People are everywhere, and so it’s no surprise that they affect us in multiple areas of life. They are the main reason why we can’t just create goals and habits and have them work forever.
People are unpredictable. They can influence happiness, for better or worse. They can teach you things, and help you make realisations that would take much longer to find alone. They can make you more productive, or lazier. They can help you in bad moments, but can also be the reason why those bad moments happen.
Social habits are the way you act and feel towards different aspects of socialising, like how often you start conversations, how you behave when someone compliments you, how good you are at focusing in a friend’s presence, etc.
More important than controlling how you interact with people is controlling when you interact with them. Sometimes you’ll need to do focused work, so this might be easiest alone or with one equally focused friend. Other times you might want a relaxing evening to tell some stories, so you should surround yourself with lots of people.
It’s important to build people into your schedule, rather than fully blocking them out or letting them control what you do. Doing your productive activities with people, setting timers on social breaks and saying no to things you don’t want to do are just some ways to apply this.