The following was written for my latest book, This Could Help. This should give you a sense of the sorts of things that are in the book. Also, this particular idea was a revelation and a huge success for me so, I hope it can help many others as well. Enjoy!
I have always had mixed success with keeping a journal. I could probably build a small shelter with all of the half finished notebooks that contain those fits and starts. It is also the case that I have tried many software solutions as well. Part of the problem, certainly, is that I have not been able to form the proper habit of, each day, writing the significant things down. But, counterintuitively, I have found that another big part of the problem is the amount of guilt I feel when I try for a few weeks and then fail. That guilt keeps me from giving it another go. I tell myself that, if I try again, I’m only going to fail so why bother trying at all.
Not to jinx it (knocks on wood furiously), but I have now managed to keep not only one, but TWO journals going simultaneously and without missing a day since December 16th, 2013. That is longer than I have kept any one journal continuously and daily in my whole life! (Does little happy touch down dance).
So, what made the difference for me? Well, a combination of things as I think back on it.
- I did it intentionally for long enough that eventually it became involuntary. In other words, habits take a while to forge but, once you forge them, then it becomes involuntary in the way that blinking and breathing are involuntary. It’s just that thing you do semiconsciously just the same as the many other things you do semiconsciously.
- I built the routine on top of other routines. Like I said, I keep two journals. The first one I use as sort of a daily log — tasks I completed, meetings I’ve had, things I’ve done, etc. So, for instance, I already had a routine when I completed a task — I marked it done on my task list. “Great.”, I thought, ”A good place to install a new routine”. So, I made a new step when I completed a task — I marked it done AND I wrote it down in my log. When I had that simple routine down I installed others one by one. When I have a meeting or appointment, I mark it down in the log before starting my car to drive away. I write down ideas right away before I lose them, etc. In other words, I broke down the big routine into a series of smaller routines which I then added bit by bit until I had a completely new routine.
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I realized that any routine, even unrelated, was appropriate to build on. For instance, my second journal is a Levenger 5 Year Journal. It gives you a few lines for each day over five years. I use this for recording my feelings at the end of my day. This was not a task or a meeting so I had to find another routine to build on. After a short thought session I found it — brushing my teeth. See, I brush my teeth every night before going to bed. Therefore, I built the new routine on that. Now, I write in my journal and then brush my teeth. Thus, writing in the journal became a subroutine of my existing pre-bed routine.
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I used tools that were a pleasure to use but also perfect for the purpose of the routine I wanted to install. I’ve mentioned it before but, for my Daily Log journal I use a Hobonichi Techo. Not only is it a beauty and joy to use, the perfect size for my small handwriting writing, but since it is designed as a planner it becomes an automatic “Seinfeld Calendar”. Don’t miss a day and break the chain! And, if for some very unusual reason I miss a day, I go back the next day and put something on that page — anything — to keep the routine going. In the log, there are some whirlwind days in the past few months I just did not take the time to log anything. So, the next day, I made sure to go back to the previous one and write down as much as I can remember.
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Per the above, I allow anything to “count”. There are, at least, 5 entires as I flipped back through the ones in my 5 Year Journal that are a single word. There is one that is just a doodle. Guess what? Yep, that counts. That is how I felt that day. I didn’t feel like writing more than that and the fact that I didn’t communicates that feeling too. There are no rules. Rules stifle routines. The only rule is to put something on that page.
But, as the title of this post suggests, this is about more than my (finally) keeping a daily journal (Two. Did I mention TWO???). I now know that many of these techniques would work with any routine/habit I wish to form. And, now that I have added these new routines to existing routines, I’m going to see what other routines I can add on top of these and what other existing routines are available for me to build on. For instance, my pre-bed routine would be the perfect place to add another subroutine — perhaps, ten minutes of meditation before I write in my journal and brush my teeth.
See what I mean?
The fact is, we all have existing routines. We all have a set of steps we do every morning, just before bed, or otherwise in our day. These are all opportunities to build in another step and form a new habit. So, if there is something you’ve wanted to do regularly for a long time but have yet to achieve it, this could help.