Writing Habit So Far (From Start to Superhabit), SRHI over Time

This graph isn’t very clear cut at all in terms of backing up my Quarter Mark Theory. But analyzing it further there are two big gaps in progression. 

At around day 53 there is huge downturn - actually a gap in recording that occurred. That was during a week of travel to England and France. 

There is another one starting around day 72. This was during another travel to Germany where my computer completely died.

In both cases I wasn’t prepared - I didn’t go lo-tech and I didn’t have a solid implementation intention.

Before both and after both travels I quickly got back to the 70’s in the SRHI.

Does this blow my hypothesis out of the water? I’ll have to keep looking into it.

It is interesting to note that in the first iteration of my writing habit using 750 words, I got to the 70s on day 50 (though at the time I wasn’t taking the SRHI every day - it was more like once a week, if that). And this most recent iteration of the writing habit really did seem to stretch out a lot longer than I would have thought it would. I’m guessing this had to do with the travels and gaps in recording.

This graph might be particularly useful to try to analyze how gaps might stretch out a habit. AND it could be useful to analyze how long it takes for regular habits to become solid superhabits over 80 on the SRHI.

The Next Habit: Writing

Today 3 of my 4 habits reached “Superhabit” status at 80 and above on the SRHI. They feel pretty effortless, especially after getting used to my new unrecorded habit in the last two weeks of starting new duties at work. Two weeks ago I felt endurance depleted, but now I feel very solid, and it has been reflected in my scores.

I think it’s time to attempt a new habit. I thought about a simple habit like flossing, or going back to dynamic meditation. In the book Do the Work Steven Pressfield talks about fear and procrastination pointing to what you should do next. For me, that’s writing - I tend to avoid it like the plague.

My first attempt with this habit was with 750words.com over a year ago! According to my records, it was my longest running recorded habit at 175 days - though I had severe problems with consistency. I officially scrapped it at the end of Feb 2014.

In this new iteration I need to combine all the things I’ve learned so far. I need a solid implementation intention - an if-then of a trigger and the action. This will merge with the idea of “bookending” - doing something as a chain when I get up in the morning. And I need to include BJ Fogg’s notion of a TinyHabit. It also has to be scaleable - I should be able to naturally evolve and add to it.

My bodyweight training is, to date, the most efficient habit I’ve formed - a quick, steady rise to habituation with no real “danger zones." 

So, with all that in mind, my habit will be to write potentially publishable material every day. 750 words isn’t "tiny” so I’ll be writing 200 words a day. And these bits of writing cannot be diaries or meandering thoughts - they have to be something I could actually form into full pieces.

I currently wake up and meditate, then do bodyweight exercises, then record, then start work. I will put writing 200 words right after I record my habits and before starting my real work. This means I will have to off-set the recording of this habit for the next day.

I also need this to be scaleable. So I will first start with 200 words. Once I get good at that, I will extend it slowly by word count, then until I can proof a full basic article of 800 words and have one article ready to publish per day.

In my original 750 words project I would end each session by brainstorming what I would write for the next day. This is also a great practice.

This is going to be really difficult. It’s hard to do this psychologically because I fear it. Also I’m moving to a different country in one week. However, I want habits and habit formation to work irrespective of location changes, so I’d like to start now. I’m also curious if 200 words is tiny ENOUGH. The idea is that it has to be utterly easy - almost ludicrously so. We’ll see how it goes.

I’m nervous, scared, and a little excited - let’s see how this works out!

A New New Plan (and a Ridiculous Habit)

Based on my thoughts from the last post here’s what I’m going to do.

My two current “habits” - 750words and my kettlebell habit are in shambles. Last week I did a SRHI test and both were hovering in the low 40s (remember, this is out of 74).

So I’m scrapping both of them and starting…sigh…completely from scratch.

The first habit I’m going to implement is -  and I realize this sounds ridiculous - recording my habits. Every day. 

It’s something that I’ve had problems with since day 1. It’s even a problem among the professional researchers, who couldn’t get their participants to keep consistent records or do SRHI tests regularly.

I have no idea what number of days to peg this at. I have a sneaking suspicion that this might be more difficult than it looks, but we’ll see. I’ll need to take the SRHI regularly - I’m thinking once a week? I don’t know if taking it every day will show anything but I suppose I can try that at first.

