Hard to Make, Easy to Break

Good habits are hard to make, easy to break. I should know. I’m back in recovery again after having built, and then broken some really good habits. If I examine them, maybe I will learn something and be able to keep things going the next time.

And this post is further proof of how hard it can be to repair a broken habit. I started writing it on 7/26. The stuff that’s highlighted like this was written on 8/11 when I finally got the goddamn thing off my desk. But in the course of it I think I learned something. I hope I did.

So with that in mind, let’s proceed first to the data then the examination.

What Happened

In May I decided I was going to write. I was going to do it regularly and diligently. I started writing, and as I  wrote I found good tools and configured them so my writing was easier and smoother. And I made a resolution: if I opened a web page with something useful, I would not close the page unless I’d written about it. I worked diligently on my other writing projects. And the results showed it.

	TWR	RSILT	WPFW	BWAS*	Other	Total
May	5	10	2	0	0	17
June	8	35	6	0	0	49
July	13	2	4	3	0	22
Total	26	47	12	3	0	88

This does not include daily pages, which are a well established habit for me, and it does not include my first ever stage play, started in June and finished in July.

And this does not count August which has been pretty much been a washout up to now.

To read the stats: my blogfest in May started near the end of the month, so those first 17 posts have to be extrapolated to the whole month. June was a rockin’ month. I was in a pretty steady state, with continuing improvements. And in July the roof caved in. Why? And what can I learn?

What happened in July?

The obvious and wrong answer was my computer problems. I feel like I have been fighting it all month. But that’s not true. It crashed the weekend I went down to Boston: that was July 10th. It’s only been two weeks that I’ve been fighting it. It just seems like forever.

Then I thought it might be Evernote. Once I started using Evernote I just clipped interesting web pages instead of blogging about them. Turns out this is half the story. I blogged about Evernote on July 6th. My Evernote notebooks show that I started clipping on July 3rd – and I started clipping articles about Social Media. Ahh!

So another answer: At the start of July Mira and I decided to work on a blog. That sent me into another round of process improvements—including Evernote. I let Evernote be a proxy for blogging what I learned about. Then the computer crashed. And things got worse from there.

And the last answer: I just lost momentum, and did not know how to gain it back. And here’s the proof. I started this particular post on 7/26 (or before—that’s the date of the last draft before I picked it up on 8/11)

Now what do I do?

Well, this is a first step [I wrote in my original draft]. I’m writing stuff in the blog. But it’s not enough. I’ve gotten out of some really good habits, and into some bad ones. Just getting myself to write this post was a real struggle. I kept wandering off, surfing web pages and NOT WRITING!

So the answer to this seems to be: put the discipline back into your life.

Really?

That was my remedy on 7/26. “Put discipline back in your life.” And where did it get me? Nowhere. Why? Because “Put discipline back in your life” is a slogan. It’s not a behavior.

And worse, I’ve got bad Beliefs. “I’ve lost control.” “I don’t know what to do.” “I can’t handle it.” All that old shit.

Well, I can handle it. And here’s how I’m going to do it.

My Daily Pages is a fully established, very reliable habit. When I started doing the Pages it was partly with the idea of making it a keystone or foundation (depending on your metaphor) for other good habits.

I got myself into the writing habit and when I lost it I did not have a reflexive way to recover. So I was unstable

What will stabilize me? My answer is good, tight management. I need to managed, or coached until the habit is set, and to intercede if I slip.

Right now I need management at a very granular level. A day is too long a time. The right level of granularity is: a Pomodoro  at a time.

So here’s the current plan.

I will build on Pages. I will start each day with Pages, rather than doing them “some time during the day.” I will follow the Pages with Daily Planning. I will figure out some things that I am going to do—or at least attempt that day. Then start to work on the plan a Pomodoro at a time. Each time, write some notes. Coach yourself on a continuing basis.

Ellis cautions that to make changes it’s necessary to approach the problem both cognitively and behaviorally, and to reward the right result and penalize the wrong one. So: if no pages, I will take a cold shower. I hate cold showers. I have a strong incentive to avoid them. I will avoid them.

Will it work? Time will tell. Pages work. Building on Pages just might work.

I’ve got a new blog (Oh no! Not another!!!) Yes. It’s a personal one. To give myself that feedback and create a sense of history. It’s a personal blog. I may or may not make it public later on. We’ll see.

Today, under this new regime, I’ve done my pages, made my plan and made two posts in the personal blog.  I’ve completed two Pomodoros of varying sizes.

This one will make three of each.

We’ll see what happens.