Habits

I use Streaks iOS app to ensure I complete my 6 daily habits I try to follow to live a happy life. The habits are chosen with great care and are a subset of my life rules .

I get a notification every day at 20:00 on my phone to complete the habits.

Habits described

Cardio / Weights autofilled through my health data. It includes workout minutes from running/cycling & bodyweight/lifting workouts. Bodyweight/lifting is tracked with Strong, Streaks Workout, Fitbod or Down Dog apps.

Activity rings autofilled through my health data and is marked as done when all the ring goals are complete. My current calorie goal is ~ 700 calories with fixed 50 min workout & 12H standing goals.

Health | Clean marked as done when I drank mostly water & tea with limited coffee (if any, as I often get attention crashes after). I also ate only/primarily nutritious whole foods (nuts/veggies/fruits/..) with focus on completing my micro & macro nutrient goals. I also kept my skin clean and washed/smelled well throughout the day.

Focus | Impact marked as done when I was not distracted by anything during the day (went through my todos one by one) (no analytics & pointless time wasters). I worked on my goals & used time wisely. I was calm, mindful and happy.

Happy | Open / Kind marked as done when all/most of my values and rules were held well. I showed love to people I care about & myself (true love & letting go of any mistake/accident). I made new things and shared them. I was myself & unafraid of anything. Happiness is often a side effect of a nice day.

Plan | Journal marked as done when I made a plan for tomorrow and reflected on the day in my journal. Writing helps me clear up my mind and clean up life and my thinking. Planning includes: 1. Calendar check. 2. Tasks (for next day, especially important to define the first task!). Everything is planned as per the week goals.

New habits

I try learn new habits proactively by building systems and thought processes that lead me in directions I want to go. Everything is built around well defined rules & processes.

Notes

• I think learning how to break habits is actually a very important meta skill and can serve you in life almost better than anything else.
• Tiny friction goes a long way. To create healthy behavior, start with healthy defaults.
• I think we go through life in a mentally linear way but our life is actually a repeating fractal spiral. It is not until we wake up and become a 3D person in a 2D world we are able to see our behavioral patterns. Only then can we step aside or over some of the repeating problems we have been having issues with. Most of my profound psychedelic realizations are involving me "waking up" like this. With enough quality data on yourself, you can begin to identify the loops you speak of. And the crazy thing is that all of your behaviors is connected in wild ways, that is once you start to chart it all out.
• If I want to improve at anything, I have a fixed approach. I call it the 30-for-30 plan: The structure is simple: 30 days. 30 minutes per day.

Links

• Ask HN: Is there a new habit you cultivated recently that is really paying off? (2018)
• Habits vs. Goals: A Look at the Benefits of a Systematic Approach to Life
• How a Lazy Bitch like me learned to be Productive (2020) (HN)
• 14 Habits of Highly Productive Developers (HN)
• Ask HN: What’s your daily/weekly routine? (2020)
• The Proof - Wellness Advice from World-Class Founders.
• Make your habits zero-effort
• Atomic Habits - Tiny Changes, Remarkable Results. (Summary) (Summary) (HN)
• Kin - Social Habit Tracker.
• In praise of habits (HN)
• dijo - Scriptable, curses-based, digital habit tracker.
• Harsh Taskmaster - Habit tracking for geeks. A minimalist, command line tool for tracking and understanding your habits.
• How habits form backed by research
• Ask HN: How do you organize your routine? (2022)