What's your highest ROI habits?

Chanced upon this tweet by @ascendantpower about high ROI habits. It got me thinking hard about mine.

What’s my highest ROI habits? And why?

• Keto diet – this got to be hands-down the highest ROI habit change in recent times. Before keto I was doing the standard diet of high carbs and sugar, moderate fats and low protein. I had gut issues, inflammation, and was on my way to the infamous dad bod. Now I’m doing a meat-heavy keto of high protein, moderate fat and low carbs, and I’d never felt better. Weight and flab is under control. Gut issues gone. Inflammation down.

• Learning something new everyday and applying it – learning is my superpower, and it gives me deep joy to learn and immediately apply it. In this aspect, indie hacking had been perfect for me because of all the different roles and skills I needed to pick up - coding, marketing, content creation. This is where I hope I get to reap the benefits of personal growth by a factor of 37 from the 1% compounding effects every day.

• Sleep biohacking – didn’t need this before, but with a baby in the house, my sleep biohacking habits had been a literal life-saver, lest I’ll be the walking dead throughout the day. All the tiny hacks to get better sleep—cold showers, sleep tracking, daylight alarms, coffee naps—had accrued now and I’m feeling normal again after a few months on this habit.

• Waking at 5am – this was unexpected and surprising. I was never an early bird all my life. Yet, when it happened by force of circumstances, I took to it like fish back in water. I was surprised at how well I took to it and started loving and enjoying it, even if my body still prefers to snooze. I think part of the reason got to do with my achievement-oriented self. Waking up this early and finishing your most important work of the day before people even started work, gives me a great sense of productivity and satisfaction.

• Daily writing – at some point after one year of daily writing, I discovered why this habit was great for me. As an introvert I tend to live in my head a lot. A lot of thoughts and feelings swirling around inside, trapped. Writing had given me an avenue to organise and release those thoughts and energies. Clarity and emotional regulation comes as a result. Fundamentally, it’s been very grounding and stablising for my soul. The other secondary benefits are of course, being able to explore ideas, plans and daydreams in my work and life. Being able to write down ideas as a way to explore and integrate them in my life, had been a net positive, to say the least.

So what’s your highest ROI habits? Do tell!