The more frequent and the less intrusive the habit, the easier it is to stick to.
Commit to writing for an hour once week? You’ll find a million reasons to procrastinate until the very last moment, on Sunday night, to write.
Commit to writing for 5 minutes once a day? The timeline is so short, there are no more excuses.
Make it doable. Make it frequent. And suddenly every habit is within reach.
When I write, I’m meditating.
When I meditate, I’m writing.
When I run, I’m meditating.
When I meditate, I’m running.
When I play the guitar, I’m meditating.
When I meditate, I’m playing the guitar.
When I meditate, I’m writing.
When I write, I’m running.
When I run, I’m playing the guitar.
And no matter what I do, I’m always living.
Life experience always carries over.
I can choose to procrastinate on a project for weeks – then finish it all in one go, right before the deadline.
In absolute terms, I might have been very efficient with my time – but the time I saved, I spent frustrated with myself.
The long-term effect on my self-image: I’m a procrastinator.
What if I work a little bit on a project every single day – and have it finished well before the deadline?
I might spend more time in total – but every day, every moment spent makes me feel good about myself.
The long-term effect on my self-image: I cultivate an identity of discipline and consistency. I do what I believe to be good for me. I build character. Taking small daily actions towards a goal becomes part of my identity.
What’s more: I avoid the frustration and resentment that comes with procrastination (=not doing what I know I should be doing), and feel good about myself instead.
Long-term, the benefits of small daily actions always outweigh huge last-minute efforts.
Knowledge transfer always implies time collapse. Because learning an insight from someone else usually takes less long than figuring it out yourself.
Take books. The writer usually spent considerable time researching and distilling the topic and coming to good insights (time I might not be able to dedicate).
Thanks to that writer, I can now consume that knowledge in, say 6-12 hours of reading the book. A considerable time collapse…
But when does time collapse go to far?
Can I read a 1-page summary of that book and truly say I grasp the topic?
When your brain gets space to breathe, knowledge grows and nuance shows. It needs time and repeated exposure to absorb information, make connections, and discover new insights.
So a one-page summary isn’t necessarily too shallow… On the contrary: it collapses time so much that information becomes very dense.
What with the evolution towards short-form online content? The primary purpose of TikTok videos and Instagram reels might be to entertain, but the trend is clear and spills over into education, our attention span, and knowledge transfer: shorter, more shallow, yet more dense.
Too little time collapse and we can’t make progress.
Too much time collapse and knowledge collapses with it.
“Because that’s the way I always did it”. “Because that’s how I was raised.” “Because that’s just who I am.”
“Because that’s the way I intend to do it.” “Because that’s how I believe I should act.” “Because that’s just who I choose to become.”
Without bringing intention to your life, you won’t live the way you want but the way you started.
The purpose of goals is not achieving them.
It’s giving direction to your current actions.
And that’s what makes them different from a dreams.
Now. If goals give direction to current actions…
And current actions overrule your current beliefs and shape your identity…
Then goals shape who you are today, tomorrow, and who you’ll be long after achieving them.
The achievement is fleeting, the personality change lasting.
Choose wisely.
Thought of the day: it’s better to be proven wrong than to be paralyzed in doubt.
