Cobwebs to Cables
Habits begin as cobwebs and end as cables.
On Wednesday evening I finally passed the finish line in Nanoland. For the first time I actually kept to the daily target that I had set myself of not just 1,666 words which is necessary to cross the finish line on the last day but the rather higher 2,222 words per day. This serpent is a sucker for pretty numbers.
I've aimed quite often for the safety net of an average of 2,000 per day but never seemed able to keep it up for much longer than a couple of weeks.
This time was different due to one simple new trick.
The rule was very basic and very simple - first thing in the morning after waking up, do not read a thing, do not turn on the radio or take a quick peek at the phone, but go straight to the Big Mac and start typing for 30 minutes.
I picked that target because for 3 days a week I need to be at the bus stop for 7.30am so anything longer than 30 on those days was not really feasible.
Of course there is also method to the madness. Thirty minutes is not really very long. It does not create a lot of resistance especially since this time of year it is already daylight by 5am so i'm usually already awake anyway.
There is a simple logic behind this ritual which was actually around a long time before Julia Cameron of "The Artist's Way" fame who usually gets credit for it. The idea is to unleash the unconscious long before the constantly carping inner editor has had time to yawn and get her nasty sharp red pen out and that snarling snarking tongue that constantly hisses abuse is still tied up in knots from a good night's sleep.
Scrivener has a little box where you can get it to display running totals of the daily word count and total word count which changes from red to a gorgeous shade of deep green the closer you get to the target. So it would be possible to get instant feedback for this experiment.
The first day I got 888 words in 30 minutes. Just over half the official minimum quota for the day. I'd already tossed in the obligatory 666 starting at midnight.
The next day produced just over 1,000 then 800 and then 1,200.
Not only were the words coming effortlessly but it was so much easier than writing later at night. Then there was the feeling of knowing that there was just so much less pressure in the evening.
I guess it is like the difference in feeling you get between having $1,000 in the bank rather than owing on the credit card. It just frees up the inner creatures to be less fearful and more playful.
Of course there are other folks who fire up their inner muses by running right up to the deadline and doing a giant last minute cramming binge.
But Izzie is a plodder not a sprinter and it is best to build with the bricks you have rather than the ones you wish you had.
One day the word count for the 30 minutes dropped right down to less than 400 words. That was the morning of Thursday 10th November when I was glued to the radio like I had been the day before.
While listening to the post mortem of a certain election could all count as research, it definitely had a deleterious effect on the ramblings of the inner serpent. So no more news until after the 30 minutes squiggling was the new rule and the numbers went right back to their previous level
Today was the turning point. Once again had to be out of the house for 7.30 and having been up past midnight, it was so tempting to just snooze until the official alarm went off at 6,30
But I didn't. Got up ten minutes later than usual but still did it anyway and realized that any day now it is actually going to be easier to get up and write than not to and then staying in bed will be the thing that requires the extra effort.
The annual ritual of the 50,000 words in November awoke me to the power of simple slow and steady plodding to get to a seemingly impossible destination but soon I extended these tricks to other areas of life
Back in early 2014 I started the routines of Mopping Monday and Loo/ Laundry Tuesday and stuck to them religiously every week even though strictly speaking with only one creature lurking in the Lair such chores could be skipped every other week.
But I kept with the program and added extra routines such as wiping window sills, door frames and including the bathroom as part of the two days.
Now it has become such a habit that it requires hardly any brain power at all and certainly no will power. In fact it is easier to follow the routine than to be lazy and to give it a miss. It just feels funny.
Even more interesting is that a cleaning routine that used to take an hour when I first started I can now do the same things in just over 30 minutes. Of course if there is a really interesting program on the radio, there's always more stuff to sort or wipe.
The video sums it up so perfectly. Establishing productive habits really is like having an army of zombie minions at your disposal.
We don't rise to the level of our expectations, we fall to the level of our training." -
Archilochos
Nathan Lozeron has loads of other videos devoted to productivity porn and it's all the real thing. No click bait junk to be found. Well not yet.
