How a good routine helped me with my bad habit
Habits are the main pillar of productivity, but routines make way for them to work
Habits have become something like a God nowadays, with productivity its religion. There is a reason why James Clears’ “Atomic Habits” are number 1 best seller with gazillion copies sold, everyone wants some good habits to help them improve themselves.
Habits, the good, the bad and the ugly
People are creatures of habits, which is undeniable. Bad habits form with such ease, while good habits take a lot of time to develop. Or we only feel like that.
If you are reading this, you are probably taking part in this productivity religion and I suppose you know about the habit loop. If by any chance you don’t know about it, here is a brief (very brief explanation):
Habits work in a simple loop, there is a cue (we see something), then the behavior and reward (usually the satisfaction). These three elements are the basis of every single habit.
A habit of scrolling through social media before going to bed has become customary. You finally go to bed, after a long day which presents a cue for taking your mobile phone and start scrolling. You might spend half an hour, an hour scrolling and enjoying yourself (the behavior and instant reward). Time flies when you are having fun right?
If you go scrolling every time you lay on your bed, you are not gonna notice how it becomes a habit, it just happens, bed equals phone.
Positive habits won’t just happen. You don’t just form them, you need to work for them. If you want to change your breakfast, to go from donuts to cereals, you need to be conscious about your eating. You need to understand your cue (the beautiful smell of donuts) and strive to persist without eating one.
Every habit needs time, you just don’t notice it for the bad ones.
Routines can help you change your habits
Here I’m not talking about routine as a singular behavior, not to mix it with Charles Duhigs’ term for that middle part of the habit loop. I’m talking about routine as a regular procedure for a longer period.
An example we all know is a good morning routine. I won’t explain the essence of it, you have 234616 videos on YouTube about it, I will just use it as a helping tool.
Let’s say you wake up late every day and that is the reason you have to buy donuts on your way to work. The sweet scent of pastries reminds you that you haven’t eaten breakfast yet so you go to the bakery and buy a couple of donuts.
You are frustrated with yourself because of it, you don’t want those donuts every day, you want to change that habit.
Routines incorporate a bunch of small habits, and by changing the first one, you can change the rest of them.
Forget about the donuts, focus on waking up 15–20 minutes earlier. That one simple thing will change your morning routine. Instead of buying donuts, you will be able to make a proper breakfast at your home. You might even have time to take a different route to your work so you wouldn’t have to walk past that bakery.
That was a simplified version of how changing your routine can change your behavior. Sure, you might find it hard to wake up earlier (or whatever is the start of your routine), but it’s certainly easier than trying to change your craving for donuts (your core habit you want to change).
The point of routines is that by changing only one habit, you can have an impact on a number of them.
My personal experience with finding a good routine
I love watching movies and TV series. When I have to tell a bit more about myself, an avid watcher of movies is on my list of things to say. Binging is also something I let myself do. Especially in summer, when I have more free time.
Another thing I also enjoy is reading books. Sometimes it’s hard to give up mindlessly watching a screen and go into the world of books.
Watching series is a lot more addicting than reading books and much easier to form a habit of.
My evening routine consisted of watching two or three episodes of something bingable, like Supernatural, or Criminal minds. I would turn off my PC and go to bed at least an hour later than usual with trouble falling asleep.
It was awful, wasting time every evening and then waking up tired the day after.
I had to stop binging every day. What I did was pretty simple, I only turned off my PC when I was finished working on it. Because it’s an older version, it needed a couple of minutes to turn on again and I wasn’t going to wait for it.
That one thing changed my whole evening routine. With my PC down I could just take a book in my hand and read it. Instead of watching a couple of episodes, I started reading for an hour every evening. I figured out something else, reading helps me sleep, so I went to bed earlier every night and didn’t have trouble falling asleep anymore.
I removed the cue from one habit (open access to endless episodes) and it helped my whole routing change.
Think of habits in a more complex way, it is rare to find them isolated, they are usually part of a greater routine.
Habits form most of our behaviors, if you want to change a particular habit you need to fully understand it and how it’s incorporated into your daily routine.
