# habits: i encode my life into habits.

dear journal, i'm quite proud that i've managed to complete my little @/gdsnap idea. it wasn't a big project but it took me quite a while to finish. as usual, the initial motivation was high while i figured out the big pieces. but i often lost the motivation when i had to deal with all the corner cases and other quirks.

yet, i completed it. i managed this little side project quite well:

• i kept the scope small right from the start;
• i always planned small tasks ahead so i always knew what to do to make progress;
• i made it my first morning task to make some progress *every day*.

basically i did what i talked about in @/mornings. sure, some mornings i made very little progress: i just did some minor refactorings to make place for the next feature. but then slowly, one by one, all the features landed and i ran out of tasks. i completed the project.

it's pretty cool to have a project finished. now i take it a bit easy, sort some of my other queued todos out, and then i'll probably tackle my next big thing i'm planning for a long time.

i really like how daily tiny habits over long time can compound to actual achievements. i recall reading the book "compound effect" from darren hardy very long time ago. i think it was talking about this particular effect and it was strongly advising to do a little bit every day. it took me a while but i took the advice to heart and it worked out. i can wholeheartedly recommend this to others too.

# other habits

i have other daily habits too: for instance i read a little bit of german every day along with a dictionary just to pick up a little bit of german over time. sometimes it's just 1 page, sometimes it's more if the text is interesting. the point is to do it every day. my goal is not to become a perfect german speaker, just that i have some understanding of it. i think this habit increased my comprehension quite a lot over time and it requires very little time from me. i'm usually a bit slow right after wakeup, my eyes wake up slowly, so a bit of reading is a very nice way to start the day.

i have weekly habits too: i try to watch a little bit of german at least every week so that i can pick up german voice too, not just reading. or i try to make progress on the codeforces educational corner by solving at least one problem per week. or calling family is another weekly task for me.

i have monthly habits too: i try to participate in at least one codeforces programming competition per month. i don't want to become a top coding competitor, i just want a little bit of competition because i feel a void in me if i don't do it. that's because i did a lot of competitions when i was a kid but these days i'm not that super interested in them. but i don't want to completely stop either so i found this as the perfect compromise.

another monthly habit is a variant of "i should meet someone every month". this worked out surprisingly well for me given my ultra-introverted nature. i might lower the frequency of this to every quarter since i feel monthly is more than i actually need.

i even have yearly habits: reach out to folks on their birthday or around the new year's eve to maintain some old relationships. ("what's your plan for the next year?" is a very good icebreaker!)

# implementation

i really like how my system dictates what i should be doing in general. i don't really have to make decisions about when and how much i should be doing a particular activity. i implement this by having a time triggered todo items in my todo list and they linger there until i finish/schedule them. once i finish them, i bump the trigger date to the next period's start.

take the "compete in codeforces" task: on the 1st of the month this task appears in my todo list. i find the next competition in the calendar and postpone this item to that day (e.g. the 10th). if i can make the competition that day, i do it, otherwise i postpone it again to the next event. the more later it is in the month, the more pressure i exert on myself to make it. and when done, i postpone the todo item to the 1st of the next month. note: i don't simply "snooze" the task for 30 days because that would definitely lead to me doing less of it and i wouldn't have the "end-of-month-pressure" that i really need to make sure i complete stuff. under pressure i might even try to do the competition half-assed (e.g. not taking the full time) but that's fine because at least i participated and had some fun out of it.

# life encoded into habits

but anyway, the point is that everything i want to get out of life is sort of encoded into these regular habits. and thanks to the compounding effect i feel i make progress on every important-to-me life area. with these even my family relationships improved a bit, which i happened to neglect way too much in the past. i guess this really helps for me to feel happy in general and to avoid living a life full of missed opportunities.

published on 2022-02-18

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