Salon post : January 12

[jenett]

Welcome to this week's salon posts. If you missed last weeks, this is the return of an open-ended conversation I did a few years ago. I get us started with a couple of questions, but feel free to bring up totally different things if you'd rather.

(This is a public post, feel free to encourage other people to drop by, just note the 'if posting anonymously, include a name people can call you in responses' rule.)

Topics of the week:
Between being most of the way through Gretchen Rubin's Better Than Before which is about habits and figuring them out, and having recently recommended the Productivity Alchemy podcast (author and artist Ursula Vernon and her husband Kevin Sonney discuss productivity, with a wide range of intriguing guests, many of whom do creative stuff), and the fact I am still tweaking my spreadsheet of doom for the year...

Let's talk about habits.

What works for you? What so totally doesn't work for you? What do you look at and wish it worked for you, because it'd make life so much easier? Are you trying to build a new habit and want some ideas of things to try?

Recent things I've been doing:
I am up to the entrance of Peri Brown in my Doctor Who watching, which means I am almost to the end of the Davison era.

This is my first full week of work since the middle of December (since there was a week of vacation, a short week because of Christmas and New Year's, and then we had two days off last week for snow.

House rules:
* Consider this a conversation in my living room, only with a lot more seating. I reserve the right to redirect, screen, and otherwise moderate stuff, but would vastly prefer not to have to.

* If you don't have a DW account or want to post anonymously, please include a name we can call you in this particular post. (You can say AnonymousOne or your favourite colour or whatever. Just something to help keep conversations clear.)

* If you've got a question or concern, feel free to PM me.

Comments

[tassosss]

I saw your rec of Productivity Alchemy and I'm three episodes in and I love it!

The new year for me always brings a new writing spreadsheet and this year with some major house projects and a couple other creative projects I've been meaning to do for years I've been looking into ways to organize my personal life.

I currently use Habitica as my main organizer and I'm trying to figure out a way to make the To Do column actually work for long term projects. Right now I put them on there in a haphazzard way and forget about them till they languish for months or years.

I've been looking at other paper and app options too. Partly cause I like trying new methods, but also to get new ideas of how to think about things.

[jenett]

I'm so glad people are enjoying it! I really like the variation and the structure, both. (And the 'let's try this thing, see how it works' approaches and the 'do what works for you' emphasis.)

I use Todoist for my actual tasks - I found I desperately need to be able to move things around and structure them in a way that's too much for Habitica, at least whenever I've tried.

(I'm a librarian, so a lot of my work tasks are 'want to do this thing today, oops, new reference question, never mind' where I need to track the long-term projects and break them down, but there are tons of small things that come up that also need doing. Also, the paid Todoist lets me create tasks from Gmail, which is huge for being able to find things again.)

I currently have 100 things (exactly, wow) in my work project in Todoist, to give an idea. And my writing one is worse, because I stick most 'I want to write this sometime' stuff in there that isn't connected to another specific project.

But I still really like looking at how other people do things, and trying out variations.

[tassosss]

They have a really good approach to how they talk about finding your own approach.

I messed around with Todoist tonight. I'll have to spend some time with it to really see how it works for me. Right now I'm focusing on organizing my personal life. I'm kind of all over the place at the moment. I use google canledar on my phone for social events/appointments, trello for our grocery list and books/movies/tv/etc I want to read or watch, and Habitica for most of the other things - writing, chores, exercise, projects around the house.

Tonight I went through and re did my Habitica To Do list to make it more GTD project oriented. I'm not sure how successful it will be. One of the paper journal printables I found the other day, had a really good way of leading me through breaking down a yearly project into quarterly and monthly (and weekly, daily, but I stopped at monthly) goals and milestones. That's what I oriented my new To Do list around.

For work, I use the Evernote web browser (getting any programs downloaded onto my work machine is a pain in the ass because I'm not admin) and basically treat it like a paper journal with a template I made for 5 goals, and a daily schedule. This works well for day to day, but I'm still tracking projects mostly in my head, with a periodic long list at the bottom of one of my pages. Someone has come up with a way to use Evernote to track larger projects, and I could certainly do the equivalent of writing out a weekly schedule for myself but the last time I tried I ended up back on the basic method I've been using. I also have the problem of sometimes getting widely pulled off my daily plan.

For writing, I use Scrivner, and have projects organized by fandom so I can stick new ideas straight in there. If I forget the idea before I get it written in there, then it wasn't sticky enough for me to write.

The other thing I've been messing with tonight is the Omnifocus free trial. It would have the potential to have both my home and work stuff in the same tool, since in the pro version you can have only one folder/project whatever listed in all the various views at a time. That's important to me. I don't want to even think about work when I'm not at work. But I run into the problem of getting the app on my work computer and also shelling out a lot for the pro version. I'm not sure I'm there yet. I'd like to see if my new set up in Habitica works first. I really like collecting pets.

