Habits and routines

Matthias’s post about finding it hard to stick to new habits made me think about my own habits, and what happens to new habits that I try to develop. I’m definitely someone who likes to have routines and habits. If I can get into a routine when I try to develop a new habit, the chances are quite high that I’ll stick with it. The other thing that helps me is just thinking of new habits as experiments, so if I quit or give up or they just don’t “take” for whatever reason, it’s not too big a deal. After all, it was just an experiment.

There are a couple of habits I started almost 20 years ago which have been quite important to me. One is blogging – for a while there it was an almost daily thing that I did. Blogging is what led me to make a number of friends across the country – and we are still friends today. We even made a group blog and then wrote and presented a paper at a national conference about it. (I’ve linked to the conference paper and not the blog, because the blog is defunct.) And at the moment, even if blogging is something I only do for about a month every year, it will always be a medium I’m fond of, I think.

The other habit that I started almost 20 years ago was early rising: waking up every morning at 5am. I can’t even quite remember why I started it. (Possibly because I wanted more time in my day, for blogging!) While blogging’s waxed and waned over the years, my daily get out of bed time has been 5am since 2005. I can’t imagine waking up at 7am – it feels terribly late to me. I love the early morning and enjoy the quiet. The things I do between 5 – 6:30ish every morning have varied over the years. Blogging. Meditating. Exercising. Drawing. Currently it’s morning pages and meditating. Not sure what I’ll be doing this time next year, but I’m pretty sure I’ll still be getting out of bed early.

I’m looking forward to having more time for habit experiments, once I finish working.