ive tried, these are the principles that seem to work every time.

I would go from reading hardly ever to attempting to read one book per week.

At their heart, asJames Clear explains, habits are about routines.

Finally, I came across this idea ofstarting small.

The point is to focus on repeating thehabitevery day, but not worrying about howeffectivethat habit is.

In other words,quantity first; quality later.

A great example is flossing.

Say you want to floss every night, but you havent flossed for years.

Its a very big ask.

Its still considered flossing, but you wont make huge leaps in dental hygiene this way.

But heres where it gets powerful: at first, you focus on just flossing one tooth every night.

And you stick with it for more than a week.

Then, more than two.

Then three, four weeks.

you’re able to stick with this habit because itsso easy.

Theres barely any effort involved with flossing one tooth, so its hard to make an excusenotto do it.

And once its become easy and automatic to floss one tooth, you start flossing two.

For a while, you floss two teeth every night.

Then, you increase to three.

And slowly you work your way up, never taking such a big leap that it becomes a chore.

Just starting with one pageadded up: In 2013 I read 7 books.

In 2014, 22.

In 2015, 33.

Thats almost five times what I read in 2013.

I worked on this habit over about a year and a half.

That probably sounds like a long time, but it only seems that way in retrospect.

According to Duo, that means I know about 41% of French!

Thats a big achievement from just five minutes a day!

Every time Ive tried that approach, I end up failing.

Usually a few of the habits dont stick, but sometimesnoneof them do.

So my new rule is to work on just one habit at a time.

With the example above, I was reading every night before I started focusing on French.

And I was easily doing a French lesson every day before I started focusing on getting up early.

Sometimes building a habit can take a long time.

Getting up early was one I really struggled to do consistently.

It didnt come easy, but it was worth the effort.

Inone study, the average time it took to build a new habit was 66 daysabout two months.

Malcolm Gladwell calls this the tipping point.

Its that small change that tips you over from making excuses to taking action.

One great example of the power of a tipping point comes froma study of tetanus education at a university.

I like to think of it as removing any barriers that make it easy tonotfollow through on my habits.

One habit I want to build in 2016 is to play piano more often.

Right now I play whenever the mood strikes me, which isnt often enough to get a lot better.

But I have noticed that I tend to play more often when the piano is easily accessible.

Another habit I want to focus on this year is exercising more regularly.

This is something I plan to do more regularly when Im focusing on building this habit.

The cool part about this is you already have lots of habits you probably dont realise.

When my coffee is made, I start my French lesson.

My existing habit of making coffee acts as a trigger to complete my French lesson.

And when I go to bed at night, I fire up the book sitting by my bed.

Getting into bed and seeing the book act as a trigger to do my nightly reading.

Building new habits has become something of a hobby for me.

It makes huge accomplishments seem much more achievable.

Shes the co-founder of Melbourne startup Hello Code, an iOS developer, and a writer.

Image bybluelela(Shutterstock).