Habit

Weekly Notes

I don’t write weekly notes every week, but today I want to.

This week has been similar to all other weeks during the pandemic: I worked a bit, but not as much as I could, I didn’t exercise enough, overall I felt tired, and didn’t feel like I had as much energy as I used to. But I know how to change all that because this is similar to how I felt two years ago. I was tired and unmotivated back then, and even though I went to the gym every few days, I didn’t really feel it made that much difference to my health.

Then one day I watched this:

I decided to go to the gym every day. And I did!

I was surprised I managed that. I have never liked exercising. There are sports I like, but the gym is rarely fun. When I decided to go every day, I thought it was going to be excruciating — forcing myself every day to go. I was wrong.

I can’t say I’ve ever learned to like it. But I went every day whether I wanted to or not, and after a week or two, I stopped thinking about it — it was just something I did. I didn’t have to force myself — it became a habit.

Those few months were the best time for my well-being. Every day, I woke up and went to the gym first thing in the morning. I slept better and I didn’t have problems waking up, I even stopped drinking coffee. I felt productive and had more free time.

Then the pandemic happened. Gyms got closed. I stopped exercising. Every night it took me hours to fall asleep. I woke up tired, had difficulties focusing on work.

My gym is finally open again. Last week I only went once and didn’t like it. But I remember how much better my life was when I had the habit of going daily. I am going to build that habit again.

Daily vs. Dailyish

It’s much easier to stick to a habit if you make it a daily habit.

For my whole adult life, I’ve been trying to make a habit out of going to the gym and exercising regularly. I had always assumed that exercising 3 or 4 times a week was enough, so I set rules for myself like: go to the gym at least 3 times a week, or go for a run once every two days. And sure, sometimes I managed to stick to it for a few weeks. But, inevitably, I would be too lazy to exercise on Monday, and Tuesday, and Wednesday, and Thursday. And then I would have needed to go every day for the rest of the week — it seemed too much, it wasn’t the plan to have to exercise every day. I would get discouraged and abandon the whole idea. And then try again a few weeks later.

It wasn’t until I decided to go to the gym every day that I managed to make it a habit and stick to it. Only when a task is non-negotiable, a habit can be built.

Morning Pages

In the last week of 2020, I bought a notebook and decided I was going to write morning pages, starting from January 1st, 2021.

If you don’t know what morning pages are, Julia Cameron, the author of “The Artist’s Way”, says it this way:

the morning pages are three pages of longhand writing, strictly stream-of-consciousness

You can read a longer explanation on Julia’s website.

A lot of people recommend doing morning pages: Tim Ferriss talks about it sometimes, Austin Kleon wrote about it too:

You might think you know what you’re thinking, but seeing your thoughts down on the page tells you what’s really going on inside your head.

I have tried to make it a habit a few times already, but I never stuck with it for longer than two weeks. This time I bought a notebook specifically for writing them. I wrote morning pages on January 5th, 2021, and then the notebook got buried under all my other notes, and I forgot about it. I unearthed it yesterday and wrote in it again. This time I am determined to stick to it.

There’s one thing that makes building habits easier — public commitment. I’ve decided to write morning pages every day, and I am announcing it here publicly. So you, Dear Reader, have now become my accountability partner.

Another thing that Julia says: