Good habits are so time-consuming
The best way I’ve found of getting into good habits is making a schedule for them and sticking to it. I go to the gym every two days (unless I’m out of town or something) like clockwork, and by doing so I manage to keep doing it regularly. In the past, I’ve scheduled two hours of writing time first thing in the morning three days a week, and I got a lot of writing done that way. These days, I’m making myself read for at least half an hour a day so I can try to get caught up on my book backlog, and it’s starting to do the trick — I’m plowing through books pretty quickly. I schedule my next haircut immediately after getting one done, so I know that, four weeks later, I’ll be obliged to come in and get it done.
The things I don’t schedule are the ones that sit around not getting done for weeks on end. I don’t vacuum carpets as often as I should, since I have no schedule for it. I get way behind on watching the TV shows I follow, since it’s tough to find the time.
These good habits have a net positive effect on my life, because when I do them (each individual time, and overall) I feel better about myself. I’m proud that I’ve been exercising regularly for a month and a half, and swimming fairly regularly for a couple years. I’m happy when I write, even if what I write isn’t something I’m terribly proud of.
But developing good habits (like exercising and writing) is really time-consuming. I already feel like my days are packed, and then fitting in an hour of working out or two hours of writing just makes me wonder what I’m going to have to give up to get it done. The weird thing is, it doesn’t seem like I am giving anything up, actually. Somehow, I manage to do these productive activities and still find the time I need to do my day job, read the blogs in my aggregator, and keep the house in a state of, uh, controlled chaos at least. So maybe good habits aren’t really as time-consuming as I think. Maybe their positive effect drives me to be more efficient in the other areas of my life, which almost means they’re actually creating more time for me.
But that doesn’t mean I don’t feel busy!
