Great question!
A few thoughts on this:
For this reason, I try not to set action-based new years resolution (it'd be really suspicious if all the changes I wanted to make suddenly moved into the "Action" stage on the 1st). Instead, I'll do something like a "Theme" for the year (this year it's "Full contact with reality" and then take stage appropriate actions for that theme (thinking and reading during contemplation, planning during preparation, creating habits during action, etc.)
MurphyJitsu is a great tool to use here. There's a bunch of good exanations on LW, but the basic tool is to imagine you failed, ask yourself why, then patch your approach until it's very surprising that you failed.
Learning to forgive yourself is HUGE here. Research says that people who forgive themselves for procrastinating are less likely to procrastinate in the future, and I'm pretty sure this generalizes. Expect adjustments and forgive yourself for needing to make them.
If you're continually finding yourself with systems that don't stick, IME it's likely that you're fundamentally motivating yourself in a coercive way. You may want to read this post and sequence to begin to reorient your motivation system to a more sustainable strategy: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/ga8g4RbKc6DmqEBwD/why-productivity-systems-don-t-stick
Didn't realize you were the author of that post, read it a few days ago!
...So what do all 5 of these oscillation patterns have in common? A lack of congruency. The tendency to ignore some needs in order to focus on others. A sense of inner conflict, instead of alignment.
In each and every case, the solution involves welcoming and acknowledging all parts of yourself, before plotting a way forward. Transitioning from forcing yourself to choosing what you want to do.
Honestly, I could do another 100 tweets on what this looks like in each case. The delicate dance o
In general, I like to use the stages of change model when trying to make a change. The research basically says that if people try to change when they're ready to change, they'll do it the first time, but if they try to change before they're ready, it will take multiple attempts.
Oh MAN this makes too much sense. The stuff that's working now, I've tried for like a year plus with incomplete success but now it's just working, without having to apply extra effort. Could you give a source for this?
...Learning to forgive yourself is HUGE here. Research says that peo
I've found it important to define habits as "daily-ish" unless there's an extremely good reason to Never Miss a Single Day *. That way you don't fall into the trap of the broken chain model where a single missed day dooms the whole project. You haven't failed if you start again. "Daily-ish" doesn't give license to just ignore the habit or make excuses, of course, but when you (inevitably) miss a day, it gives you just enough slack that you don't get fully derailed.
I agree that generally a single miss is alright as long as I get back on track. I'm mainly just worried though about exactly that: how do I make sure I actually start again? Or at least reflect and iterate on whatever system failed?
Right now, I'm generally okay, I'm alright with a miss or two (did nothing over weekend because of Unsong but have been fine today) but I'm thinking more about long-term future me
I am not very productive person, so take the following with a grain of salt:
If you fail, get up and keep going. Saying "I must do this 100% correctly, otherwise it is meaningless" is just setting yourself to fail... because sooner or later some random event will interrupt your progress... but it doesn't matter if you just lose one day and then continue with the original plan; assuming you actually continue (instead of "just one day" becoming your every day). In long term, perseverance wins.
Perhaps the proper way to think about this is that if you keep following your plans for ten days, and then fail on one day, those ten days still did something useful, and they also helped to establish a habit... not perfectly, but better than when you started from zero. That is, instead of feeling disappointed, you should focus on the fact that the second start will probably be easier than the first one (unless you needlessly make it difficult for yourself by overly focusing on the failure).
If you want to have multiple good habits, it is probably easier to introduce them separately, not all at the same time. (Exception: unless they are connected. For example, if one habit is "cooking at home, instead of eating at restaurants", and another habit is "eating healthy meals instead of junk food", getting both with one change is easier than making two separate changes.)
Sometimes, maybe your original decision was imbalanced and needs revision. Do you want to give up reading forever? If not, did you leave enough space for reading in your schedule? Reading at night is a bad habit, but having an "unproductive" day once in a while is necessary to recharge your batteries.
The "downward spirals of further failures" are a self-fulfilling prophecy, if you fear them so much that you never allow yourself a break, and then you burn out. You need to find a sustainable pace. And that pace may increase in the future... gradually. For now, focus on the fact that your average day in 2021 is quite productive, and that whatever you did once, you can do again.
Perhaps the proper way to think about this is that if you keep following your plans for ten days, and then fail on one day, those ten days still did something useful, and they also helped to establish a habit... not perfectly, but better than when you started from zero. That is, instead of feeling disappointed, you should focus on the fact that the second start will probably be easier than the first one (unless you needlessly make it difficult for yourself by overly focusing on the failure).
Huh. I forgot this. Over time, I internalized the opposite: if I k...
From new years onwards I've been on a wonderful productivity streak. I'm using the most hours of the day I ever have and it's great.
While it's still going well though, I want to figure out how to make my systems more resilient. I started reading Unsong this past Saturday and I lost a night and a day and for the first time thus far this year I failed my daily habits. I don't think it's a terrible thing but I'm nervous about failures happening again leading to downard spirals of further failures.
Does anyone have suggestions?