I’m uncertain as to whether I will also be including blogging as recording, though I think that is a good idea. Would I blog once a week and try to make that into a habit, or go for the everyday thing? Every day isn’t really an optimal thing for blogs usually, but then again this isn’t for blogging, it’s for record keeping and keeping track of things.

The Quarter Way Blues

Over the last few days I’ve experienced a drain of energy. 4 days ago I wrote my 750 words, but didn’t do my kettle bell/stretch routine. And the last three days it’s felt like I needed to expend more effort to do my exercises.

There are many explanations for this. I’m approaching the end of a year of intense travel and I’m about to go home - every time I’ve approached this time in the past I’ve felt my discipline go way down. I’ve also been extending my workouts so they are more draining - I’ve been incorporating a back bend progression and bodyweight exercises like squat thrusts, mountain climbers, and crab toe touches (I’ll describe these some more in another post) in order to have them primed for times I can’t bring my kettle bells.

But it is interesting that this dip in will is happening on day 50, roughly a quarter of the way through my projected habituation cycle for exercising.  And it’s not just will - it’s also my mood, with more frequent bouts of sadness, depression, and frustration.

And if I recall other times when I’ve attempted 90 day transformations I had the same set of emotions - it’s understandable that this would happen after the beginning where everything is new and spirits are up, and after the time when you see a lot of improvement. You’re left just chugging along with no hope, and you start wondering why you’re even doing it. 

This is actually a great thing because it confirms, at least emotionally, my theory that ¼ of the way into a habit is the hardest part. It’s where I should start using gamification to counter this low point.

Is this confirmed by the SRHI index? I’m not sure. I took it a week ago, and 750 words = 74 while exercising = 43. These stayed roughly the same when I took it today (750=73, exercising = 43). Looking at the exercising habit, I was quite surprised - I would’ve sworn that it would be lower - I don’t know if this signifies that this period is a plateau, or if this is just a regular progression. It does signify that I need to make more regular records of my SHRI score. I believe Lally stated in some interview that her problem in her habit formation experiment was that participants weren’t recording their SRHI regularly - perhaps I need to make self reporting a habit in itself!

The Hardest Thing is Not Doing More

Last week I made a decision not to go on a meditation retreat.

I was really interested in doing a 10 Day Vipassana Course. It’s a silent retreat, and I’ve heard a lot of good things about it. The only problem is that it involves a lot of uncomfortable sitting on the floor, and most beginners report online that it’s incredibly painful - as Westerners we’re not usually used to sitting on the ground for long periods without our legs going numb. During my year in Korea, I got used to it, but it took many months.

I started to practice sitting for long periods of time, tacking it on o my current list of habits, and it was surprisingly painful. I also felt that weight that to me signals willpower depletion - it felt like when I was doing too many habits - that feeling right before I just gave up on every skill I was trying to acquire.

It really does feel with this program that the hardest thing is not jumping into doing more things. Meditation will help me keep focused. Eating right will give me more energy, and I have so many ideas now for apps for gamification that I have to fight urges not to dive into learning programming.

It was a really difficult decision for me, because I felt like I was copping out of going, of just biting the bullet and forcing myself to do it. But I have to remind myself that this is part of the process - I’m trying something new here, something that has thus far worked at least once - 750 words is now a habit. And I know my previous way of doing things hasn’t worked.

Since making the decision not to go, I’ve stopped my timed sits, which has been a relief, both in terms of the pain involved,and a renewed feeling of endurance with regards to practicing my new habit - and I know it will be easier to continue along the process of habituation without such a huge distraction.

But I’m still eying that retreat - and I will go in the future - just not now.

Willpower Over Time Theory

I have another theory that I’ve been turning over in my head for a while.

The hardest thing about a habit isn’t the willpower needed for an individual task. Flossing is an easy task that pretty much stays easy. It’s the STREAK - it’s doing it over time that becomes a drag. 

My theory is that Willpower is one aspect of the equation, but it’s Willpower over time that’s the real issue for any given habit. Call it persistence, endurance, doggedness, or tenaciousness - but it’s what caused me to make 750 words a habit despite having periodic setbacks.

