Goal of the day: 1605 words. Written: 668.
"Drop by drop and a stone is broken" is a Lithuanian folk proverb.
Sometimes the most obvious and self-evident things are also the most overlooked. Let's forget the incomprehensible brains of girls (or guys), let's forget the absurd rule "too much is unhealthy". I am of course talking about habits!
Habits, oh habits. You'll find at least three books for every corner (and a longer stretch of wall) and another twelve paid seminars about it. Well, of course, those who either teach how to get rid of a habit or how to acquire a new, better habit. Often, perhaps replacing the bad with the good, and then the good with an even better one. Well, from the series of beautiful dreams and New Year's resolutions.
I have long observed with my own eyes that one of the most important things in acquiring new habits (or lack thereof) is the ability to notice them. Well, it is probably not for nothing that in all sciences without exception (even in psychology!) the first point is observation, and only after that is speculation. By the way, Leo Babauta also wrote about the benefits of being able to notice what is happening a few years ago. (More: The Amazing Power of Being Present).
I don't know how, but it wasn't until half a week ago that I noticed a large part of my strange (and not so strange) habits and all that they bring. I guess I haven't noticed a lot of them yet, and I haven't fully figured out what their benefits or drawbacks are, but here are a few.
The power of habit
It turns out that if you repeat something enough, you can learn a lot of new things without even realizing it. And together build a pyramid by hand. Metaphorically, of course.
- Writing.
On February 25, 2014, I set myself the goal of learning how to write humanly. One paragraph per day. According to yesterday's statistics: 28 pages, or 10.7 thousand words, or 63 thousand letters. And that's while writing just 15 minutes a day, and completely forgetting what you wrote in your free time. I often forgot before I even finished writing, but that's it. I agree that half of the text (the beginning at most) is worse written than some of the Delphi comments, but that still leaves a good chunk of text! - Collecting observations.
Later, at the end of April, I think, I started collecting somewhat unusual things - thoughts and observations about myself. From the "99 observations about yourself" series, 73 completely original and new (that is, no previously observed things) observations are already in place. I even wonder how I did it. - Žbottle angling.
As for things I'm surprised I've done, juggling. I'm probably the world's worst object catcher (it's probably in the Guinness Book of World Records), but somehow I now only lose a bottle thrown into the air (or something like that) once out of three! Can you imagine? I'm almost Valančiūnas! And that's just because of the times I was in the kitchen cooking!
True, when talking about your habits, you should not forget about negative habits. No matter how unpleasant it is to think about them, and the heart tells (the kind of heart you have to listen to) that it is better to ignore it, it is not appropriate to ignore it.
- Social networks and email.
Hi, I'm Daniel and I'm a social media geek. According to RescueTime data, in May 2014, I spent 35 hours, 20 hours, on social networks (mostly Facebook). Skype and 5 o'clock. in Gmail. At that time, writing - just 14 hours, and working in general on Debesyla - 17 hours. I spent about 32 hours offline with my friends. A rhetorical question for reflection: Do social networks increase or decrease sociality? - Youtube and movies.
But social networks are still not as bad as my youtube and movie statistics. Hell, I probably don't watch a lot of movies because I don't have time for that on youtube! Are you ready? Tram-param: 54 hours. Fifty-four??? Well, of course, that probably explains the fact that I'm used to watching something while I eat, but on top of that, I can't believe I spent two days a month just eating! Especially when I eat so little!
Conclusions
If you dig into the RescueTime statistics, you can really find more interesting gems - for example, I didn't think that I spend so much time chatting with friends on Skype or so much time watching YouTube videos. But knowing that this program records activity only when it is, well, on the computer screen (that is, you are really doing something with it, and not just lying there turned on), somehow it becomes difficult to contradict the numbers.
One thing I know is that in the next week I will try to find a way to reduce the amount of time I watch youtube without disconnecting it at all and a way to tell some of my friends to talk less and work more.
But still, why don't you also try to analyze your agenda? What strange useful and not so useful habits do you have?