21 days of time tracking with TimeTag: Day 2
21 Days of Time Tracking
Starting a habit by lowering the activation energy
Day 2 —Since yesterday, my writing and meditating habits have been going well -- I did an 11 minute meditation yesterday, and spent 21 minutes writing. I haven't yet been able to go for a run (or more honestly, I haven't yet made the time to go running).
I want to discuss a strategy that has helped me in the past with habits like running -- which I need to employ myself, quickly, if I am to hit my weekly goal.
In chemistry, there's a concept known as Activation Energy. Activation energy is the minimum amount of energy required to put into a chemical reaction to get it to...activate. To basically get it to do anything at all, so that the reaction takes place. You may have heard the term "catalyst" -- catalysts help with activation energy. It's a bit of a jumpstart to a reaction.
We have our own internal activation energy required for activities. It is (at least personally speaking) incredibly low for things like sitting on my couch & watching 3 hours of a tv show that's auto-playing. That's actually why they auto-play -- they know if you were to required to navigate your remote to the next one, you'd be less likely to keep watching. So they just auto-play all day long, and you sit there, because honestly our bodies are kinda lazy by nature. We don't like to spend energy if we don't have to, and our brains don't like to make decisions if we don't need to.
Activation energy is really high for something like running -- I have to change into running clothes, lots of layers if it's cold outside, put on my shoes, grab my keys, probably my headphones, find a playlist I want to listen to, walk outside, jog to the park, and start a run. Minutes into it, I'm still struggling to not want to just stop and walk back -- my body is like: whyyyyy are you doing this to me?
One strategy to help lower that activation energy is to make at least the parts leading up to exiting the door really easy -- lay out your clothes on your bed. Put some socks near your running shoes, and put those right by the door. Or, if you're debating if you want to run, debate it while you actively get dressed in your workout clothes. By the time you're finished dressing (a relatively low lift of work), you realize you're already in your gear, so you might as well put on your shoes. With your shoes on, you're like: fine, I'll grab my keys. At that point you're well on your way. The catalyst was the act of doing things that are all easy on their own -- changing clothes, grabbing keys, and putting on shoes. Individually not that much work, and not much thought. Together they add up to the activation energy of needing to step outside & run though.
Think about what goals you're trying to build -- and where you want to spend your time. What can you do to shorten that activation energy required to get yourself rolling with the habit? Time tracking as a habit requires you to change your behaviors -- before you start doing something, you need to remember to start the timer. (Although in TimeTag if you forget, you can always add a record in later, or edit the start time of a timer). One way I've made it easier for myself to be better at time tracking my goals is by using a Pro feature that lets me queue up my timers on the home screen. I have 3 timers already preset, with big green buttons, ready to go -- whenever I want to start something, all I need to do is open the app and tap once. All about lowering that activation energy.
We'll see if I can follow my own advice today and go for a run later! Until then, be sure to download TimeTag yourself and track your work/goals/whatever matters most to you, so you can start to take control of your time. How we spend our time is how we achieve our goals. Best of luck!