Restructuring Habits

Although my super habits are down cold, my two non-habits - eating and work are pretty much in shambles. I’m not worried about either though - once I get into the zone in eating it gets consistent fast. And with work it’s understandable - I haven’t worked the last week for the holidays and that absence is affecting my SRHI score.

More worthy of discussion is the plateau I find myself in superhabits.

Writing is about to change. I want to alternate between writing and editing, and I’ve started doing this to good affect. I’m also considering adding another day of pitching and one day of blogging on the weekends.

I need to memorize the SRHI to continue on with record keeping, but it’s not that serious of an issue.

Lastly, I’ve plateaued in bodyweight exercises. I’ve started doing the one arm pushup progression against the wall, but it’s not that difficult and I’m not sure if I’m doing it correctly. Other exercises are stalling - my dragon lifts are pretty much the same right now and my bridges aren’t necessarily improving. 

I realize with this that though it feels like I’m flailing, it really hasn’t been that long. It just sort’ve feels like a long time because it’s the holidays and I’ve been traveling and relaxing because of it - the holiday effect. But I would like to throw more stuff into the mix - maybe start lower body exercises or whatnot. 

I’d like to start implementing my fixed meditation plan as I outlined in my book. It basically consists of practicing multiple arenas of meditation classifications. I’ve started doing a it a little bit but I want to make it cyclical - changing it up every day. 

This cycling idea started with bodyweight training and has seemed to just leak over to all my superhabits. I’m curious how it works. I’m wondering if it’s a good way to bust past a plateau. But I also think it’s completely like cheating. Up until the superhabit formed I’m normally doing one task - usually in Tiny Habit form. But once the “slot” coalesces not only does the actual amount of one task grow, but I can get several tasks for the price of one.

I’m ideally not just writing, I’m using the slot of writing to write, pitch, blog, and edit. I’ll see how it goes, but if it goes well things are about to get really interesting, and either way I’m going to welcome the changes.

Forming Record Keeping as a Habit

Lydia wants to start record keeping in order to cement her habits. She’s been trying to keep up with a habit by skipping over the recording, and she’s admitted that it doesn’t really work well for her.

When I started this project for real (the third time), I decided that I was going to begin only with record keeping. In my mind, forming a habit of recording habits is the trunk and roots of a tree of skills. And though it seems tedious to JUST do that, it’s the process that, when properly cemented, is where all other branches of the tree arise.

But Lydia’s hesitancy is understandable. I don’t want to advise people to sit there for 2 months doing nothing but recording nothing…just recording the process of recording. It makes sense theoretically - record keeping is something that takes very little time but is often overlooked - like most quality habits. Flossing, doing crunches, etc take very little time, but over time are dropped. Even the researchers have problems getting their test subjects to take the SRHI regularly.

As we were talking I further backed up forming the record keeping habit slowly. There is a maddening tendency while doing it - you have so much willpower right NOW, but you feel like you’re doing nothing. The problem is that willpower really doesn’t matter. Going to the gym once and having a fantastic focused workout doesn’t matter at all if it’s not extended for a long time. Endurance is the key to lasting change.

The other argument is that once it’s developed it’s yours presumably for life. So yeah you might take 2 months to develop it, but isn’t that worth it if you’re going to resting other habits on top of it? Isn’t it worth it if it’s cemented forever?

Despite all this, it still doesn’t sit well with me, especially when it comes to giving advice. “First, go record recording for 2 months” just doesn’t fly off the tongue. I can hear people just ignoring this first step anyway - god knows I would if I heard that a few years ago. Is there any way to compress two habits - one of recording and another habit - so that it at least feels like you’re doing something in the beginning?

I’m all for adding two habits at once if they’re both tiny - the endurance threshold lowers so it’s easier to keep it up to make them both habits. Lydia suggested automating the recording process. A lot of what takes time is adding up all the scores - what if it was all automated?

That level of programming knowledge, though basic, just happens to be far more advanced than what I can accomplish.  Lydia is working on a simple spreadsheet that will tally scores.

But what if you could go further? Say a click-able list of questions that tallies your score and automatically records it onto a spreadsheet with all your habits with a date stamp. And the date keeps rolling - so if you don’t do the questionnaire it continues to mark it as an absence - oddly enough a big problem I’ve had is counting and making sure my missed days are accounted for. I often get quite confused trying to straighten out my numerical mess ups.

If you could have a streamlined system like this I believe the habit would be successfully “tiny-fied” - and adding it together with something like doing two pushups a day would be feasible. And furthermore, it would be palatable as an overall program for general self improvement.

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!

Graph Day! Graphs of 3 Habits

You might have noticed that I didn’t blog yesterday - my internet was out so I had to do it all offline. But as I went to log it in I went ahead and logged all my travel data into my spreadsheet. Since I had all the numbers, and since my bodyweight exercise is, at least according to the numbers, a habit, I thought I’d do another series of graphs. I omitted eating since I didn’t start recording it from the beginning.

I don’t have time to analyze them today but will do so soon.

X is number of days, y is the SRHI from 12-84.

Record Keeping

Fixed Meditation

Bodyweight Exercises

When and Where

So this is my first “Record Keeping” habit post. 

I decided I would do my record keeping in the morning right after waking up. Although from a memory perspective it would be best to do this at the end of the day or right after doing the task, I find that for the habituation portion “bookending” at the beginning of the day is best. As the day progresses more and more chances for deviation get introduced.

My starting SRHI = 14 for this habit.

I’ve pegged the habit at 40 days - just a rough estimate, but one I will ascertain by taking the SRHI - for this one I’m going to attempt to take it every day as part of my record keeping - I do not know if this will affect the scale, or if it will simply give me more plot points of data.

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.

Completely Stalled Out

I’ve completely stalled out on this project. 

The first thing to get over my frustration is to realize that this is bound to occur - just like it did on 750 words - gaining a handle on anything worthwhile almost requires moments of extreme frustration and loss of focus.

Secondly, I need to remember why I’m doing this. I have a deep desire within me to master a number of skills related to several fields. To me not attempting to master these skills would be tantamount to giving up a part of who I am. I consider this integral to my identity.

Furthermore, this method of habit formation is the only way in my mind to even attempt mastery at them. I’ve seen how some people amble about, cycling enthusiastically through interests without getting anywhere with any of them long term. Hell, that’s how I’ve been most of my life. I’ve seen books that talk about how you can learn a skill in 20 hours or some other short time - to me this isn’t mastery or habit formation.  I want the beast itself not some simulation of it. Therefore this is the only way to go.

Thirdly, I need to know why I failed. I failed for good reasons - moving countries, a death of a close friend, a very long illness, depression, etc. But everyone has reasons. A reason doesn’t magically make it all better. 

Fourthly I need to know what to do now. For me one of the biggest problems was not being able to record my items of habituation. Recording is important because it keeps one level of distance away from the grind of doing a habit - it also keeps you motivated and is a constant reminder of what you need to do for course correction.

My records were shoddy - I would record some days - I would leave swaths unrecorded and then recover my info later and quickly instead of giving the process its due. Recording my habit keeps me in touch with the entire project and keeps it real for me. Looking back, I’ve had problems with record keeping since the beginning, and this got worse as the habit formation got harder - which is not a good thing. Recording - seeing the swath of days where I kept the habit vs not kept the habit is the seat of change for this entire project. 

Also in that vein I need to write more on this blog. I think I haven’t been doing so because I want to keep it blog like - I want to get a picture and keep it short - but the truth is the purpose of this blog is like the record keeping - it keeps me in touch with the project. A picture isn’t needed, it’s extra, as is a bite sized blog post of 200 words, or paying attention to spelling and grammar. What is necessary is note keeping for the project, so I can look back and know what was going on week to week and how I can learn from it.