I’ve found it important to define habits as “daily-ish” unless there’s an extremely good reason to Never Miss a Single Day *. That way you don’t fall into the trap of the broken chain model where a single missed day dooms the whole project. You haven’t failed if you start again. “Daily-ish” doesn’t give license to just ignore the habit or make excuses, of course, but when you (inevitably) miss a day, it gives you just enough slack that you don’t get fully derailed.
Hint: there almost never is. Exceptions being, like, life saving maintenance medications or something. Unless somebody’s gonna die, a miss is basically inconsequential in the long run as long as you get back on the habit as soon as you notice you’ve fallen off.
I agree that generally a single miss is alright as long as I get back on track. I’m mainly just worried though about exactly that: how do I make sure I actually start again? Or at least reflect and iterate on whatever system failed?
Right now, I’m generally okay, I’m alright with a miss or two (did nothing over weekend because of Unsong but have been fine today) but I’m thinking more about long-term future me
Hmm… There’s a lot to consider here. Let me take a bit of a scatter-shot approach and we can drill down on anything that sticks. Perhaps the wide-angle view of your organizational ecosystem may be at issue? What systems are you using, and how do they support your habits? What tools are you using and how do they support your systems? How do you remember what you need to do in the first place?
ETA(“Refining the thesis after some more thought”) {
Adding a habit to your routine works better when there are clear systems and goals to hang the new task(s) on, and when there are established tools and methods to trigger the habit. You’ll never do something if you don’t have a clear idea why you’re doing it, or if you haven’t made a niche for that thing in your existing systems.
}
Some other questions you might ask yourself:
When do I need/want to be productive and why?
Don’t forget to schedule in some time to slack! This gives you a chance to relax, and can act as a bit of a buffer if you bite off too much work for a time period.
How will I decide what is the next thing to do?
Are you going to do the hardest thing first? The longest? Do you need to do a few easy things to sort of build up momentum?
What will I do when I fail or miss?
Missing isn’t something to be worried about, it’s something to plan for. How you deal with failure determines how you go forward! It’s important to look at what tool or system was involved and see if you can make a change that prevents that miss from happening again.
What will I do when I succeed, and how will I know that happened?
Lacking a concrete definition of success can kill any project. Drill down on any ambiguous thoughts/statements until you can say “This here is when I will know I’ve won!”
Is anything in there looking in the right direction? Maybe I’m way off base?
I’ve found it important to define habits as “daily-ish” unless there’s an extremely good reason to Never Miss a Single Day *. That way you don’t fall into the trap of the broken chain model where a single missed day dooms the whole project. You haven’t failed if you start again. “Daily-ish” doesn’t give license to just ignore the habit or make excuses, of course, but when you (inevitably) miss a day, it gives you just enough slack that you don’t get fully derailed.
Hint: there almost never is. Exceptions being, like, life saving maintenance medications or something. Unless somebody’s gonna die, a miss is basically inconsequential in the long run as long as you get back on the habit as soon as you notice you’ve fallen off.
I agree that generally a single miss is alright as long as I get back on track. I’m mainly just worried though about exactly that: how do I make sure I actually start again? Or at least reflect and iterate on whatever system failed?
Right now, I’m generally okay, I’m alright with a miss or two (did nothing over weekend because of Unsong but have been fine today) but I’m thinking more about long-term future me
Hmm… There’s a lot to consider here. Let me take a bit of a scatter-shot approach and we can drill down on anything that sticks. Perhaps the wide-angle view of your organizational ecosystem may be at issue? What systems are you using, and how do they support your habits? What tools are you using and how do they support your systems? How do you remember what you need to do in the first place?
ETA(“Refining the thesis after some more thought”) { Adding a habit to your routine works better when there are clear systems and goals to hang the new task(s) on, and when there are established tools and methods to trigger the habit. You’ll never do something if you don’t have a clear idea why you’re doing it, or if you haven’t made a niche for that thing in your existing systems. }
Some other questions you might ask yourself:
When do I need/want to be productive and why?
Don’t forget to schedule in some time to slack! This gives you a chance to relax, and can act as a bit of a buffer if you bite off too much work for a time period.
How will I decide what is the next thing to do?
Are you going to do the hardest thing first? The longest? Do you need to do a few easy things to sort of build up momentum?
What will I do when I fail or miss?
Missing isn’t something to be worried about, it’s something to plan for. How you deal with failure determines how you go forward! It’s important to look at what tool or system was involved and see if you can make a change that prevents that miss from happening again.
What will I do when I succeed, and how will I know that happened?
Lacking a concrete definition of success can kill any project. Drill down on any ambiguous thoughts/statements until you can say “This here is when I will know I’ve won!”
Is anything in there looking in the right direction? Maybe I’m way off base?