I feel it reacts differently than Willpower - after about 2 months of working out, it’s not as though working out becomes difficult in that instance - it just becomes exhausting when it comes to the streak.

The reserve that fuels the act of extending the activity over time gets depleted, while the actual activity remains the same.

Furthermore, in my theory, as I have eluded to before, after a quarter of the way into a habit, Endurance becomes heavily depleted, while for Lally, it just becomes more and more easy.

And gamified programs, (although I’m sure they help lower the threshold with regards to Willpower) through their emphasis on badges over time and accumulating streaks, help the most with regards to Endurance depletion - Or whatever we should  call it.

There is a researcher - Dr. Angela Duckworth - who recently won the MacArthur Research Grant, who may be doing research into whatever this is. I’ll get into that in the next post.

Since Last Time....Kettlebell Status Update

I pegged the kettle bell exercise habit at 250 days to habituation - I estimated this based on Philippa Lally’s paper on how many days different habits take to reach automaticity. The paper estimated that it would take 250 days to form a habit of doing sit-ups in the morning. 

So for my theory, at the halfway point, 125 days, things would start to get easier. Days 62 - 125 would mark the most difficult time for the process.

So far I’ve had multiple problems. I went on several trips and moved to a different city. I started developing back problems because of it - I’ve always had a sensitive back, but it’s caused me to stop doing kettle bells for swaths of time. Instead I replaced it with a series of back stretches that worked in the past. 

Now it’s going well. I’ve bookended it immediately after my 750 words and I’ve incorporated the stretch routine as part of the process. I keep trying to remind myself that it’s not about the kettle bells, it’s about bracketing a spot for physical exercise - and that’s the thing I’m trying to habituate.

The other thing that’s different about this from 750 words is that I am not using gamification yet - my theory is that gamification can be used to lower the threshold of discipline needed for a habit - which would work best during the ¼-½ way mark. When I hit that point, I’ll probably be using Fitocracy.

This is day 35. Consistency has been sketchy, and I haven’t even gotten to the hardest part, at least according to my theory. AND, I’m going on another trip today!

Since Last Time....750 Words Status Update

 

In my post, A New Plan For Habit Formation Part 3 - A New Hope, I outlined, well, a new plan. I scrapped the old way of doing things and focused specifically on one habit until I reached my estimate for it becoming easier - the halfway point. 

My halfway point for 750 words was 25 days (50 for full automaticity). 

Turns out, in this case, I was spot on. About day 30, I felt a flow to the habituation, supported by two things: A daily progressional flowchart using the ideas in the Self-Discipline in 10 Days book, and the notion of “bookending” - having a daily set of things you do in the morning after getting up and at night before going to bed.

In this case, I used the solid event of getting up and made myself do 750 words right after. By doing this I attached it to a daily event, something I wasn’t doing before. Before I would tell myself to do the task whenever, as long as it got done - and that often resulted in not doing it.

On day 50 I achieved an SRHI Score (a self reported score measuring habitation - I’ll do another post going into this in more detail) of 73 (out of 84) and for me that felt like that habituation was achieved.  

Today is day 71 of 750 words. Despite going on a trip to northern Argentina with long travel days and a few days in the jungle, I’ve been on a 48 day streak, and it feels incredibly solid. This is a huge win, especially looking back at my track record and feeling like I was all over the place.

Back From Traveling (And Procrastinating)

Just got back from a bunch of traveling and admittedly, a lot of procrastinating. 

I’ve been keeping up and highly succeeding with my 750 words habit, and have added another one. As a part of my 750 words I’ve done several blog posts, but have yet to pare them down for consumption here.

Soooo, today I’m doing catch up on this blog, so stay tuned to a lot of updates and catch up blog posts!

Self-Discipline in 10 Days - Putting it All Together

The book has taken me through several days of exploration into my psychology and tools use to overcome drags. Here it starts to put it all together.

The book surprised me early on by moving left while other self-help books moved right. So in the early stages the exercises were meant to show me a dark mirror  to pinpoint exactly the psychological weaknesses holding me back from success and progress. The book does it again here - it suggests deciding what to do, and then writing down what I can gain, and more importantly, what I have to lose. To lose, it means things that you’ll have to give up - things that could possibly go wrong, things I wont like doing, etc. In this manner, we foresee what will drag on us during the action phase.

