Creating New Habits

May 29, 2019
3 min read

Imagine doing something every single day for a year. Sounds intense, right? You do something today and then tomorrow and then the day after that. Like that you will be surprised how fast the year of doing something will pass.

One day in May of last year I’ve decided to take a cold shower in the morning. I liked it so much I decided to do it every day, but I’ve also wanted to track the progress. I thought about how I felt about the Apple Watch Activity rings (I’ve been closing all of them for more than 600 days in a row), so I wanted something similar for my new habit. That’s when I’ve got Streaks 3, very simple, but functional app. Day, after day, after day I’ve been checking off every morning that I’ve taken cold shower until I’ve seen the number – 365. I was amazed that I was doing something for the whole year, every single day.

The app is very straightforward. You can track your habits manually (after finishing doing something you can check the item) or it can track them automatically (it connects to the Health app for automatic tracking). There is also the ability to create items that are checked automatically and you manually change the status if you miss the habit. I also love the Apple Watch app and complication – it shows your progress right there on the watch face and I do almost all of the tracking using the watch app.

Along the way I’ve added some new habits I wanted to make. First – getting up without using snooze button, but I’m deleting it today as I can’t do it. Just can’t right now. I believe I will return to this one after some time, but I’ll need to rethink many things about my sleep habits before I do that.

The third one was health related – drinking 8 glasses of water every day. I feel great about that one, since I’ve started I didn’t miss a day and I feel much better now. Also, when I’ve visited the doctor and showed her my old blood tests vs new ones, she immediately noticed difference – they were much better now.

Next one is mostly for self-improvement – I’m posting at least one photo to the Instagram every day. I wanted to get better at photography, so decided posting something every single day would be a nice practice in shooting and editing. Unfortunately, I wasn’t taking photos every single day, that could be my next challenge, but I was editing and posting one photo every day.

Two more are somewhat connected. One is tracked automatically by Streaks, it’s closing all the three rings every single day. I’ve added it, just to see all the streaks going in one single place. The last one is exercising every day. I’m having some problems with my back and have to do some exercises every day, otherwise the pain becomes uncomfortable. Some days the exercise is harder then the others, but every one of them counts.

Today I’m adding another habit for tracking. I will try to write 200 words every single day. I will try to write posts for this blog or some days it would be something private. I want to improve writing and my English. I think practicing every day will be the best way for improving the skills.

500 Words Every Day Challenge: #18 Distractions

September 18, 2014
3 min read

Today I’ve decided to use prompt from 500 Words Every Day Challenge on Lift.do. I’ve been writing at least 500 words for 17 days already and it’s the longest I’ve managed to do that and the theme of todays prompt Distractions – is very important part of this process.

Just now, as I was writing this post, I’ve reached for my phone and started reading Twitter, so it shows, how hard it is to stay focused while writing, but the problem of distractions arises even before you begin typing your first words. You have to choose time and place to write your post. I’m usually planning to write just after lunch. After working all morning, it’s a good way to clear my thoughts and focus on something different and also, if I didn’t have time all day, I still have evening to write something last minute, just before bed. In terms of place, I usually write at coffee shops or at home. It’s easier to focus at coffee shops, since there are less things asking for your attention, but if I’m referencing something a lot, I prefer writing at home, since there is big monitor, which makes working with multiple windows a lot easier.

The biggest distraction for me are messages, Twitter and Pocket queue. First two are on my phone and the last one is on my laptop. When I’m referencing something, it’s hard not to go to Pocket and read something not related, but also very interesting. And I have to stop myself from grabbing my phone and checking Twitter every couple of minutes (it doesn’t help, that I like to read every single tweet). I also like to answer messages right away, so I’m pretty much given up trying to remove this distraction. As I’ve already mentioned, I couldn’t resist checking Twitter even writing post about how bad the distractions are and regarding articles saved in Pocket, this time I’m not distracted by them, because I don’t use the browser writing this post, so it’s harder for me to slip.

I’ve tried to use couple of distraction free text editors on my laptop, but they didn’t stick. The one good application I did like, was Evernote for Windows 8.1. (Metro version). It’s the Evernote client for the tablet side of Windows, but it works great on a laptop, even without touchscreen. It’s the same old Evernote, but it occupies the whole screen. So that’s a plus. Recently, I’ve been writing all those posts in Word. I have Office 365 subscription, I love this version of an office suite, and it saves all my documents to OneDrive, which I now use instead of Dropbox, because of this great integration.

Sometime distractions, even help, when you write your post, then change your attention to Twitter and then return to your post, read it and have some new thoughts, you just have to be aware and don’t make those distractions too long or often. If you are not a heart surgeon, all those messages and notifications car probably wait a couple of minutes. It doesn’t take too long to write 500 words, so try to enjoy yourself. Just figure out, what works for you.

Meta post on posting

September 1, 2014
3 min read

A couple of months ago I had downloaded Lift app. Didn’t find it useful and after a short time I’ve removed it, never thinking it would prove itself useful anytime soon. But in that process I’ve registered and so every once in a while I’ve got an e-mail from Lift with some challenges. I’ve removed all of them until there was message with writing challenge. #500WED (500 Words Every Day). The idea is to write 500 words every single day for a month. Sounds like fun!

For a long time I wanted to pick up writing. I tried to blog, but after about a month I would leave it untouched for a long time. Recently I wrote a story in Medium (which was fun). I’m not very good at writing, but I try my best. English isn’t even my second language, more like the third, so it doesn’t help. Still, writing in English helps with learning the language.

I’m still not sure what I’ll write about. As I understand, there will be writing prompts for each day, but I’m not sure I’ll stick to them. (I didn’t my first day, so, yeah). But it could help with those days, when I won’t know what to write about. That, actually, was the biggest problem for me. I wanted to write, I just couldn’t find a subject, so this challenge will, hopefully, help with that. I will see if that’s the problem, or just my inability to write.

As I’m typing this, I realize – writing 500 words with no particular subject is no easy task.

Probable subjects for writing – some personal stuff, definitely technology, since it is the thing I’m most interested in. I won’t bother writing about diet and what you should eat, there is plenty to read on that subject and I’m not an expert of any kind. Also, what works for me, maybe won’t work for you. Running may be a subject. I feel like links with my comments will be the most common thing. Again, If (and it is a big if) I will stick with the challenge.

Another question is whether I’ll post everything. First I thought maybe writing something personal in Evernote or something similar and keeping it private. But then I realized, it would hurt my motivation and sooner rather than later I would stop writing (and nobody wants that to happen! Right?)

Everything I’ll write will be published in my blog. Another problem I will most definitely have – I’ve never published anything as soon as I wrote it. Most of the time I’ll let the post sit for a day or two, then rewrite some of it and only after that will I press Publish button. This time I intend to publish as soon as I finish writing. This article I write in Ginger. It checks grammar and style, so that would be a big help. I’ll see in the future, if it will stick. So the first post is done. Let the challenge begin!