Habit Tracking: Week 9 (February 28 - March 06)

[mistressofmuses]

I've got a stupid headache today (which I realized belatedly may be that weather front moving in, ugh). But here's my habit tracking from last week!


With a cheery rainbow again, because I felt like it.

For the most part, I did pretty well! In terms of extra goals:
- I did edit chapter 5 of Steffi's book
- I did NOT get 2000 words on All Strange Wonders (but realized after setting the goal that I wanted to do a reread first, so I'm okay with it)
- I did start reading Taste of Marrow
- I did NOT write a post about River of Teeth, but may do a combined one for both books
- I did clean the top shelf of my bookcase

For the actual habit tracking:
- Work - 5/7, as usual
- Household Maintenance - 1.5/7, not the greatest, but fine
- Physical Activity - 2/7, which is actually real good for me, lol. The nice weather was inspiring
- Wrote 500/1000+ Words - 0/7, though 4/7 where I wrote less than 500 words
- Meta Work - 5/7, lots of this for the week
- Personal Writing - 7/7, still amazing to me
- Other Creative Things - 2.5/7, largely working on Steffi's book
- Reading - 6/7, though three days that were not very intensive. A mix of fic and physical books
- Videogames - 0/7, still the thing I feel like I don't have time for
- Social Interaction - 6/7, doing well

Total words of fiction written: 200 words on All Strange Wonders

(Low word count, but I'm forgiving myself, since rereading is what I need to be focusing on! Plus my days of meta work was higher, which is what I designed that category for in the first place; so that I wouldn't have to feel bad about days where I was working on fic, but not actually producing new words.)

Saturday was my amazingly productive and strong day at work, and I know that finishing the week on such a strong note made me feel pretty good about the week as a whole. Looking back at my brief notes for each day, I see that early in the week I really struggled. TBH, it's nice to see that those lousy days weren't forever!

Comments

[galadhir]

This is very inspiring, actually! I'm trying to get back to writing my own original fiction, and I keep failing. Maybe lowering the expected wordcount might work. Do you find this useful as a discipline? It doesn't make you feel worse about yourself? Or pressured?

[mistressofmuses]

Thank you!

My goal for this year has been to, in general, aim for writing more days than not, and hopefully 500 words per day. That's pretty low, but is definitely a pace that's easier to keep up for an extended period of time! I tend to do well at things with a high external goal, like NaNoWriMo, but then get burned out and don't write for months. The lower, but more sustained effort will hopefully still get things done, without the burnout periods! (We'll see!)

I reworked my habit tracking a couple times (started and quit a couple times in 2019 and 2020) specifically to try and make sure it was a positive thing, and not something that made me feel guilty. A few of the tweaks:
-I don't track any "bad" habits (like zoning out on my phone for too long, or watching trashy TV, or buying junk food, etc).
-I also give myself some "freebie" categories - like work, which for me is a steady schedule, so I *know* I'll fill those boxes in 5 days a week, or "personal writing" which basically means DW posts. That way, I can always fill in something.
-I also try to approach it in a way that's kind to myself. If I'm not doing something as much as I want to, I try to look at why I'm struggling with that, rather than feeling bad about it. Sometimes that means that the next week I'll try to set aside extra time for something I feel like I'm falling behind on.

It has been motivating in terms of discipline! I get at least a little of that sweet, sweet dopamine from getting to fill in boxes in pretty colors, haha. And sometimes knowing that I'll get to check off a box gives me the extra nudge to do something when I'm struggling to find motivation.

(Sorry, that got long, lol)

[galadhir]

Oh that's all very interesting! It reminds me that when I was training myself to write every day I used a star chart - I'd get a star every day I made my word count, and then if I got a whole month's worth, I would be able to buy myself a treat. It worked for a time, although that was 10 years ago and I've fallen off the wagon since. But I do like the idea of having something you can look at and realize that you actually were pretty productive that day even if it doesn't feel like it. I can see how the thought of getting another box filled would be motivational :) Also the rainbows are very cheering!

[mistressofmuses]

I think it also helps me to have a sort of list of things I can work on if I ever find myself sitting around and struggling to think of something to do. I have a tangible list to look at, and then I know I get to fill in another box or check something else off if I do it. :)
I started doing this for similar reasons to the star chart - I wanted to try and see where I was spending my time, so that I could reprioritize writing and try to get myself to do it (almost) every day. Hopefully I'll get to a point where I can up my word count goals, but with everything else going on in the world at the moment, I wanted low and achievable, haha.

[galadhir]

I can't believe that it's only been in the past 3 years that I've realized that setting lower targets is the way to achieve more. Previously I'd be like 'you must do everything and then I'd be paralysed by overwhelm and do nothing at all.
I think I might take this up too. I have many notebooks lying around unused :)

[mistressofmuses]

This was a big issue for me too! I would set high goals, and then get overwhelmed or burned out, and wind up doing nothing. I'd know that trying to hit a goal of 1500 words would be a struggle, so I wouldn't even open the word document. But 500/day (or even 100/day!) is a LOT more than "I gave up before I started and now have 0".

[galadhir]

Exactly! And even 500 words a day soon mounts up :)