On Wednesday evening I finally passed the finish line in Nanoland. For the first time I actually kept to the daily target that I had set myself of not just 1,666 words which is necessary to cross the finish line on the last day but the rather higher 2,222 words per day. This serpent is a sucker for pretty numbers.
I've aimed quite often for the safety net of an average of 2,000 per day but never seemed able to keep it up for much longer than a couple of weeks.
This time was different due to one simple new trick.
The rule was very basic and very simple - first thing in the morning after waking up, do not read a thing, do not turn on the radio or take a quick peek at the phone, but go straight to the Big Mac and start typing for 30 minutes.
I picked that target because for 3 days a week I need to be at the bus stop for 7.30am so anything longer than 30 on those days was not really feasible.
Of course there is also method to the madness. Thirty minutes is not really very long. It does not create a lot of resistance especially since this time of year it is already daylight by 5am so i'm usually already awake anyway.
There is a simple logic behind this ritual which was actually around a long time before Julia Cameron of "The Artist's Way" fame who usually gets credit for it. The idea is to unleash the unconscious long before the constantly carping inner editor has had time to yawn and get her nasty sharp red pen out and that snarling snarking tongue that constantly hisses abuse is still tied up in knots from a good night's sleep.
Scrivener has a little box where you can get it to display running totals of the daily word count and total word count which changes from red to a gorgeous shade of deep green the closer you get to the target. So it would be possible to get instant feedback for this experiment.
The first day I got 888 words in 30 minutes. Just over half the official minimum quota for the day. I'd already tossed in the obligatory 666 starting at midnight.
The next day produced just over 1,000 then 800 and then 1,200.
Not only were the words coming effortlessly but it was so much easier than writing later at night. Then there was the feeling of knowing that there was just so much less pressure in the evening.
I guess it is like the difference in feeling you get between having $1,000 in the bank rather than owing on the credit card. It just frees up the inner creatures to be less fearful and more playful.
Of course there are other folks who fire up their inner muses by running right up to the deadline and doing a giant last minute cramming binge.
But Izzie is a plodder not a sprinter and it is best to build with the bricks you have rather than the ones you wish you had.
One day the word count for the 30 minutes dropped right down to less than 400 words. That was the morning of Thursday 10th November when I was glued to the radio like I had been the day before.
While listening to the post mortem of a certain election could all count as research, it definitely had a deleterious effect on the ramblings of the inner serpent. So no more news until after the 30 minutes squiggling was the new rule and the numbers went right back to their previous level
Today was the turning point. Once again had to be out of the house for 7.30 and having been up past midnight, it was so tempting to just snooze until the official alarm went off at 6,30
But I didn't. Got up ten minutes later than usual but still did it anyway and realized that any day now it is actually going to be easier to get up and write than not to and then staying in bed will be the thing that requires the extra effort.
The annual ritual of the 50,000 words in November awoke me to the power of simple slow and steady plodding to get to a seemingly impossible destination but soon I extended these tricks to other areas of life
Back in early 2014 I started the routines of Mopping Monday and Loo/ Laundry Tuesday and stuck to them religiously every week even though strictly speaking with only one creature lurking in the Lair such chores could be skipped every other week.
But I kept with the program and added extra routines such as wiping window sills, door frames and including the bathroom as part of the two days.
Now it has become such a habit that it requires hardly any brain power at all and certainly no will power. In fact it is easier to follow the routine than to be lazy and to give it a miss. It just feels funny.
Even more interesting is that a cleaning routine that used to take an hour when I first started I can now do the same things in just over 30 minutes. Of course if there is a really interesting program on the radio, there's always more stuff to sort or wipe.
Click to viewThe video sums it up so perfectly. Establishing productive habits really is like having an army of zombie minions at your disposal.
We don't rise to the level of our expectations, we fall to the level of our training." -
Archilochos
Nathan Lozeron has loads of other videos devoted to productivity porn and it's all the real thing. No click bait junk to be found. Well not yet.