Hard times coming up

As the days passes and one success followed another I already thought this would end as a smooth ride. Today I realised even such a simple thing has it hard moments. Normally I would ‘celebrate’ the coming weekend by vegging out on the couch. TV on, bag of crisps at hand. Today the ‘natural’ urge came up and I already started looking around for food to eat, when I noticed the clock. Too late. I now had to make a conscious decision: eat something or go for a success. I settled on a third option: I delayed the decision by doing some more work and then some more. Now it’s time for bed and no use to start eating. Winning by self deception.

 

Tracking advantages

It’s been a week since I last posted my habit statistics. I’ve been on a long weekend of origami folding and during the weekend I noticed how important tracking is to stick to your habit.

Until last Wednesday I was doing fine and not eating after 20.30h was becoming normal. I decided that I didn’t need to bring my tracking calendar, since I could easily remember that I would have 4 successes in a row. The origami weekend started on Thursday and Thursday evening flew by while meeting old and new friends.

On Friday evening somebody put a bar of chocolate on the table and invited all of us to take some. Without thinking I did and since it was good I ate more. Suddenly I realised that it was way past 20.30h and that I had failed at keeping my habit. The days before I conciously checked my watch before deciding I could eat something, but this was the old reflex kicking in. The same happened on Saturday evening. I was offered pastry and ate without thinking.

So how does tracking help? Well, had I tracked my successes and failures on my calendar the effort would be more in the forefront of my mind and I would have thought twice before eating after 20.30h.

Log:

Failures: 4

Partial success: 2

Success: 7

Days into the habit: 13

Total weight loss: 1.8kg 

Three in a row

Hooray! Three successes in a row. Just a short post now otherwise I lose motivation for the real important tasks I need to accomplish today.

Log:

Failure: 1
Partial success: 2
Success: 3
Days into the habit: 6

Total weight loss: 0.8 kg

Slowly building a habit

I know it sounds premature, but with yesterday’s success I have more success than failures. I felt bad yesterday, no energy. Don’t know why but it’s one of those days that I would grab a bag of crisps and try to eat the misery away. Not that it would help. Yesterday I decided that instead I would just do some ironing. I was fed up with the sight of that pile of clothes on the couch and the ironing board blocking the way. I promised myself I didn’t have to do all of it, but it would be great if I could finish it so the board could be put away. You can probably guess that it didn’t take half as much time as I anticipated.

That felt good, so good that I could sit down on the couch and start pampering my hands instead of running to the kitchen. And then I went to bed early and that was that. Success day no 2.

Log:

Failures: 1

Partial success: 2

Success: 2

Days into the habit: 5

Total weight loss: 0.8 kg

My first success

A weekend without the kids is a good time to spend some quality time together as a couple. Ours was a simple date with dinner in a restaurant and a movie afterwards.

I was determined to get a success yesterday and the restaurant sure helped. The meal was gorgeous and I must have eaten a bit too much. Anyway, preventing myself from eating after 20.30u became a no-brainer, because I couldn’t stand even the thought of food. Yay!

Log:

Failure: 1
Partial success: 2
Succes: 1
Days into the habit: 4

Total weight loss: 0.8 kg

Adjusting the plan

After the failure of last night I decided to reread, more thoroughly this time, the post at Zenhabits. This time I read the comments too, since they often give more information and/or put the post in perspective. I decided that it would be time to adjust my plan. Some elements described in the Zenhabits post are missing. I really want this habit to succeed because I want to use it as a step up to create more good habits.

Learning the hard way

Ok, so I failed yesterday. I guess I need to learn it the hard way. While getting the groceries I came across a new flavor of crisps. I’m a sucker for testing new things, so I had to buy it. My grown-up side told me that it would most probably result in breaking my own rule and failing, but the child side came up with all kinds of excuses and I gave in and bought it.

One habit at a time

Sometimes I rate the validity of information by the number of times I come across it on my endless surfing quests. One habit at a time is such a nugget that I’ve read a few times now in the last week. It basically explains why my numerous attempts to impose new habits, or get rid of nasty old ones, have mostly failed. Following the post at Zenhabits I think I’ve done most of his “don’t do this” tips.

A new start

I’ve been pondering over this for some time now. Today I decided to take action and change this dormant blog into something more active.

It was a tell-tale sign that I forgot the password to the blog and more so the drafts I found that were over 2 years old. Publishing one on my Getting Things Done system and I have to confess that there’s not much improvement after 2 years.

Time for a fresh start. I’ve changed the title of the blog and the theme. The focus is changed too. Not just random posts on whatever interests me, but an account of how I’m doing on the main topic of change and improvement in productivity.