Tag Archives: habits

Making it public

When you want to see changes in your life, make them public.

I was unsatisfied with my routines, so I shared them here. I followed up with a couple great workouts, where I pushed myself.

A comment on that post inspired another post, and I started a fictional audio book that I had in my cue for the holidays. I listened while eating my dinner, (family was out), doing the dishes, and for an hour and a half of entertainment afterwards. This was far more than I listened to for most of the week.

It’s an easy but important step in achieving your goals. If you want something to happen, if you want to push yourself to meet a goal, then let others know about it. It doesn’t have to be a blog post, it can be a conversation with your spouse or a friend. It an be a challenge with a coworker, (several of my colleagues bought Fitbits and are sharing their step counts with each other).

If you really want to change something, put it out into the world, and see how that motivates you to actually do it!

Satisfactory Work Habits

When report cards go out, they include Work Habits. The usual standard is either that you got a ‘G’ for good, or you haven’t done a good enough job. Admittedly, as a parent, I wanted to see ‘G’s more than ‘A’s, because I wanted to know that my kids were trying their best.

At Inquiry Hub we look at it differently. We think the scale is skewed to the negative with ‘Satisfactory’ being something bad, when in fact in means you are doing a ‘good enough’ job. This was part of my message home to parents that went out on report card day:

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Work Habits – The work habits provided are ‘G’ – Good, ‘S’ – Satisfactory, and ‘N’ Needs Improvement. 

Many middle and high schools break this up as ‘G’ = anything above average. ‘S’ = There are some issues. ‘N’ = Not good. Some schools even give awards for students that get “All G’s”. That is NOT what we do here. The word ‘Satisfactory’ is not a bad word. Satisfactory means doing what needs to be done. That’s not a bad thing… could it be better? Yes, it is possible that a student can step up and do more than they need to… that’s ‘Good’. And for us an ‘N’ means that work habits need improvement, like most other schools. 

We like to have a positive distinction between ‘Satisfactory’ and ‘Good’ rather than ‘Good’ being the only measure of doing good work. It’s more important to us to separate 2 kinds of ‘Good’, than 2 kinds of ‘Needs Improvement’. In fact, we have many over-achievers in our school, and one thing we stress is that sometimes it’s perfectly OK to do ‘enough’ work in one area so that you can focus more attention in another area. Can you still talk to your child about moving from ‘S’ to ‘G’? Sure, but please don’t put a lot of emphasis on this! ‘Satisfactory’ can often mean, “I did what I needed to do to get the job done.” If everything you do is always good, that’s a heck of a lot of stress to deal with when you have a lot on your plate. 

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This approach seems even more apt now that we are having students do SCRUM projects, because part of working on a scrum team is defining what ‘Done’ looks like. For some parts of a project ‘done’ doesn’t mean ‘excellent’, it means good enough to move on. This is an important skill to learn. The interesting thing is, when you are working on a team, the collective definition of done is usually more than just ‘satisfactory’, and is already better than ‘good enough’. This isn’t about putting the least amount of effort it, it’s more about not extending the team so much that they can’t finish a project on time.

Sometimes satisfactory work really is the goal, so that you have the time, energy, and enthusiasm to do other work at an excellent level. A satisfactory work habit means that you’ve done what you needed to do.

Book stacks

As part of our main floor renovation, I moved a bookshelf yesterday. On this shelf I found 4 books that I had put aside to read. On the corner of my desk at work I have another 5. On Audible I have 3 credits, and a large list of books on my wish list, but I am listening to a few books offered for free first, and re-listening to parts of one that I’m developing some lessons for, for my Inquiry Hub students.

I’ve always been a painfully slow reader and so audible has been a wonderful treat. Since I started listening to Audible in 2017, I’ve listened to the equivalent of 1 month and 12 days worth of audio, according to the app. I have 111 books in my collection of which there are only 8 I have yet to read. In that time, I’ve read about 6-7 paper books completely and another 4-6 partially.

My stacks are unlikely to be read… unless I add them to my digital audio stacks. It’s a bit of an awakening to realize this. I don’t read books anymore, I listen to them. For me physical book stacks are nothing more than an audio wish lists. But somehow, I like seeing the stacks, even if I never get to them.

Do it for 2 minutes

Taking my own advice here. I’ve been staring at the blank page for nearly 20 minutes with nothing to write. But I just gave a friend who is struggling to exercise regularly some advice. I said do 2 minutes. That’s it. Do a 2 minute workout, but do it. In reality, you’ll do a bit more, but if it’s just 2 minutes, it still keeps the streak going.

Too many people talk themselves out of workouts, or journaling, or reading, or eating healthy… because it’s too much work. It takes too much time. Everyone has two minutes to spare. Everyone has 5 minutes to spare. Everyone can build a habit if the habit starts at 2 minutes.

I’ve already written for more than 2 minutes, now that I’ve actually started. Procrastination isn’t just about putting something off, it’s about stealing time from you, time that could be productive enough to complete the task and still have what would have been more procrastination time left over.

It can start with just 2 minutes.

Beyond just keeping the streaks alive

One of the most influential books that I’ve read in a while is Atomic Habits by James Clear. I was already on my fitness path when I started listening to it, and ideas in this book cemented the patterns I needed to stick with. I’ve shared some tips before, and I’ll re-share them here after a few thoughts.

Usually I struggle during my busiest times. That’s when there is always an excuse not to work out or spend time writing, etc. However, recently I’ve struggled when I’ve had more time. It’s weird, when I’m busy, I make time… when I have time, I take too much time and wallow a bit. This has been hard with my workouts. I take my time between sets. I don’t push myself as hard as I should. I spend too much time on my phone and have to rush my workout. It seems that I’ve gotten into a rut where the workout doesn’t give me the satisfaction I usually get.

Part of the struggle is that when I push myself, I seem to stay sore for too long and my back tightens up. So, instead of going at 80%, and spending more time stretching, I just go at 60% and waste a lot of time. This isn’t as bad as not working out. And that’s an important point. I’m keeping my streaks going. Besides one ‘one dot day‘, I’ve been able to maintain an amazing record of workouts, I’m on track to meet my archery goal of 100 days of shooting this year. With a few lapses, I’ve almost done meditation every day this year, And I have a perfect record for writing every day. I’m keeping my streaks alive.

The part I’m struggling with now is that while I’m fitter than I was at 34, 20 years ago, I’m feeling like I need to inject something different into my routine. It has been a couple months now of going through the motions and while that’s better than not exercising, it’s also not very rewarding. I think I really need to re-evaluate what my targets are for 2022, knowing that I’m going to stick to my current targets until the calendar year is over. I need to think about what my fitness goals are going to be? I need to increase my meditation and do some in silent sessions rather than just guided ones, because I feel that I’m not getting a lot out of the 10 minutes that I try to meditate each day… and yes, I know meditation is about the process and the trying, but I’ve been doing this for a few years now and my monkey brain still treats each session like a contest to see how many things I can think about while trying not to think about so many things.

I know I’m always hard on myself. I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing. But right now it’s not enough to just keep the streaks going. I feel I need to do more. I need to inject a little enthusiasm into what I’m trying to achieve, and have some (realistic) targets to aim for. Keeping the streaks alive is extremely important, but the streak itself can’t be the reason I’m doing things. I can be both happy about my consistency, and wanting to focus more on my progress, and I guess that’s exactly where I am right now.

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My tips I shared a while back:

1. A year-long calendar poster. You get to see at-a-glance how you are doing and you can motivate yourself to meet your goals at the end of the week if you are not on target.

2. The best time to start a new streak is RIGHT NOW. I mentioned this in the video, don’t wallow in disappointment. There are only 3 weeks (starred) in the chart below that show weeks that I didn’t get at least 4 workouts in. I didn’t let those weeks define me.

3. Reduce friction. Here are 3 examples:

  • My stickers and sticker chart are right next to my treadmill. I make it easy to track and see this.
  • I have a pair of runners and a shoe horn in my exercise room. I never have to look for my shoes, and I don’t need to tie them, the shoehorn allows me to slide my feet in while still being tight enough to run in. Also, my headphones, and all equipment are where I need them… Always ready, and I never need to search for them.
  • Don’t exercise at your maximum every day. Some days I push really hard, and some days I go at 75%. A day when you are feeling low, give yourself an effort break, but don’t give yourself a break from actually doing exercise. If you end up doing 3 workouts at a lower effort, you’ll have the drive to push when you feel up to it. Make the friction about how hard you work out, rather than if you are going to work out or not.

4. Share your goals with others. You are more likely to hold yourself accountable if you have made your goals public. That’s partly why I did my original post in January, and promised in that post that I would do this update.

5. Be vigilant at your busiest times. It is really easy to say, “September is too crazy”, or “I’ll get started as soon as things calm down.” There will always be an upcoming busy time to deal with. Things won’t calm down (sorry, but you know this is true). If you want this to work, make it work when you are busiest and the rest of the year will be easy.

Going to bed too late

I tend to fall into bad sleep patterns. It’s easy because I like to stay up late and I also like to wake up early. I wish I lived in a country that did siestas.

