Even though I've been a freelancer for almost a decade and haven't had a proper schedule in a long time, I was always fascinated by habits and routines, especially from other artists and creators, one of the reasons I recently read "Daily Rituals: How Artists Work". In recent years, there were 4 activities that I wanted to add to my daily routine but could never find the time or energy to do so: reading, journaling, meditating, and exercising, not necessarily in that order. Most of the time, I would get excited about something new, but after a few days or weeks, I'd drop without looking back. Everything changed when I came across two concepts:
1. Tiny Habits
Tiny Habits is a concept I first came across while reading blog posts and watching YouTube videos created by different people in the Productivity and Self-Improvement community, until a couple of months ago when I decided to go straight to the author and read "Tiny Habits: The Small Changes That Change Everything”. In the book, BJ Fogg breaks down habit creation into identifying the habit you want to build, creating the best environment to make the new habit happen, mapping out behaviors, and sticking to your new habits. So when it comes down to a new habit, what you really want to focus on is to create the tiniest version of it that you can realistically follow through. If you want to start exercising, for example, you can't really convince yourself that starting tomorrow you're going to hit the gym for 1 hour every single day. What you can (probably) do is to start by working out for 10 minutes each day, and let it grow from there. Some days you may feel great and stay for the full hour, but on other days, if you don't feel like it, you can leave after 10 minutes feeling like you accomplished what you originally planned to do. Reading is another great example. If you're not a book worm, you're not going to force yourself to sit down and read 100 pages with no interruption. But if instead, you challenge yourself to read 10 pages (or minutes) every day, in 10 days you'll reach the same 100 pages that you wanted, and probably didn't get to because you dropped the idea right away. The whole idea is to implement small habits here and there and aim for the long run. After one, two, three months, or a year, you'll look back and be grateful for starting! You may surprise yourself by realizing that the tiny habit became something much bigger over time, or even morphed into something else without you realizing. If that doesn't happen, at least you developed a new habit and stuck with it! As BJ said in the book: "No matter how much you want to cultivate a healthy habit, you won’t be able to do it reliably if you start big."
2. Tracking your Habits
In parallel to creating a new habit, you need to find a way to track it. Not everybody will agree on this, but if you have a visually appealing way to see your progress over time, I promise you will feel way less encouraged to stop your new habit. For tracking, there are 2 ways that I tested and worked for myself:
→ A Monthly Calendar: Just print a blank calendar, write down the habit you are starting, and every day you do the new habit you go there and put a mark on the respective day. Put a big and colorful X on the box. In the beginning, you may feel discouraged by seeing one X and all the rest of the month blank, but you'll be surprised by how quickly you'll start filling out the boxes without realizing it. The magic here is that 1) you will get so excited when you see the month filling up that you won't want to skip a day and break the chain, and 2) you will start to look forward to doing the new habit just so you can quickly go there and update the calendar. It may sound silly, but it really works!
→ An App: Although I really like the calendar approach, I wanted to find a way I could easily track multiple habits at the same time. Being a technology enthusiast myself, the natural solution was to look for an App, and after testing out a few options, the one that resonated with me was Streaks, which I currently use on my iPhone. Streaks define itself as "The to-do list that helps you form good habits", and I couldn't agree more! It lets you select 12 different habits to track, with a lot of pre-designed options and the ability to create yours from scratch, if you don't see what you're looking for. After adding a new habit, you set up by deciding how often you want to do that specific habit and that's all! To start using, all you have to do is open up the app and press and hold to mark a habit as "done". What I love about the app is that it keep track of you "streak", showing you how many days in a row have you been doing it, what's your past record, and a few other valuable statistics. You can also add a bad habit that you are trying to break. Similar to the physical calendar approach, using the app will make you not want to skip a day and break the chain. For those who like to keep things digital, this app can really be a game-changer!
Here are the 9 habits I've been tracking with Streaks for the past 3 months or so, with the number of days I've completed in a row:
→ In the morning: 30 minutes of reading (79 days); 5 minutes of journaling (102 days); 5 minutes of meditation (94 days); 10 push-ups (50 days); Exercise (83 days).
→ In the evening: 30 minutes of reading (50 days); 5 minutes of meditation (48 days); flossing my teeth (86 days).
→ And a bad habit I'm trying to break: No snack in the evening (14 days).
Bonus 1: choose something you truly enjoy!
When trying to create a new (and necessary) habit, like exercising, it is important that you pay attention to your lifestyle and choose activities that you already enjoy doing it, instead of pushing to do something that you always hated. An example could be swimming instead of running on the treadmill. "Help yourself do what you already want to do." - BJ Fogg
Bonus 2: The Two Day Rule
Really enjoy this concept I first came across watching this video from Matt D'Avella on YouTube. What he basically says is that if you are trying to implement a daily habit, you should focus on never skipping 2 days in a row. You are allowed to break the chain and take a day off from the habit, as long as you get right back to it the next day. This allows you to take multiple days off, without feeling discouraged and dropping the habit from your life altogether. It can be a game-changer approach for a lot of people struggling with consistency!