Starting a daily productivity log. It started as a google form but has morphed into a larger spreadsheet. It contains:
Something I completed today
something I worked on today
one thing I couldn’t do and why
a new idea I had today
something I did for physical activity
something I learned today
Each row is a day. It also includes a section for bucket list and yearly goals and whether I achieved them.
I don’t fill it out every day and I don’t fill out every field each day either, but I do try to not get more than 10 days behind.
It gives me a sense of purpose. It helps me remember what I’ve done, so days don’t just slip through my fingers. It also, I think, shows how I’ve grown a bit as a person.
It became really special when I was able to bring it out during my wedding vows. I wrote down on paper many of the things my SO and I did on our adventures and got to share them with our friends and family.
Exercising. When I hit 30, my metabolism wasn’t what it used to be and my appetite didn’t slow down to match. To stay a good weight, I decided either I’d have to eat less or exercise more. I chose the latter.
I formed the habit through the pandemic, but in the time since I’ve strengthened it further. I run, swim, and ride.
I’m in the best shape I’ve ever been and exercising during the week is just part of my routine. I think I’ve baked it into my life enough now that it’s here to stay.
Used to leave dishes in the sink during college, then do them when it got full. Got a side job as a bartender, where you had to clean up every surface after the last shift, ready for people the next day. Applied it to home. Has stuck ever since.
Fortunately, married a woman who had the same habits. We’ve never gone to bed with a dirty kitchen, even after a group gathering.
Very specifically for me, two parts of Getting Things Done:
get things out of your head
always set reminders
I have felt so much lighter for over 15 years because I can safely forget all these things I used to struggle to remember so that they wouldn’t sneak up on me.
Getting things out of my head was easier to build as a habit at the dawn of having a computer in my pocket all day. Even back then, I simply chose to be an asshole for a few months, stopping everything to write things down or to do them on the spot if they truly took only 2 minutes. Especially taking photos of receipts and labeling them when traveling for business.
Setting reminders was similar, but rockier, since calendar apps sometimes have defects. I gradually learned which alarms to trust and learned to use those more often. Even so, Samsung Clock has at least once surprised me by setting my alarm volume to 0, causing me to miss one alarm in the last 10 years.
In both cases, I did nothing special except decide to build the habit and spend the effort to ingrain the habit through repetition over the span of a few months.
One thing that I think helps is just hanging. Gets you used to carrying your bodyweight in a way that assisted doesn’t. What you’re doing will still help with full range of motion, but maybe at the end just hang as long as you can. At some point you can also add this at the top (e.g. hop up to bar to chin and hold as long as possible)