31 August 2024, I decided to do something about my procrastination by setting up a system which was largely inspired by the book, Atomic Habits. It's been almost two months, since I started it. I used a simple way to keep track of how I'm doing each day. There are four things I'm focusing on at the moment:
- Meditate for at least a minute
- Write one line of code
- Eat consistently (two meals & snack on fruit only)
- Write one article line (started 14 September)
As you can see the goal is mostly to just show up. To do the least I can imperfectly. My mind loves to chase perfection, but it tends to skip over the parts where it's garbage. That is the source of my procrastination. This way, as long as I show up and do the minimum, it's a win.
Of the all of the four above, number three has been the hardest to keep up with. In the last two months, I failed 9 times. The next worst ones were, number one which I missed twice. The second and fourth one I've missed only once. It might sound silly, when you think of writing one line of code. Almost 95% of the time, I've ended up with way more than one line. I've been able to build entire features, once I got into the flow of things. Which would have never happened if I kept procrastinating.
Number three was always going to be the hardest, I've had a history of eating my emotions. I learned how to eat a lot early on as I consuming two to three thousand calories a day since the age of seven. It was necessary after swimming for three to four hours a day. So when I looked back and saw that I've failed so many times at it, I felt like I was failing at it, but my eating habits are slowly getting better. I haven't binged once in the last two months. Even the days I have missed, they have been with mostly healthy food. I'm glad I sat down to write about this, I was feeling like I have been failing quite bad, it's not perfect but it's definitively not as bad as I had imagined it to be.
The point is that, change is not easy. My hope is that, all this momentum will build up, to where I don't even have to think about it. It won't be today, nor tomorrow or the day after, it'll be all of them. The best example I have is, my weight training. My only goal is to show up to the gym, but my efforts have been very inconsistent, despite which I've managed to bring my squat (ATG by the way) from 60kg to 160kg in about two years. I'm aware that in the next two years it will slow down, and each kilo will be harder. It doesn't bother me, just show up and do what you can. It's taken me over a year to learn the snatch, and my max is only 55kg, but I'm sure at the end of this year, it will be better.
Life happens to us all, I've injured my shoulder and won't be able to snatch for a couple of weeks at least. As long as I keep snatching, it does not matter. It's the same with all my goals, consistency is my worst enemy. I could be trying harder, but I do like to play the long game, and take things a little bit more slowly. It might seem lazy, it probably is, but it works for me. I've tried grinding it out, but after about six months I totally quit. I rather do the things I like imperfectly than not do them at all.
Find out what works for you, and be honest with yourself. Don't take my word for it, I haven't done anything monumental with my life. But I have a good life.