[jenett]

I did a post about how I use Todoist last summer, which is still pretty much what I'm doing, and has been doing well for me. The things I love about Todoist are the premium option that lets me make tasks out of email in Gmail (so so helpful for tracking stuff) and you can do the same thing for webpages (great for forum responses I want to make later)

(Summary: I group my tasks by planets in a more or less astrological sense. I think astrology is an interesting way to look at what you're missing or leaving out, or has more weight in your life, basically, and it's turned out to work really well for me for tasks. Work stuff is sun, expansive projects - the side business or learning things - is Jupiter, things with friends or involving the arts are Venus, my religious stuff is the Moon, and so on. I can move things easily, and looking at the colour coding, I can see at a glance what the balance of my life is like.)

[alexseanchai]

There might be usefuls for you over bujo and Little Coffee Fox way? Both heavily bullet-journal-slanted, but there's a bunch of things LCF recommends that could be spreadsheeted just as easily.

[tassosss]

Yeah, I've seen those, and I've dabbled with bullet journaling. Basically, the daily to do lists went back onto Habitica. I do find bullet journals yearlong tracker style things useful for tracking exercise and books I've read. I've still go pages in the one I started to do that again this year.

My thing is I won't carry a paper journal with me so I really need something on my phone. I do love looking at other people's bujo's for inspiration -- they're so pretty!

[alexseanchai]

Life would be so much easier if I could:

* prioritize what needs to be a new or improved habit first
* do the thing

(Autism, ADHD, anxiety, depression. Is it any wonder I have executive dysfunction problems?)

I'm getting all the Productivity Alchemy episodes off iTunes right now :)

[jenett]

You might find the Rubin book really interesting (chances are good local libraries have it) - she's talking about the different ways people make connections between habits, and things like how to set up a new one in a way that works for you.

Wide variety of approaches, and a lot of "Thing that works for this thing may not work for that thing, try options."

(Note that it's specific to habits, not other kinds of productivity. I continue to look for solutions for other things.)

[alexseanchai]

Local library does have, yes. I'll snag it on the way to work.

[tjoel2]

List making works very well for me. It always has. I've taken the pressure off of the list making idea as well in that if something on the list doesn't get done (Heaven forbid!), it's not the end of the world. It's really just a way for me to organize my thoughts sometimes and see clearly on paper, what needs to be done.

[alexseanchai]

Indeed

[wolffe]

Setting out a specific to do list doesn't seem to work for me. As in, do this thing, then do this thing, then do this thing over here. Instead I like to keep a master list of all the things that need doing and tackle them as the mood strikes.

I wish I could find a cleaning schedule that works for me. I have taken some things from Motivated Moms checklists, but I can't seem to stay with it for long. I just really don't like to clean. I wish I could form a cleaning habit I didn't hate. One of my goals for 2018 is to try a few different schedules and see if any of them stick.

I like using the 101 things in 1001 days format, because it seems to take the pressure off and I can sprinkle loftier goals in with my tasks. I have a friend who creates a "goal book" with 50 lists of 50 things each and I like the idea of that approach as well.

P.S. I absolutely adore Ursula Vernon.

[tassosss]

For cleaning, have you seen Unfuck Your Habitat (https://www.unfuckyourhabitat.com/) What I like about their philosophy is doing one thing counts. They have one item challenges and longer checklists for various rooms and timetables.

I'm an on again-off again cleaner. The kitchen gets done because I need clean counters for baking, and my husband vacuums because we have a standing dinner date every other week. Clutter stays until one of us gets fed up with it.

[wolffe]

I had not! Currently devouring everything available. Thank you!

[rosefox]

Daily tracking in some visible way is the best thing for habit-building, for me. When I was getting in the habit of brushing and flossing my teeth daily, I used a wall calendar where I could mark each day that I did it, and then switched to writing on the white tile in the bathroom with dry erase marker (I highly recommend this for both note-taking and graffiti, if one has shiny non-porous tile).

For gywo, which is sort of a year-round NaNoWriMo, I'm using two of their tracking spreadsheets, which I like a lot now that I've put them in my preferred colors.

It also really helps to know why I'm doing a thing, even if it's just "I want to be the sort of person who does this thing". Negatives ("If I don't do this thing, bad thing will happen") don't work for me as well as positives. The incentive doesn't have to be tangible; "I tidy on Friday afternoons because that way I can really relax and enjoy Shabbat" is a tremendous motivator for me.

A social element always helps. It's much easier for me to go to an appointment with my OT than to go to the gym by myself, even though the OT is across town and the gym is three blocks away.

When I was quitting nail-biting, I looked into acceptance and commitment therapy, which is basically "I accept that I am a person who does this thing, I commit to trying to be a person who does not do this thing" plus a lot of mindfulness exercises, and found that very useful. But even more useful was getting regular manicures to remove all the ragged cuticle bits that kept drawing my attention to my nails, and to put polish on my nails so they felt thicker and harder to bite. I still stick my fingers in my mouth all the time, but my nails emerge intact now. I file this under my general life rule of "make the right thing the easy thing".

