Month: October 2018

Last week saw rocky waters for this trial. I was struggling to get up on time, and frequently failed to come close to my morning goal. After the drop in compliance, I needed to make some changes to the systems I had in place to make sure I was sticking to what I wanted.

Systems? What Systems?

In a previous trial, I put together an accountability group. It’s helped both me and the others in the group make more progress on the things we’ve put off, as well as build better habits.

This week, one friend felt he was spending too much time on his phone and was going to track it in his iPhone. To do so, he decided he was going to use the phone’s new feature to limit screen time for him.

While I can’t directly copy this approach for my waking habit, I can fine tune existing systems and introduce new failsafes to get the habit running smoothly. For example, actually waking up at 5 AM each day is my goal for the group this week. If I slip up even once, that’s breakfast for four out of my pocket.

A few other systems I have in place are habits I do just before bed or first thing in the morning. Before I go to bed, I of course set my alarm clocks. I have a sleep tracker on my phone as well as an old school bell analog clock. The latter is on the other side of the room, so I need to spring up to turn it off.

Next, I try to make my bed immediately upon waking up. If everything is set and in order, I’m far less likely to try and sneak back under the covers. Then, I’ll put on the socks and shoes I’ve laid out the night before to go for a short walk around the block. Once outside, the chance of wanted to go back to bed are next to none.

Why Systems Work

Two reasons stand out to me as the keys of why systems work. Reminders and fallbacks.

We live in a world of near constant distraction. Responsibilities, other people, advertisements, notifications, and endless possibility cross our path basically every day. It’s not hard to believe that sometimes we forget about the goals we truely set out to do.

By doing small things, I’ve sought to keep pushing little reminders of those goals. Right now, these are focused on my mornings, but they have taken a number of forms in the past.

Many of these reminders also serve as easy ways to fallback into previously established habits. I mentioned earlier that I have my shoes ready so I can quickly get a walk in upon waking up. These not only remind me that I need to walk, but even forgetting why they are there, I still put them on and walk without thinking why.

Our brains want to take as many mental shortcuts as possible. Setting up easy fallbacks greases the wheels for managing habits. Letting our minds take shortcuts for our habits allows saving mental energy for more complex tasks.

What systems can you put in place today to make your habits and goals easier to stick to?

Thanks for joining me!

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton

I’m starting this post almost two hours later than last weeks. Yes, it is because I woke up almost two hours later than last week. Even without 100% compliance, I am getting the benefits I was looking for with this trial. Today gave me a lot to think about even if I’ve only been up for a few minutes.

Don’t React If It’s Unneccessary

In the past, my morning strategy was wake up, roll out of bed, and make my way to work. I used the morning routine trial to try and shake that up, which definitely helped. The problem was that should I ever wake up off of what I had planned, I would be thrown into a panic.

If I didn’t have time to get to everything I wanted to, I would rush leading to me reacting all day trying to catch up to my plan. I was particularly bad before having any morning routine established. I’ve had countless days of up and out the door. Forgetting lunch, not taking care of any of my to-do list, etc. This morning I woke up a little after 7 and that instinct kicked in.

“Oh no, I need to do this, this, and this.” I thought for a moment when my eyes opened. Then I took a deep breath and got up as I normally would and got ready accordingly. I’m definitely not going to be able to get as much as I was hoping to done, but I can still be the one in control of my day.

Lifestyle Change is Hard

I write a lot about not sticking to what I set out for myself on this blog, which can be pretty damn frustrating. I didn’t follow X as closely as I wanted, or I failed at doing Y each day. This has felt particularly true of the last few trials.

Author James Clear has popped up a ton in the various media I follow, so I decided to give him a deeper look. His annual review post for 2017 really jumped out to me. I love retrospectives and reviews people give for periods of time. It’s nice to get an idea of what someone thinks, especially when that someone is you.

In his reviews, James has a whole section for what didn’t go as well as he had hoped. I couldn’t help but really stick to the section, as I’ve found myself struggling with keeping up with these trials. In reading through, I realized that so many of the trials I’ve done lately are actually pretty major lifestyle changes, and those can take some time to settle in.

If you find yourself not quite where you want to be with a new habit, practice, or even just your morning, don’t rush it. Take a small step back and look at what is really going on. Then, get back on track with a new, better plan.

This is definitely the earliest I’ve written for this blog. It’s currently 5:39 AM in the morning, and I’ve already accomplished more than some days I’ve experienced by 5:39 PM. Getting up at 5 AM each morning – 6 on the weekend – has proven to be more fulfilling than I expected. This early time in the morning gives me a level of purpose to my day and productivity I really can’t recreate at other times, though has had its own set of difficulties.

Morning Task Roundup

I typically have at least one or two specific tasks I need to accomplish on a given day. In the past, these were things I would save until late into the day. After work and re-energizing from said work often led to having overdue tasks from a prior day because I didn’t get to everything.

Now, I’m able to often get everything done before I even leave for work. I’ve written in the past about ideas pertaining will power and focus being resources a person has that deplete throughout the day. Waking up early may cost some of that will power, but is negligible compared to a day of commutes, work, socializing, cooking, eating, etc.

This post, for example, is generally something that I wait until late into the evening to write. Normally, the back of my mind is working on this throughout the entirety of the day, as I know I “have” to do it. Now, I can get this published before work even crosses my mind.

5 AM Focus

In his book Start, Jon Acuff suggests finding your 5 AM. I may have taken this a bit literally, but the idea is to find any time of the day when work can be done uninterrupted. It could be 5 AM, 9 PM, 12 AM, etc.

