Habits are for your worst days
jasonleow • 26 Feb 2024 •
Habits are for the hard days.
On easy days, on days when you have time, energy, willpower, performing the task is easy.
On hard days, on days when you’re utterly spent, have zero time, when performing the task is too hard. That’s when habit systems are the most important.
Because if it doesn’t work on your worst days, do you truly have a habit?
When I started my 1 Github commit per day habit, it was easy. I was fully focused on my indie products. There’s no consulting, no other projects.
Now, I’m juggling 3-4 gigs all at once.
I’m exhausted. I’m running on fumes, or stress. I’m so short on time I got to work weekends.
That’s when habit systems help me stay committed and keep going at it consistently.
Because I don’t ever want to end up like what happened to me last year – drifting through the months, and in a blink of an eye I was near the end of the year, without much commits on my Github chart, with no new products to speak of. Another year without progress. That’s my worst nightmare.
My habit system of 1 commit/day keeps that nightmare at bay, one tiny code tweak at a time.
Habits are for your worst days.
Comments
Haha that’s true! I might have written something similar in some form back then when we were all still figuring out how to do this.
Agree re: meditation. Some habits defy systems and motivation. But for meditation, I guess it’s hard for a reason, and why it makes it worth doing.
For some reason, this reminded me of your posts on 200WAD. I agree about habits, though I find some habits aren’t easy even if I have all the time and energy in the world. Meditation comes to mind.