Don’t Break the Chain! A Method to Create Productive Habits
There’s a reason that gym membership rates skyrocket every January 1st while attendance falls back to normal shortly after. Many people, myself included, have a habit of setting lofty goals of big lifestyle changes as their New Year’s resolutions, but gradually as the motivation and energy to follow through leave, people eventually give up on these goals until the following year’s resolution.
There are numerous times when I’ve told myself that I’m going to start doing something as part of my daily routine, but once I skip a few days in a row, all hope of improving my routine completely falls apart. However, there are ways to help ourselves introduce new habits that are far more effective than the traditional New Year’s resolution.
Jerry Seinfeld is one of the most successful comedians of all time, creating and starring in one of the most highly watched sitcoms of the 90's. One of his productivity tips on how he was able to stay so consistent with the quality of his writing is a method called “don’t break the chain.”
Seinfeld keeps a big wall calendar with every day of the year on one page, and checks off the current day with a big red X only after writing a joke that day. That’s it. That’s his tip.
“After a few days you’ll have a chain. Just keep at it and the chain will grow longer every day. You’ll like seeing that chain, especially when you get a few weeks under your belt. Your only job next is to not break the chain.”
There’s no one easy trick to success, but this habit is effective at motivating you to put in the daily effort to move yourself closer to your goal. It becomes really satisfying to keep checking off days. Over time, it becomes habitual, as does joke writing (or whatever habit you’re keeping). Psychologically, this daily ritual makes it easier to form the habit than simply telling yourself that you’re going to go to the gym every day.
This method uses your previous work as motivation to keep going every day by breaking down a daunting big task into small chunks. It’s a lot easier to say “I’m going to write one joke a day” than it is to say “I’m going to write a joke every day for the rest of my life!” One feels a lot more tangible and attainable, which keeps you working towards that larger goal. Seeing your continued progress keeps you motivated and prevents the goal from feeling too large.
It’s a lot easier to say “I’m going to write one joke a day” than it is to say “I’m gonna write a joke every day for the rest of my life!”
Like any effective tool, it’s important to adapt this idea to your particular needs. If you need to take a day off because of circumstances or because you’re getting burned out, go for it. Making your goal of not breaking the chain realistic and adjusting it to your needs makes it much more likely that you will actually follow through.
I’m writing this in hopes that just one person sees this article and starts finally doing that thing they wish they could. The goal should be not to make substantial progress every day, but rather to get into the habit of making daily improvements.
Don’t let not having a calendar keep you from starting! Here’s a link to a printable so you can get started right now. A calendar where you can see the entire year is ideal because it will remind you of the progress you’ve made towards your goal.
I’m going to start my own chain this year, and I hope that you do too. I started playing guitar recently, and I want to practice every day to make sure I’m improving a little bit one day at a time. You probably have some sort of goal in life, whether it’s a career ambition or a small improvement to your daily routine. All of those goals are things you can break down into tangibles that you can incrementally work on every day to slowly but consistently improve yourself.
It doesn’t have to be January 1st for you to start working towards that goal. The important thing is that you find a goal that is important to you and you start working towards it TODAY and keep working tomorrow and the day after. It’s okay to start small, but doing a little bit today and starting that calendar will get the ball rolling.
References
https://www.writersstore.com/dont-break-the-chain-jerry-seinfeld
https://lifehacker.com/281626/jerry-seinfelds-productivity-secret
http://karenkavett.com/blog/5154/dont-break-the-chain-calendar-2019.php