When I write about this for 750words, a lot of stuff comes out - success with this will help me directly with work, but indirectly it will help me with creating habits, and I have a lot of habits and hopes riding on this. So it’s understandable why I would be afraid of continuing, because a  lot can potentially hand in the balance.

It also makes all my current flaws bearable because it I know it’s contributing to a process of mastery - in a very real sense, doing 750 words will help me in every field I need discipline in, from health and fitness to mental well being. And it will anyway because it’s building discipline, and based on the current research, building discipline in any one field increases discipline in all fields.

Looking at my writing history on 750 words, I’ve failed, but this is all information that is mapable, and these foibles will help me in the next task, AND in analyzing habit formation in general, which is the entire game. Knowing these things will help me, according to the book, sail clearly with fewer drags in my action stage.

A New Plan for Habit Progressions Part 3 - A New Hope

What I’ve done for the last 38 days is work solely on 750words.

My theory is that after the a rough patch and after the midpoint, things start their inevitable slide towards automaticity - this is a theory that runs counter to Lally’s research, and is something I’ll discuss later.

My new plan was to work solely on 750 words until after the midpoint, and then start a new habit, the theory being that after the midpoint the will needed to sustain a task becomes less and less. Two tasks overlap, but in the best way possible. The starting task is easy for a bit, and the previous task is approaching automaticity and taking less willpower.

I feel the change in 750 words now. I’ve streamlined the process using the book Self-Discipline in 10 Days and pegged it to a specific time i.e. as soon as I get up in the morning. I’ve taken the Automaticity Index questionnaire and it seems to corroborate my feelings - it is on it’s way to becoming a habit.

I chose working out as my next habit - specifically doing some form of kettlebell workout right after I finish my 750 words - and I started Day 1 this morning. This will be a long one - I’ve pegged it at a 125 day midpoint with an estimated 250 days before it becomes a habit. I’ll be streamlining the process like 750 words, and I’ll be taking notes on how much willpower it takes, it’s automaticity by taking the questionnaire, and how it interacts with my previous habit in the making. I’ll also be using fitocracy and a Google docs spreadsheet to keep track of it.

Self-Discipline in 10 Days - A Plan of Action

The book has a great step by step process for creating a plan.

• Pick a goal

• Choose a launch date

• A broken down list for the action

• List a reward next to each step

• Cross them off as you do them

• Analyze/Review progress

I’ve been doing this for about 2 weeks and I’ve found that the broken down list of simple actions is invaluable. The biggest problem actions are the simplest ones - simply opening the software. I’ve put all these broken up steps into a Google docs spreadsheet, where I change cells green as I finish them - this gives the whole process a gamified feel - often times the only real reward for programs like Duolingo is that something flashes green and you get an “atta boy” sound.

For me so far, that’s all that has been needed. I’ve modified the progression to have a slot for brief relaxation, visualization, and affirmations. I also have another slot to plan what my next writing will be about.

I did all this because of Review step - which is also a slot in my spreadsheet - is invaluable and important for course corrections - it gives me a moment where I can reflect and streamline the whole process. Previously I had problems not having at least one idea already lined up, and adding that additional step made things easier.

Self-Discipline in 10 Days - Day 7

Day 7 is another problem I have - perfectionism. And this ties with the previous problem when it comes to me and tasks like writing - I see a blank page as a deterrent because I want more than anything for my words to come out perfect the first time, when in reality, getting the ball rolling and editing later is the best course of action. You, in effect, “see the whole board” rather than having to edit and critique and write in one go.

There are several tools and exercises in this chapter - one is to purposefully do something that is mediocre. I feel like I do this every day with 750 words, and will be doing something similar with NaNoWriMo. The book’s example is hilarious - write a average email to a friend - this hits home because I usually check and recheck everything I write.

The next tool is world-opening for me - private rewards - give yourself a private praise for any even mildly small task of success. I’m such a pessimist that my internal monologue is filled with either emptiness or constant disparagement. IF I do accomplish something, I immediately say - wow I could have done better, I can do better in the future, what can I do to get better - which is essentially criticism. I have no praise in my internal monologue, and it solves the problem of finding rewards that don’t contradict my own system. The book specifically says to try to give that voice of encouragement the same voice of someone in your past who used to give you encouragement - I’ll have to think about this, because I don’t know if there ever was such a voice. But it emphasizes to use this quickly and constantly.