I boasted in the past of being a night owl and the farthest thing from a morning person, but I don’t think I ever really appreciated how great the morning could be. I am able to get highly focused work done without interruptions or distractions. No one is texting me, calling me, or otherwise trying to contact me. They are either asleep, or have their own focus they are holding dear.

Not All Sunshine

Now, I would be lying if I said all of this was completely easy to do. The first couple days, I was able to get up no problem. Then a college Homecoming weekend quickly threw a wrench into the 6 AM goal I sought to hit for weekends. This week then started a little rocky, but I’ve seem to have settled things out.

To my surprise, waking up wasn’t really too difficult. I actually got up and felt rested. The problems came when I didn’t really know what I should do at that point.

It’s starting to get rather cold and dark in Eastern Iowa, so a habit started in which I’ll wrap myself in a light blanket and lay back down. You can see where this goes.

I decided what I needed was a quick action I could do with little to no resistance that forced me out of the house for at least a few minutes. Once out and about, it’s feels dumb to try and go back to bed.

I also started implementing some old morning habits that kind of died off after months of negligence. A short workout in the morning has been another fun way to sort of shock my system. I’m hoping to continue improving on the routines I had worked on in the past. If you have any suggestions or want to share what time “your 5 AM” is, please let me know in the comments below!

The different writing goals I’ve set for myself over the past few weeks have been a mix of compliance and failure. Changing things up at the midpoint definitely helped, but it didn’t take long for bad habits to get in the way again.. Overall, things were still a ton of fun. I was able to try a lot of different styles of writing that I don’t get to explore as much here.

Need for a Change

The beginning of the trial I was feeling good, writing just about every night. The problem was my writing was really accomplishing what I wanted. The 750 words I was writing simply become a journal, which I had already given a try early on.

I then tried to write on different subjects, but then I wasn’t doing well in hitting the word count I was aiming for. Thus, another change was in sight.

Changing the frame of the trial from 750 words to 250 words before I left for work definitely helped. I found myself getting up early and exceeding my word count on several days.

Unfortunately, this did not last as long as I would have hoped. Staying up late one night too many led to bad mornings of getting up with little time to write led to rushed or skipping writing that day.

Cross Discipline

My favorite part of this trial was branching out into different styles of writing I don’t often get to explore with the format of this blog.

I wrote essays on different media, a movie review, and some general thought pieces on things that interest me. I have a particular interest in personal finance, and I really enjoyed a piece I did on debt.

Throughout this trial I’ve actually thought of starting a separate personal blog that was a lot less structured, and really to serve as a place to publish works that don’t really fit the idea for this blog. It also gives me the excuse to have less of a regular release schedule there. It’s not a wholely new idea and still up in the air, but let me know if that’s something you would be interested in reading.

At the End of It All

This trial was really a learning session for practicing different approaches  for accomplishing better writing habits. It was also a huge opportunity to strengthen other writing styles.

In some ways it was a success, but unfortunately in others it was not so much. I do think writing in the morning is the best method for me. The thing I need to focus on is other habits to enable that.

With that in mind, I am going to try a habit I’ve been putting off for some time. I am going to try and wake up at 5 AM every weekday and 6 AM on the weekends over the next four weeks. I have never been a morning person, and so I want to push myself far beyond my comfort zone.

Adjusting my daily writing objective to be done first thing in the morning has really helped me stay on track. Other than one day that involved a lot of travel, I’ve written my 250-word goal without issue. Addressing my writing early has helped me to get away from journaling and writing more topical pieces I don’t feel fit the format of this blog.

If You’re Going to Do Something Do It First

The struggle I had in the previous post was that I found myself burnt out by the end of the day. Hitting a word count goal quickly became writing whatever came from mind to page the fastest. To try and combat this, I adjusted my goal this past week. Instead of 750 words per day, I am only aiming for a minimum of 250. The caveat is that I need to complete the writing before I leave for the day.

This adjustment means one of the first things I do in the morning is write. What I love writing early is that I usually write well over my word goal. One day I wrote over 500 words. 

Helpful Habits

A majority of my thinking happens during long walks. For a few weeks now I’ve been trying to get a nightly walk in. It was during one of these walks I had probably one of my brightest ideas, “what if I did this in the morning to help spark my writing?”

I started trying to get shorter walks in right after waking up. A quick walk around the block has helped get ideas flowing while my body still wakes up. If you ever have a case of writer’s block, I recommend a walk, no matter how short.

Morning walks have been extremely helpful when I’m staring at a blank page with little in mind, but luckily, I’ve had a lot of topics bouncing around. Often, I’ve had an idea in mind the night before and will start writing it immediately after making my bed – the true first task of my day.

New Topics

The format of this blog has been a lot of fun, but I am cautious to move away from the trial and weekly post setup I’ve been utilizing for well over a year now. This 

A broad range of subjects interest me. I frequently read lifestyle and personal finance blogs and watch videos ranging from media analysis to cooking shows to outright educational content.

Taking this time to write in the morning has been a lot of fun to explore these other interests. I don’t expect that I’ll move away from this format on this blog, but I’ve long thought about creating a separate personal blog that was a little more loosely run. Posts might be made as written and completed, rather than on a particular schedule.

In the past week, I’ve written about debt, The Lord of the Rings, and even themes found in one of my favorite games. I have a suggestion from my cousin to write about “defeat” so I may be giving that a try in the coming days.

Everything so far has been early stage drafts, but I hope to expand and fine tune the ideas that I really enjoy writing about. One of the major objectives for this trial was to expand my writing in different directions, and even if I never “publish” what I’ve written over the past few weeks, I know I’m improving my craft. That is enough in my book.