[alexseanchai]

It also really helps to know why I'm doing a thing

...*tilts head*

...'scuse me, thinky tiem

[rosefox]

Hooray!

Habits

[brainwane]

I have three recommendations that have helped me:

1. The goal-tracking service Beeminder -- I can tell it "I want to whittle down this pile of tasks" or "I want to do this more" or "I want to do this every day" and it calculates what I need to do each day, has a bunch of ways for me to input data and configure how it nags me, and it only bills me if I go off track.

2. The distraction-avoidance browser add-on LeechBlock, which helps me avoid spending too much time on attention casino sites like Twitter.

3. The doctor-finding and -booking service ZocDoc, which gently nags me to book yearly appointments with relevant medical folks, and which lets me do it via the web so I don't have to spell my name over the phone, call a bunch of receptionists to check whether they take my insurance, or wait till weekday business hours to book the visit. To the extent that taking care of my own health is a habit, ZocDoc helps me loads!

[alexseanchai]

*eyes Beeminder* Hmmmmm... :)

[ephemera]

I'm trying to build a habit of drinking more - specifically more water, but for the purposes of being hydrated but not because I think water has particular virtue beyond being freely and conveniently available to me. Someone recommended the ap "Fabulous" to me for this, and it's sort of working - as a reminder, and a tracker - but it's also grating a little on my with it's attempts to monetise me, and, more importantly, it's casual assumption that weight loss and beautiful skin are universal goals, which, coupled with it's very "feminine" coding, is an irritant to me.

I wonder if any of your salon guests have suggestions for other mobile aps that would be a good replacement?

(Habitica looks a bit overwhelming, and the "remind me gently at certain times of day" feature and the option to chain habits together (eg, at 1.30, drink water, and do a short breathing exercise"" are things Fabulous is doing well, and I don't think Habitica does them?)

[ofmonstrouswords]

So lately what's really been helping me in building up good habits is a habit tracker in my bullet journal or planner. It's taken some trial and error; I used to get really ambitious with my lists and then end up doing almost nothing on them.

But now I've got it down to 5 things: write, meditate, and each of my 3 prescription meds. One of the meds is not actually required every day, and sometimes I can't take it for various reasons, so it's not a big deal if I don't have every box colored in for that one.

The other two I need to take every day. The only exception is if I need to take one of my prescription pain meds for my back instead, in which case I skip the med that can react badly with it and write a T in the square instead so I know that's what I did.

Doing habit trackers has me taking my meds every single day for the past several months. I have NEVER had a streak so good.

For building the habit of writing, I'm finding that in addition to the habit tracker what's helping me is allowing myself to not have any word count minimum. So if I wrote 2 words, that counts, if I did 48 that counts, if I did 2,000 that counts. It means I've had a streak of every day this month (except this one at this point, but I'm about to go get some words in).

I've also started trying to build habits of cleaning my house regularly, so I put together a cleaning calendar, where I list things I do in the morning and the evening, each day of the week, each week of the month, each month of the year. I haven't been perfect at it (cold, stress, etc) but it's been a big help in starting me on the road to maintenance of my household (instead of looking at the mess and feeling so overwhelmed I decide to do nothing).

So mainly, bullet journalling is what's helped me the most in trying to build up my good habits. Next I might try to use it to tackle breaking down bad habits, but that's a much trickier area because of certain mental health things.

What hasn't worked for me is just trying to do it with no outside validation, or no rewards. It's very rewarding for me to see a streak of blue squares in my habit tracker telling me I wrote every day. I also tell myself I can do things I want to do if I do my needed things during the day; means I'm more likely to actually do the things I need to do if I know I can watch Star Trek after or something.

[jazzyjj]

Hmmm, let's see. Just yesterday I started doing something new regarding reading. I'm an avid reader, and I have a Wish List that was started in the summer of 2014. I have been preoccupied with other things since then, and yes this does include chatty neighbors. Lol but they're all great, or at least most of them are. There's one downstairs who is kinda annoying, but she's moving out next month so that's good I guess. She's just very boisterous, and her apartment stinks because she basically spoils her dog to pieces. I don't even think the building she's moving into allows pets unless they are for working purposes. But back to my reading habit. The talking book player which I use has a really nice bookshelf feature, that lets you store X amount of books at a time once they are downloaded. I don't know if this works for the digital cartridges, but I tested it out on a USB flash drive and the feature works great. I suppose this depends on amount of free space. So at present I'm reading 2 disability-related books concurrently. All I have to do to switch between them is press a couple buttons on the machine.





As far as remembering contact info and passwords etc., I'm usually very good about this. But now that I'm on Dw, I have 2 running journal entries for exactly these purposes. I have kept these entries private of course, so that no personal information gets out. Once I get my iPhone, I will probably develop some other good tactics. Lol but first comes learning how to use the darn thing.