There is something about being up between 10pm and midnight that I enjoy, even when I’m exhausted. But when I get up well before 6am, a midnight bedtime is a bit hard to do several days in a row. When I was younger, I could live off of 4.5 to 5.5 hours of sleep a night, but as I got older it definitely affected my ability to be productive during the day, and I realized I needed more sleep.

But every now and then I get into the bad habit of staying up way too late. And often that triggers insomnia, which makes matters worse. I need to force myself to go to bed earlier. This is one place in my life where i battle with myself. There is a huge knowing-doing gap.

I still woke up before my alarm this morning, but I’m slow to get going, and needing to talk myself into my workout. I get things done at night at the expense of a productive morning. It’s not a great cycle.

This is just me making it public that I need an earlier bedtime, because for me the public declaration is a good step towards action… or is it non-action when I’m talking about adding more unconsciousness? 😜

Death by a thousand paper cuts

This is the term I use when too many small things come my way. I then spend my entire day successfully getting two-thirds of those things done, and creating an unruly ‘to do’ list for the next day, after staying at work a little longer than I hoped.

I haven’t done it yet this school year, but today I’m blocking some time in my calendar for a project I’m hoping to get done in the coming weeks. It was a September goal that never happened.

It’s quite apparent to me that unless I slot time in for visioning and projects that move my schools forward, the paper cut tasks win me over and consume my day. Blocking this time off won’t magically create more time in my calendar. I’m not going to suddenly have less little things to do… but I’m not going to go home feeling like I spent the day getting paper cuts. I’ll feel more like I had a productive day rather than just a busy day.

I know that when I do these things that I want to get done, (which I know are good for my school), then I don’t go home feeling like I want to describe my day as ‘death by a thousand paper cuts’. I know that I will feel a lot more like my day accomplished something beyond the many little (but important) things land on my desk.

Keeping the IKEA streak alive

It’s not a streak to brag about. Every time I build IKEA furniture I do something wrong. Tonight I put a piece on backwards and taking it off took much longer than putting it on. Added to that, a cheap plastic fastener that holds one of the shelves together broke, and another trip to IKEA will need to happen. Fortunately, I had a lot of good help from my daughter and wife, and it was my wife that caught the mistake before I went to far ahead.

https://twitter.com/datruss/status/1434409327616421889?s=21

That may not be a steak that I’m too proud of, but here I am at midnight making sure that my steak of daily blogging stays in tact… something positive to go to bed thinking about. I hope to break the bad IKEA streak soon, but keep my Daily Ink streak going!

Before the sun rises

Today was the first day in a very long time that my alarm went off before sunrise. Part of this is getting back into a routine before work, part of it is that the days are a little shorter as we head into fall. It took me a while to actually get started this morning. I literally could have woken up 45 minutes later, because none of my usual routine got started until then. It’s amazing how slow I can be, how easily distracted, when I’m off of a routine. Put me on a routine and I get stuff done. Remove the routine and I lose focus.

This makes me think about a typical day at work. How much of it is me focusing on the next issue or concern that arises versus getting what I need done? Some days the answer to that is quite surprising. I had a vice principal tell me years ago, “You know, being a VP is really just a 3-4 hour a day job. The problem is that you usually can’t get most of that done between 8am and 4pm. That was a vice principal in a school that also had a principal. When you are the lone principal in a building this can be even more challenging with more duties and less time.

That’s why I get up so early. I write for this blog (usually by 6:00 even though I publish it a bit later). I meditate for 10 minutes. I do 20 minutes of cardio followed by 10-15 minutes of stretching and/or weights. I get stuff done for me, before the distractions of the day start… and as the days get shorter, before the sun rises.

It’s a wonderful feeling of accomplishment to do these things for myself before my work day begins; before the unexpected distractions of my typical day; before I get home exhausted and full of excuses as to why I should skip one of these activities. After a very routine-less holiday, it’s going to take me a while to get used to this. But eventually I’ll fall back into the routine of waking up in the dark and getting my mental and physical well-being taken care of before the sun comes up.

Procrastinating workouts

It took me hours to get myself working out today. Everything was an excuse, or a delay. Now that I’ve done it, I feel great (physically).

This is why I like morning workouts before work, there is a deadline I have to meet, and so I meet it. On holidays, it suddenly becomes something to put off until later. The problem now is that I’m heading back into a smokey location, and won’t have the convenience of my home gym. I also won’t have my bike. So I’ll need to figure out a routine that doesn’t involve me breathing heavily in smokey air. I might have to resort to hikes, walks, and a regimen of sit-ups and push-ups… and schedule these so that I actually do them.

I feel so unproductive, even after getting my workout done, when I spend half the day thinking about and delaying my workout, even if I get other things done in the process. So, this is my ‘out loud’ commitment to do better. And to be specific, doing better means setting a time for my workout, then sticking to it!