Building Better Habits
Learning new things and adopting habits can be a struggle. Here are some recent learnings that helped me make the process a bit easier.
I’d set myself a goal in the latter parts of 2023 to write every day and publish at least one piece a month to Substack.
As we approach the end of March 2024, save a few days here and there, I’ve managed to stick to the first part. You likely see for yourself however, that the same cannot be said for the latter.
This isn’t for lack of trying. Almost daily a new idea will arise and, with a surge of enthusiasm, I race to open this app and empty my thoughts into the online repository. Despite feeling regularly inspired, I’ll often sit down, write something, delete it, reword it and begin the process over again. In short, I’m trying to write the perfect thing. As opposed to just engaging in the act of writing. Equally I might sit down to write and immediately be distracted by something else, or pulled off into ‘more important’ things.
Feeling frustrated and quite disheartened, I compared the way I was going about the two types of writing and came to some useful conclusions.
I put my lack of output down the method behind my inputs.
What do I mean by this?
I do writing in two formats: 1) a journal and 2) Substack articles / blog format. As I mentioned previously, I’ve actually managed to succeed in writing every day in the form of journalling / reflective writing. The reason behind this is simple:
There is little to no focus on quality.
I usually do it immediately after I meditate.
The first one is obvious; we remove the external focus and give our writing the freedom to tumble as it will. I begun by giving myself 2 minutes to write as much as possible. The focus on speed and quantity got me out of the mindset that everything I write should be wonderfully eloquent and well articulated.
The second is utilising habit stacking i.e. take another well cemented habit and place the new habit you’re trying to perform immediately before or after (some might recognise this from Atomic Habits).
Another thing I notice when writing these longer pieces, is that I was measuring success in terms of completing a whole article.
Meaning I was only ‘rewarded’ for completing the work, as opposed to doing the work.
Conversely when I look at my journalling practice, I was giving myself a small mental 'pat on the back’ each time I finished. Whether I’d written half a page, or three.
What I was missing when writing more ‘official’ pieces, was the final checkbox in the habit loop - the reward! I wasn’t making my effort satisfying! Rather dissatisfying, as my measure of progress was unrealistic.
Two learnings I took from this:
Ensure you’re setting realistic goals that mean you can do something every day (as opposed to trying twice and being put off by the effort). For writing, I really recommend no more than 5 minutes to begin.
Build in little rewards - if you write every day for a week treat yourself to your favourite meal. If you manage a month of not drinking, add up all the money you might have spent on alcohol and go to a spa.
Where (meaning both in what medium and physical location) I was doing the work also ended up playing a significant role.
When I journal, I take a notebook with me to meditate and my phone is always in another room i.e. there are no distractions.
When I write on Substack, I’ll be on my computer where the environment often looks like the below.
As you can see, it’s a sea of infinity pools (a phrase I love coined by the guys over at Make Time). These are things like email, slack or holiday planning sites that exude a seductive urgency. Taking our attention away from the task at hand.
My learnings here:
Do one thing at a time - calendars are great for this. Schedule time for everything! It might seem like overkill but if you can clearly see when you’re eating lunch, when you’re working on key projects, when you’re checking email and when you’re writing your blog. You’re less likely to fall into the trap of task switching.
Remove distractions - if you must use technology to do your work. Try closing all unnecessary apps or use a new, clean window to do your current task.
If you’re familiar with Deep Work. You’ll know distraction and multi-tasking as two of the sworn enemies to true focus.
Two final, handy techniques I used both in the context of writing but also elsewhere:
Make the thing you’re trying to do as obvious as possible - not to brag, but I’m on a 135 day streak on Duolingo and I largely attribute it to the giant widget I placed on the home screen of my phone which turns an angry red when I’m close to losing my streak.
Add consequence or cost to not-doing - whether it’s buying an expensive note book which makes you feel obliged to use it, paying for Spanish classes or making an agreement with a friend that you’ll owe them lunch whenever you don’t show up to a workout.
To summarise the useful stuff:
Focus on quantity over quality when building new habits
Utilise habit stacking - add desired new habits before or after existing ones.
Set realistic goals. Starting small (often much smaller than you feel inclined to).
Reward yourself regularly for achieving your goals
Don’t multi-task! Whatever you might think, it will be reducing overall quality of your outputs.
Remove distractions - Put your phone in another room. Close tabs. Take notes on paper over laptop. Leave the house without your tech if you must.
NB: after deliberating for almost 3 months on publishing something, this took me less than a day. I wrote most of the content in five/six 45minute bursts and then spent 15mins editing the result. Whilst it might not be my best work, I feel a dam-sight more like a writer having finished it, than aiming for perfection. Plus … the next one will be better!