I wrote a post about how great habits are after reading atomic habits as well as all the other productivity books and posts I’d been reading over lockdown.
The problem is they can take over your life if you obsess over them, and I did for a while. I woke up made my coffee, while the coffee was filtering through the funnel I sat and meditated for 10 minutes, after that I grabbed my freshly brewed litre of coffee (yes a litre, it’s what you need to get through your habits) and sat and did did my gratitude journal, then I “studied” Duolingo German for at least 15 minutes, after that i would do my kettlebells and other bits I have now blocked out of my mind. This routine took me an hour and a half each morning. I did it for the best part of six months straight, I gave myself a slightly reduced version for the weekend of like an hour or something, but still!! Even on the weekends I didn’t let myself off.
The Cracks started to appear
First I noticed it was hard to think of anything new to be grateful for when you are stuck indoors mostly and everything is shut, I started saying things like “I’m grateful for the windows in my room”, “I’m grateful for oxygen” it started to grate all this gratefulness. Then I realised I was getting better at Duolingo, but it no longer became about learning German, it became about not losing my streak! I was addicted to keeping this streak and if I woke up and couldn’t be bothered I still tried to answer the questions, but I could actually care less about the reason I’d started. The same thing started to happen with meditation, I started to hate Sam Harris’s voice again, I had got used to it for a while on the meditation app, but after six months his monotone orders to find the person meditating started to piss me off rather than open my mind.
What happened next?
I stopped… yes, I quit caring about the streaks and the guilt of having to do this crazy routine and just stopped. I realised I have a main focus my work, luckily my work involves training so I go to classes, I go to a functional fitness gym, a yoga studio and do BJJ as well as some boxing. What doesn’t happen with these is that I don’t track it directly. I get up and go to the classes. If I don’t go i don’t feel guilty and you know what… I go more because of this! These habits are things I enjoy. I am sitting here in the coffee shop writing this post and it’s one of only 3 things I have to do today and each day to move the dial on my business and my self development.
What did I keep in my schedule?
I figured out how to make my productivity journaling work for me rather than feel like it was whipping me with a stick when I didn’t do something.
Routine is my friend now not my enemy, This is my average day now.
7:00 Wake Up shower and get ready
7:30 Listen to a podcast/possibly watch some crap to warm up my brain
8:15 Cycle to the gym
8:45 Hang out outside gym chatting to the early birds
9:00 Train hard for 45 minutes at Forgewarehouse
10:00 Breakfast and look through emails
10:30 Work on my 3 tasks
13:00 Teach
14:00 Train BJJ with the guys a bit
15:00 Work on some more of those three tasks if I didn’t finish it in the morning, this is in a relaxed fashion
18:00 Yoga at the power yoga
21:00 Check my journal and plan the next day.
This doesn’t mean I quit the other habits
I haven’t quit, no sir, I am looking at in person German classes next to get a better more fun way of learning it. I also have a list of things I want to learn, so those will be in another post soon am sure.
Moral of the story
You control your life, and you have one of them. Sure you don’t want to not do anything, but don’t let the things you do consume you and not be fun.