Projects and flows
I got together with a small group of acquaintances to try out a 12-week program where you choose a project or projects that you want to do, and do the best you can. It’s based on the book “The 12 Week Year”. Which, so far, I cannot recommend, as I didn’t really enjoy reading it, and I’m not sure it works magic for me. Anyway, I decided that in this format, I’ll take two projects: healthier lifestyle and language learning.
And here’s what, after four weeks, I’m thinking. In the project mode, it’s best to do things that actually are projects. Almost everything can be formatted as a project, but not everything should. By project I mean having a specific goal, planning, tracking tools, monitoring, evaluation. Today, after I realized that neither accountability nor project format motivates me to do more and better. I can track calories, log runs, count the number of lessons, pages, or time spent learning. But it only shifts my focus to the tracking tools, instead of the essence. Sometimes, you need to track. I hate tracking calories (is it even possible to do accurately?), but when you do it for a few days, it gives you a sense of how and what to improve. Yet, having to not only eat/drink/sleep/run/learn, but also to quantify everything, is getting on my nerves. Which is new, as I used to track a lot of things in my life.
Now, to an alternative. Habits instead of projects. Flows. A lot of things are very simple in their core. If you want to stay healthy, you need to eat (not a lot, mostly plants), sleep and stay active. If you want to see how you do, and give yourself a reality check, go ahead and track a simple table, putting Xs every day you do right. Learning: just go and study instead of doing something else. Habits work magic for me. Do what you know is good, don’t do what is bad. Repeat. Make it yours.
It’s funny how at the same time I can kill motivation by over-tracking, and stay on track with simple rules.
I’ve been blogging almost daily lately (missed just one day). And I haven’t set up a project about it. It’s only a rule: write every day; don’t stress if you absolutely can’t.
