If you're reviewing goals or New Year resolutions because you've fallen behind, we suggest first reading part one. If you're ready to move on to forming habits, read on.

Plan and be consistent

Instead of beating yourself up, remember that any day is a good day to review and reboot, whether it's mid-year or a random day, catching up and making significant progress is possible if you stick to a plan. However, to finish something means you must begin something, usually by doing the work yourself. After a period of failing to put in the hours, consistency is necessary to avoid losing traction again. Aiming to work on something daily may not be feasible, but if you aim for less you'll more than likely do less.

create a routine, be consistent

To naturally form a habit and maintain progress, some planning is required. Choose a time that won't clash with likely events, such as before bed, on public transport or immediately after eating. If you choose a time that's assigned to something that will happen on most days of the week, such as work or sleep hours, you won't even be able to spend time on the habit and it will never form.

Also check out...Forming habits & the Habits magazine

Small and reasonable

Start small. Begin with setting a five-minute target for a few weeks and build up from there. If you have extra time or feel like you can continue longer, do so. Particularly while you're rebooting and honing a routine, starting small will be easier to tackle and complete, giving you the confidence to do it again and again.

Some productivity gurus suggest waking up an hour earlier in the day, but that could turn into an additional hurdle that you might fail at. The hour you planned won't be available and you'll feel like you've failed on two things rather than one. Waking an hour earlier isn't easy for many and may need a lot of evening adjustments to get your body ready for it. Unless getting up early is one of your goals, a reboot probably isn't the right time for an additional lifestyle challenge.

A timed routine

Include the habit in your routine by habit stacking. If there are a number of things you do successively, add the habit to the end of that sequence. For example, if you get up, wash your face, brush teeth and then check your email, add five minutes to the end of that sequence to work towards your goal. Every little bit counts.

Use a timer to stay on track and maintain focus. Timing will also benefit habit stacking. As you ease into your routine and the habit isn't second nature, try first counting down to ensure you stick to your time target and reduce unnecessary stress from high expectations. If you allow the timer to run upwards freely, you may lose concentration or expect a similarly long session next time.

Keep going to keep going

Tracking or gamifying habits is an effective method of staying the course. Various methods can easily be found online and on social media, but the most common of these rely on visualizing consecutive days of activity, often referred to as a “streak”. The objective is to maintain a streak for a predefined or ongoing period without missing a day. The motivation to continue each day comes from seeing a visual representation of ongoing daily effort. The easiest method of doing this is to use a calendar or a weekly grid, as shown in the photo above, but there are numerous apps that can track and display habits and streaks for free or a small price.

Simple tactics

To safeguard a daily habit, external factors also need to be managed. To begin with, let people in your life know about your need to focus or unavailability at a certain time. Block out time in shared calendars. For example, if you intend on tackling a habit on a work day no matter what time it is, block it out in your calendar. There could always be a very early, late or lunch meeting scheduled that could be rescheduled and not hinder your progress.

Finally, it's ok to say no and put yourself first. Being happier about progress and where you're at in life will come through positively in social interactions. You'll also be less distracted and more engaged in social settings if you aren't conflicted about how you're spending your time.

In short, create a routine, be consistent, track activity, mark your progress somewhere visible, and be open with others about your availability. And if you break a streak, start again as soon as you can – don't wait for a new year, week or day to roll over, just do it.