The habit I definitely got from my father is writing a to-do list every single evening. I'm a project manager in Johannesburg now, and people at work often comment on how organised I am, but really it's all thanks to him.
My father was an electrician who ran his own small business, and every night after dinner he'd sit at the kitchen table with a cup of rooibos tea and a small notebook. He'd write the next day's jobs, the materials he needed and the people he had to call, and then put the notebook in his shirt pocket. As a child I found it a bit boring, but when I was about fifteen and struggling to manage homework and football practice, he handed me a notebook of my own and told me to try it for a week. I've done it ever since, so that's nearly twenty years.
These days I still use paper rather than an app, which my colleagues find funny. Every evening I spend about ten minutes writing down three priorities for the next day, plus smaller tasks underneath. I feel really grateful for this habit. It stops me lying awake worrying, because everything is out of my head and on paper. It's also made me more reliable, since I rarely forget things. And there's a sentimental side as well. My father passed away four years ago, and sitting down with my notebook in the evening feels like a quiet way of keeping him close. My daughter's seven now, and I've noticed she's started making her own little lists, so maybe it'll carry on.