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Kismet and habits and stuff
Well, I now know exactly how long it takes me these days to color a Kismet page (of medium complexity) because I put on Thor: Ragnarok at the beginning of the process and was just wrapping up at the end. 2 hours and 20 minutes, it seems.
(I still love that movie so much. This is my first complete rewatch since seeing it in the theater over a year ago. LITTLE BLUE BABY ICICLE!)
I have had a wildly productive week, creativity-wise. I love this feeling, with a dozen story threads all going at once in my brain.
Oh hey, I think I might've talked about this before, but with New Year's resolutions kicking off, I think it's worth mentioning my New Year's system again. Just ignore this if you don't like New Year's resolutions, don't do them, or otherwise feel that this would not work for you. That's fine.
But what I do is ... forget about the new year. Do it by the month. Pick just one thing each month, make a plan, and see if you can make a habit out of it in a month. (I started doing this because supposedly 30 days is how long it takes to form a new habit.)
What I like about this is that it's a good way to test out new things. With some of them, it becomes obvious that it's not going to work long-term after just a few days, and then you can forget about it and start over on a new month. Some of them might be planned to last for just a month - like "this month I will lose 5 lbs" and then next month you won't worry about that thing anymore. But it's a lot less intimidating to think about jogging twice a week for a month than to make long-term plans for a whole year.
Part of the work is planning a successful habit. The ones that seem most likely to "take" for me:
• Are concrete (i.e. "I will get up at 9 a.m. every day this month" as opposed to "I'll get up earlier")
• Don't interfere with any other habits I already have (the month I was going to try to exercise before breakfast didn't work because I like to eat breakfast first thing while catching up on emails & stuff, and then start my day)
• Are something you can do regularly - every day, on specific days of the week, or on a certain trigger condition, e.g. "I will do the dishes as soon as [dishes piled in the sink] becomes true." The more vague my scheduling plans for a habit are, the less likely I am to actually do it. (You might have different results.)
• Are very forgiving/easy compared to what I'm technically capable of. I could try to get up at 6 every day instead of 9, or write 5000 words a day, and I know I could do that for a few days, but given my own limitations and habits, I'm much likely to make it the entire month than if I choose something more reasonable.
I also find that giving myself some kind of forgiveness/nope-out condition is helpful, e.g. you get 2 days a week when you don't have to do the thing, or you can not do the thing on days when [other thing that is likely to happen to you a few times during the month]. And that's not cheating or failure because it's built in.
Very few of these have actually managed to "take" as a long-term habit. But I don't regret doing any of them. The month that I decided I was going to do a painting every day only lasted half a month, but I have half a month's worth of paintings. Several different months' experiments with a regular writing schedule resulted in the one I currently have, which works GREAT for me. I still haven't managed to find an exercise schedule that works, but different months' experiments with it have resulted in me finding various things that don't work and getting into better shape. It gives you a lot of freedom to experiment and learn about what works for you, especially if you give yourself permission to nope out completely at whatever point in the month that it becomes apparent that this month's experiment is Just Not Working, and then take the rest of the month "off" and start again next month.
And you can always skip a month or two if you know you're going to be busy/traveling, or don't have any ideas for it, or just feel like you need a month to let last month's habit "set" rather than introducing something new.
(I still love that movie so much. This is my first complete rewatch since seeing it in the theater over a year ago. LITTLE BLUE BABY ICICLE!)
I have had a wildly productive week, creativity-wise. I love this feeling, with a dozen story threads all going at once in my brain.
Oh hey, I think I might've talked about this before, but with New Year's resolutions kicking off, I think it's worth mentioning my New Year's system again. Just ignore this if you don't like New Year's resolutions, don't do them, or otherwise feel that this would not work for you. That's fine.
But what I do is ... forget about the new year. Do it by the month. Pick just one thing each month, make a plan, and see if you can make a habit out of it in a month. (I started doing this because supposedly 30 days is how long it takes to form a new habit.)
What I like about this is that it's a good way to test out new things. With some of them, it becomes obvious that it's not going to work long-term after just a few days, and then you can forget about it and start over on a new month. Some of them might be planned to last for just a month - like "this month I will lose 5 lbs" and then next month you won't worry about that thing anymore. But it's a lot less intimidating to think about jogging twice a week for a month than to make long-term plans for a whole year.
