I went back to scheduling my life using my phone. It’s basic stuff like workout or clean on this day at this time. This has been an utter failure so far. The reason I originally stopped using the schedule is because, after some initial success, I wasn’t following it then either. I need to get into a habit of following it, but breaking the schedule when I’ve only barely started is a really bad sign.
This might be true, but it isn’t obvious; and if it is true, it isn’t obvious that this works as an object-level goal. (By that I mean that in order to start following your schedule, you probably don’t want to apply willpower towards following your schedule. Other things you might want to try include: schedule things differently; schedule different things; change how you feel about the things you have scheduled.)
I think you’re right about less willpower (not your pessimism about habituation as a goal). The goals were originally set to maximize the odds that I’d be home and available at the time the task needed to occur. I’m considering moving the goals to an earlier part of the day so I get more of them done before being distracted.
What happened those times you ignored your schedule? There can be very different breakpoints in a system like this.
Do you break away to do other things that need to be done but didn’t get to schedule properly?
Are you neglecting to check the schedule?
Is acknowledging the schedule turning into an ugh field?
Are finding the scheduled item is not something immediately actionable?
Are the scheduled items taking longer/shorter than expected?
Are you constantly finding excuses (even good ones) not to do the scheduled thing?
Some subset of the above? Without knowing specifics, I can tell you: Schedules tend towards sucking up will-power, as philh was getting at, like a badly designed phone application drains power. Scheduled items require over and over again that you do this at this time, whether you want to or not, whether it makes sense to do it then or not. You may find formulating itty bitty trigger-action habits more useful than a schedule: make them just big enough to put you in a perfect position to work on the task, and small enough that that you can do just that and stop if it’s not a good time. (BJ Fogg’s tiny habits)[http://tinyhabits.com/join/] is BRILLIANT at setting these up.
I’m having good results from using HabitRPG for this sort of thing. Your character gets experience points as you accomplish various daily, weekly, or one-off tasks, and it also records how many times in a row you’ve successfully done each recurring task. It’s kind of silly, but I really feel good about my 37-day streak of actually eating breakfast.
That is an excellent feature. I’ve transitioned away from it because it loads slowly on my computer and doesn’t give a history of to-dos by date that I can reference whenever someone complains I don’t do anything—myself especially.
It also integrates with beeminder now, FrameBenignly, which is a point in its favor.
I went back to scheduling my life using my phone. It’s basic stuff like workout or clean on this day at this time. This has been an utter failure so far. The reason I originally stopped using the schedule is because, after some initial success, I wasn’t following it then either. I need to get into a habit of following it, but breaking the schedule when I’ve only barely started is a really bad sign.
This might be true, but it isn’t obvious; and if it is true, it isn’t obvious that this works as an object-level goal. (By that I mean that in order to start following your schedule, you probably don’t want to apply willpower towards following your schedule. Other things you might want to try include: schedule things differently; schedule different things; change how you feel about the things you have scheduled.)
I think you’re right about less willpower (not your pessimism about habituation as a goal). The goals were originally set to maximize the odds that I’d be home and available at the time the task needed to occur. I’m considering moving the goals to an earlier part of the day so I get more of them done before being distracted.
What happened those times you ignored your schedule? There can be very different breakpoints in a system like this.
Do you break away to do other things that need to be done but didn’t get to schedule properly?
Are you neglecting to check the schedule?
Is acknowledging the schedule turning into an ugh field?
Are finding the scheduled item is not something immediately actionable?
Are the scheduled items taking longer/shorter than expected?
Are you constantly finding excuses (even good ones) not to do the scheduled thing?
Some subset of the above? Without knowing specifics, I can tell you: Schedules tend towards sucking up will-power, as philh was getting at, like a badly designed phone application drains power. Scheduled items require over and over again that you do this at this time, whether you want to or not, whether it makes sense to do it then or not. You may find formulating itty bitty trigger-action habits more useful than a schedule: make them just big enough to put you in a perfect position to work on the task, and small enough that that you can do just that and stop if it’s not a good time. (BJ Fogg’s tiny habits)[http://tinyhabits.com/join/] is BRILLIANT at setting these up.
I’m having good results from using HabitRPG for this sort of thing. Your character gets experience points as you accomplish various daily, weekly, or one-off tasks, and it also records how many times in a row you’ve successfully done each recurring task. It’s kind of silly, but I really feel good about my 37-day streak of actually eating breakfast.
That is an excellent feature. I’ve transitioned away from it because it loads slowly on my computer and doesn’t give a history of to-dos by date that I can reference whenever someone complains I don’t do anything—myself especially.
It also integrates with beeminder now, FrameBenignly, which is a point in its favor.