A few years ago, I unwittingly found myself with a contraption on my wrist that caused me to do its bidding. Why? Turns out I don’t have many habits, but some of the ones I do have are bad.
Much of it has to do with my status as a freelancer and writer — a combination that, for personal health, is like sawdust-flavored tripe and a pile of dead wasps for haute cuisine. It’s possible that freelance writers are a subspecies of vampire, given our natural tendency to lock ourselves in rooms for endless hours, as if petrified by the sun.
I’m told it’s not good for you, by real people. Also, screaming body parts (bad back; worse arms) pointed out many times that getting up and moving would be beneficial for me to be able to function long term. Hence: the Apple Watch.
Recently, after buying a standing desk, my back and arms only averaged 0.3 on the AARRRRGGH scale, but I noticed that overall well-being and productivity took a kick . Maybe it was COVID. Maybe it was something else. Either way, I needed a change. My clever plan: add the iPhone into the mix, to – intentionally this time – inject better habits into my routine.
I was already getting regular dopamine hits from ridiculous things like swiping notifications (task completion!) and frantically checking Twitter (no more task completion!), I focused on the things that mattered. With my dogged determination and stubbornness to get the Apple Watch to exercise, move, and stay upright — to the point that borders on obsession — I thought I’d better do at much the same with a more flexible system.
I opted for Streaks on iPhone, which I used ad hoc for a while. It’s smartly designed and doesn’t overwhelm, due to the visible streaks being limited to six. I started with easy wins, like “going out” and daily exercises, and added five minutes of mindfulness, a reasonable number of daily work sessions, and limited time on social media and forums. (Streaks includes timers and lets you set negative sequences that fail if you do them too often.)
With me exercising every day anyway (thanks, Apple Watch!), having this in Streaks felt like cheating. But I stopped checking the forums so often. The two tasks were thus consigned to the void (as in page two of Streaks). Gaps were filled with a short basic daily workout and going to bed at a reasonable hour.
So how are you? Work sprints, paired with Bear Focus Timer, have increased productivity and reduced fiddling. Counters have helped me use social media in a more meaningful and mindful way. Go out: I do this every day, but I will leave the task to the front page to prevent myself from locking myself in when the grayness of winter sets in. Mindfulness and going to bed on time… I’ll get back to you on that.
Still, it looks like progress – which may sound ridiculous. After all, it’s a self-reward for the most simple things I should be doing anyway. But what works, works, right? And it’s good for once that when my phone rings it says “hey, good job” or reminds me of my streaks, rather than filling my notifications with a billion Slack messages and emails that I will totally respond to at some point before the thermal death of the universe. Honest.
Oddly enough, the main issue I have now is not recording my footage, which means my stats outside of automated captures like exercise are poor. Maybe it doesn’t matter, since good habits are formed and technology is used in a meaningful way.
Or, come to think of it, maybe I need a streak app to make sure all my streaks are recorded. Now there is an idea.