In a previous post I took a pic of old habit notes I had from high school and discussed my habits in middle school. I was really bad at them. But that’s ok, I’m getting pretty good now.

Another thing I was really really bad at despite trying constantly was planning. Planning ANYTHING. I had so many planners, but it was really difficult for me to keep to a schedule - it was almost like as soon as I wrote it down something would emerge from me, a perfect procrastinator who would see it as a challenge, preventing me from finishing a task when it was scheduled.

And I still have this difficulty. There’s an almost nebulous revulsion that arises when someone tries to pin me down to something for, say, next wednesday at 4 pm. I start immediately squirming and grasping for ways to at least have an exit should I not want to go to a date when the time comes up.

Yesterday I spent a lot of time trying to nail down tasks for the next 6 weeks. I believe that one aspect of this project that I’m lacking in is week to week, month to month progressions. I should know what I want to accomplish for a month, and how, week to week, the sub projects contribute to that overall goal. And how that goal progresses to the future. Which is essentially the realm of planners.

When I did this a great fog arose in my mind - like some subconscious part of myself was trying to erase the focus for the task of planning. It was agony, which was pretty hilarious. I take this as a positive sign a la Stephen Pressfield - when he talks about that quality as being a compass pointing north - it tells you exactly what you need to work on.

So I need to work on this, and I have to believe that if implement it correctly, I can improve my regimentation ability. Should this be a separate habit? I can see it as a Sunday task, sitting down to plan out what I need to do for the week and course correcting. It would certainly give me the opportunity to experiment to see how only doing a task once a week affects the habituation process. It’s something I’ll have to think about.