Contracts are another exercise - but I’ve never really understood them because I don’t really have that many rewards, nor do I have many wants. Until I really started thinking about it. If I do this, I’ll buy the XX that I really wanted - usually it deals with material possessions, which I don’t want. And the few times I really indulge in food - well it’s random and I go ahead and do it. But one example from the book has to do with putting down money for a specific vacation or something like that. For me it would be training programs. What would I want?  But more than that - a hypnosis lesson. A Biofeedback lesson or device. A meditation course.  My problem is that my life has been pared down to two things - things I must do. And spillage. So - when I think of getting a DSLR camera I think - this is something I must do. When I get a nice meal at a restaurant - it’s spillage. And I think my rewards have to be things that don’t really fit - a hypnosis course would be great, but I think of it as an excess that is frivolous - it’s expensive, and I don’t need it now because I’m not ready for it.

The book says to actually write these down. This gets all the more confusing because I write about travel, something I love so that’s not exactly a reward, it’s more of work.

The last bit of advice is to use rewards for bits of a project rather than for the entire result - my life has been so maniacally result oriented that I forget that it’s the action undertaken that makes the difference - which is the root of my perfectionism and procrastination, and therefore depression.

Exercise - make an active list of rewards (and the books says keep it active, simple in writing, and fun) “irresistible pleasures” - I’ve come up with a list that’s equal parts courses, random things I’ve selected from the internet, and random pinterest selections.

Thoughts on Interludes and Automaticity

“Interludes” is what I’m calling those points where your interrupted - the inevitable trip, friend coming into town, or event that disrupts your careful practices.

My mom and I were talking about this whole project, and one thing that I’ll have to confront is how to deal with these moments. Obvious one solution is to keep carrying on. But in some cases this is genuinely not possible due to time restraints.

I’m curious if another solution would be a partial but time constrained execution of a skill.

For example, if your goal is to write 750 words a day, would writing 20 words work? For working out, would doing a few air squats that take 5 minutes work as a placeholder for the full execution of the task?

According to Lally’s experiment, missing a day or two here and there didn’t seem to adversely affect the approach of aromaticity. But would a half execution be better?

Back From Vacation

As I might have mentioned in another post, I just got back from a vacation. During this interlude, I put myself in the “Tavern” in HabitRPG and allowed myself to have a few drinks. I didn’t hold to doing 750 words daily. And didn’t do Duolingo or my daily meditations.

Two things about this.

One, I need to figure a way to continue being rigorous about my discipline through such interludes. There will always be interruptions, and I think the key to all of this is to soldier on despite them. Now for this trip, there were times I really didn’t have time to do my 750 words or Duolingo, and that’s fine. BUT it was not a reason to drink because that action can be done anywhere. Just a thought.

But secondly, I’ve found it really difficult to get back on track. I initially felt like I could get back “on the wagon” for all habits the next day after coming back, but instead it’s taken me a while to get over what I’ll call habit inertia. And that’s another good reason to power through vacations or other interruptions in some way or another. It’s just plain difficult to get started again.

Well I’m back on today - so far I’ve completed my meditation, 750 words, I’ve gotten out of the tavern on HabitRPG, and I’ll be doing my Duolingo shortly.

Breaking Points and Ego Depletion

I’m currently reading a book entitled Willpower by Tierney and Baumeister. In it the authors term the erosion of willpower as “ego depletion”.

A few days ago I exerted a lot of willpower through abstaining from alcohol in an environment highly conducive to drinking for me, doing Duolingo, writing on 750words, my own work, meditating, and reading. The next day I was completely and utterly depleted.

So I looked online to see what recharges ego-depletion. Sleep and glucose (like a candy bar) work, but neither was helpful in the situation - I couldn’t sleep and I don’t want to go to sugar when later on I’ll be incorporating working out and nutrition to the program.

One suggestion was to watch funny youtube videos. So, I attempted it, timing myself, and using a rudimentary ego-depletion scale (1-10) to see how it affected me over time. After 5 minutes of watching a favorite standup comedian, I felt I had gotten to about a 4. After 12 minutes, I was up to a 7, and after 20 minutes I was up to a 9.