Part of the work is planning a successful habit. The ones that seem most likely to "take" for me:
• Are concrete (i.e. "I will get up at 9 a.m. every day this month" as opposed to "I'll get up earlier")
• Don't interfere with any other habits I already have (the month I was going to try to exercise before breakfast didn't work because I like to eat breakfast first thing while catching up on emails & stuff, and then start my day)
• Are something you can do regularly - every day, on specific days of the week, or on a certain trigger condition, e.g. "I will do the dishes as soon as [dishes piled in the sink] becomes true." The more vague my scheduling plans for a habit are, the less likely I am to actually do it. (You might have different results.)
• Are very forgiving/easy compared to what I'm technically capable of. I could try to get up at 6 every day instead of 9, or write 5000 words a day, and I know I could do that for a few days, but given my own limitations and habits, I'm much likely to make it the entire month than if I choose something more reasonable.
I also find that giving myself some kind of forgiveness/nope-out condition is helpful, e.g. you get 2 days a week when you don't have to do the thing, or you can not do the thing on days when [other thing that is likely to happen to you a few times during the month]. And that's not cheating or failure because it's built in.
Very few of these have actually managed to "take" as a long-term habit. But I don't regret doing any of them. The month that I decided I was going to do a painting every day only lasted half a month, but I have half a month's worth of paintings. Several different months' experiments with a regular writing schedule resulted in the one I currently have, which works GREAT for me. I still haven't managed to find an exercise schedule that works, but different months' experiments with it have resulted in me finding various things that don't work and getting into better shape. It gives you a lot of freedom to experiment and learn about what works for you, especially if you give yourself permission to nope out completely at whatever point in the month that it becomes apparent that this month's experiment is Just Not Working, and then take the rest of the month "off" and start again next month.
And you can always skip a month or two if you know you're going to be busy/traveling, or don't have any ideas for it, or just feel like you need a month to let last month's habit "set" rather than introducing something new.
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... and I think that's a good one! One of my past ones was closing all my browser tabs at the end of the day. I should probably start doing that again; I have a tendency to let them pile up, and then feel stressed about having a bunch of things to read/comment on. It's interesting how much difference the little things can make.
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Last year for a month I made weekly meal plans, I'm planning to do that again. And maybe something with exercise? I'll see.
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This year my goals (I don't do resolutions) are to go on three photography courses (one down, next one is end of March, then one more after that), and try to go to the one day 'Big Cat' photography course that the Jessops Academy (who I'm doing the training with) offer. A chance to get really close to wild felines, in a UK based sanctuary that is not a zoo (ie not open to the public, only open to its members and people who come of one day events like this). You only have one fence between you and the cats!
Oh, and to try out Shutterstock and do more macro photography (the third course will be about that).
I think this year may be a year of photography, by the looks of it!! :D
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Most of your other bullet points for successful habits seem to align with the consensus of research on habit formation (a nice summary for popular audiences here on the website of a guy selling self-help books; I do not endorse him or his products universally).
for me, essential conditions are habits that are VERY (a) specific and (b) easy/doable.
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Last year I succeeded at "exercise most days unless sick/out of town/etc" by switching from the perfect gym which was 15 minutes from my house and was very difficult to find parking for (so just getting there and back consumed about an hour) to one which is less perfect, but has its own parking lot and takes 5 minutes to drive there, so driving when I only had 30 minutes to exercise made sense.
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I have found that there are two ways to make me exercise, and I like exercising. 1) It must be something I enjoy - everyone says swimming is the ideal sport for me and my crummy joints, but I don't like swimming, so I don't do it. 2) It must be extremely convenient.
So I ride an exercise bike while reading, and do some types of weightlifting while watching TV. I get to catch up on things I enjoy, so that's a motivation - hey! I can read for half an hour while I bike!
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"Convenient" is THE big thing for me. The nearest gym to us is a half-hour drive, and it's just not happening. We even had a trial membership and I used it exactly once. I WANT to; it's just motivating myself and making it fit with my day that's hard. I keep intending to try a membership again, and then remembering what happened the last time.
I've been experimenting with doing equipment-free exercises at home, and that's going better. I've found some core workouts online that are working well for me. (Core and upper body are the things I feel like I need the most work on. Aerobic activity I can get by taking walks, because I like doing that.)
At some point, I should probably drop some Zoe cash on a home workout machine of some kind. I have no idea where we'd put it, but I have thought about it. It would be a good thing to have.
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