We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.
– Aristotle
Getting good at something takes practise, whether it’s coding, learning Japanese, eating or playing the piano.
Improving at anything takes consistent practise and that’s hard to maintain.
Jerry Seinfeld was asked by a young comic how to improve his standup. Seinfeld advised writing every day, but more importantly to keep that habit …
For each day that I do my task of writing, I get to put a big red X over that day. “After a few days you’ll have a chain. Just keep at it and the chain will grow longer every day. You’ll like seeing that chain, especially when you get a few weeks under your belt. Your only job next is to not break the chain.”
“Don’t break the chain,” he said again for emphasis.
Lots of people who have tried this seem to get great results, there’s a great psychological pressure to seeing a perfect chain marred by a failure of willpower.
There are quite a few online apps recreating the simple wall chart method.
Don’t break the chain which has widgets for iGoogle
Streak.ly allows you to add items that you want to do daily and check them off as you complete them. Doesn’t show a calendar view but shows your current streak and your longest streak.
Quantter.com, like streak.ly, integrates with twitter. You tweet @quantter with some info in a particular format e.g. #programming:40mins finished another lesson in learn python the hard way
If you use github to store your source code Calendar about nothing will create a calendar showing your check-ins.
Habit, if not resisted, soon becomes necessity.
– St. Augustine
Tenacity API
Wouldn’t it be great to have a service that had an api for collating all of the activities that you want to record?
It could take input from a number of different sources, have settings for how many “units” it takes to qualify for completion.
Quantter.com already uses twitter to receive messages about what activities you’re completing.
A service similar to yahoo pipes could read rss feeds and calculate how often you’ve been adding a new blog post.
IDoneThis.com ( I want to beat that name with my riding crop ) sends you an email once a day and adds your reply to its calendar to display.
Other services just use the honour system and allow you to mark what you’ve done ( Anki Flashcards, Don’t break the chain )
You could measure your consistency with lots of different things:
20 flashcards views / 1 blog post / exercise 3 times per week / a khan academy exercise
May be even “catch up” options to join up solid line streaks with a dashed line.
Or negative versions which fail you if it detects certain activity ( more than 1 post on facebook per day, detection of the phrase “x-factor”)
Simples
But first, get the simple version working.
A calendar print out ( from Tofugu )
A paper wall chart ( nice system from Giles Bowkett below )
Put it somewhere you can see all the time and get to work.
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Hacker News thread on this productivity hack
Sorry, had an odd couple of days. RESPONSE! (Going to try presenting my text in a more print-style format, see how that looks on this blog)
Appropriate quotes, well presented. Nice touch, would be a good ongoing feature for the blog if you could keep ‘em up.
Something about a calendar covered in markers makes my skin crawl… but I think that’s a reaction to how it resembles a schedule planner. Bar Scrum, I’ve never had a good experience with those – one or two off-days can require a whole load of redrafting, replanning, rescheduling. In the past I’ve often thrown my hands up at it while washing my hands of the whole thing – which makes an awful mess.
However, we’re talking about building a train of achievement which trails the user (I’m reminded of Snake, or perhaps Nibbles http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZF6tnrfAX0 )… which I think I could get behind. I think I’ll steer clear of the more complex systems – something like I(nngh)donethis or the simple wall chart would suit me fine.
When measuring consistency, are we looking for a daily set of tasks or a chunk of work done which is quantified daily? In order to identify what work deserves a red X, are we required to go back to schedule planning? Could a Scrum burndown chart act as the calendar with red Xs?
With your Tenacity API, would the user setup include giving each activity a rating – which, in concert with other activities, would eventually reach a target that earned you a red ex?
Lastly, was wondering if you had any thoughts on the 50-10 rule for taking breaks? Or the Pomodoro system? http://www.pomodorotechnique.com/ Or similar? And what do you do with your ten minute break? Watch five second films? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfchvCyHmsc I’ve got a little programming project on break scheduling which I’d like to get to once I’ve finished my Tetris clone. Ahem.
Really interesting blog post. I’m inspired to try the system and also encouraged to examine my planning systems a little more closely. Thanks! Maybe this’ll help me get that darn logo designed. =)
Well. Wordpress apparently strips out paragraph indents. Good to know.
With the calendar I wouldn’t even worry about quantifying the work that get done other than pure binary.
Ask the question in the format :
Did you write more than 400 words as part of a blog post?
Did you do 5 or more reps in your flashcard software?
Did you exercise for 20 mins or more 2 times this week?
Did you take 2 items from your to do list and complete them?
Tim Brownson’s vid on Setting goals
I’m not even worried about how well I do those things, just that I work towards creating a habit
( Chasing the Ice-cream van for 20 mins is exercise. )
And I don’t plan on using the calendar for anything other than recording what I’ve done. For planning, I’ve actually been using a google docs file and more recently playing with Trello which is a card stacking, planning type thing.
I have looked at pomodoro before and I like it because starting is often the most difficult thing for me. I’ve learned to set tiny,tiny goals just to get me away from time sink websites:
1. Open google docs
2. Type title
I’ve gone from expecting a flow of completed work to :
Typing without editing
Outlining
Coding with just comments at first
Any way to reduce the job into a few iterations. And make each iteration easy to start
So, stating the obvious in summary: Red xs good for establishing work routine. Gotcha.
“Any way to reduce the job into a few iterations. And make each iteration easy to start”
Amen, brother. I swear by stepwise refinement – tell me I’ve sent you info on that before? By the way, how should one set up quotes on comments?
SMARTER makes sense. Will have to make a few of those soon, possibly make them public.
Thanks for the info. Keep it coming. =)
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