Later that day I felt more depleted, but had a piece of cake, which immediately got me writing my daily 750words.

Although I didn’t complete my Duolingo and meditation for that day, I did accomplish more than I thought I would, given my level of mental exhaustion.

Clearly, watching funny videos has to be incorporated into my program.

July 4th and Rising to the Challenge of Habituation

On July 4th I had a party at my house. Lots of grilling, beer, etc.

What was interesting is that I felt the whole thing was a challenge I was rising to meet.

I didn’t drink and I actually viewed it as a challenge. You see, on Habit RPG I actually get bonus points if I don’t drink at a party. I actually feel so much better about going to a bar or whatnot because I know I get more points in game if other people are drinking around me and I’m not. In specific, I’ve coded the game to give me more points at my moments of greatest weakness.

The other day a friend made some comment about going out for a drink, but not wanting to ask me to go because I won’t drink. I actually encouraged it, because I knew I’d get double points, hahaha. And that’s great - the whole point of this is to be more engaged in life, to do more rather than avoid situations completely.

And before this gamification, I did view parties and bars as huge temptations - and it is hard to stay sober when everyone else is drinking - it’s social pressure. This is the first time I’ve viewed it as a challenge - I actually want to get into those situations because it gives me the opportunity to get more points. This is a huge reframing.

Back at my July 4th party, I actually took about half an hour out from the party to go to my room and write so that I could fulfill my 750words.com mission for the day.

After I finished a guy messaged me, giving me a hard time about not doing my writing and posting it like I usually do - I got a huge kick out of messaging him back to check again.

And that mentality is what I want to cultivate - that evil grin you get when someone is expecting you to completely fail, but you know you’ve got the proof to show them that you have risen. It’s a surge of power knowing you are crushing their expectations. I should really come up with a word for this powerful mindset and cultivate it even more.

I am very curious how this dynamic, which is valuable in and of itself right now, will affect me over the long term while adding other types of discipline to  my life.

750words and "Morning Pages" for Writing

750 Words is one of two gamification programs I’m initiating this week. The concept is based off “morning pages” - where one writes roughly 3 pages on any subject without heavily editing yourself.

Morning pages are used to get thoughts flowing, to get the process of  writing more and more a habitual thing rather than something that only comes when the mood strikes. Often times it’s the first step - just starting to write - that writers have difficulty with. Morning pages attack the problem of perfectionism - the idea that words first written down on a page have to be perfect rather than ones that can be edited later - and therefore help out with procrastination and writer’s block.

And I have all these problems.

I’ve used this with success in the past when I had a particularly bad case of writer’s block. Its something I wanted to do for a while to help out with work and help out with having more output.

750 words gamifies morning pages by making it into a scorecard similar to bowling. You get different badges as you go along, a visual record of progress, the ability to share on sites like facebook, and group challenges.

I ramped up using this program last week, but I’m doing a hard start this week.

"2 Shitty Pages" - Tim Ferriss on Lowered Quotas and Efficiency

Author Timothy Ferriss (author of The 4-Hour Workweek, The 4-Hour Body, and The 4-Hour Chef) at the 5:06 mark talks about how in daily tasks, lowering quotas allows you to achieve higher productivity. Lowered quotas help lower the inertia of starting tasks, which can be particularly difficult to overcome if you don’t really like the task.

His example is writing, which I personally hate doing in a systematic way. He mentions a particularly prolific friend who would consider the day a win if he produced “two shitty pages.” This is great, because often times it’s just the process of getting through that is difficult - we tend to want to edit as we are writing instead of after the fact. Perfectionism sounds great, but can be debilitating in terms of habituation. This mentality negates the need for perfection.

Programs like NaNoWriMo are particularly successful because they advocate the process of just getting the words onto the page whether they are good or not. Editing comes later, but is less psychologically debilitating than having to write words that need to perfect from the start.

The program I’m fiddling around with now, 750words, advocates the same thing in the form of “morning pages” - a practice that can equally be used for professional writing or to break out of writer’s block.

I’ve noticed that with most of my writing, it’s the act of just getting started that takes forever.