Cues and rewards
I have unfortunately fallen out of my daily morning writing habit, and I'm trying desperately to bring it back. I'm reading The Power of Habit, and learning that cues and rewards sustain habits. Not sure what my cue for writing would be, but I am pretty awful with the rewards. I've been so good at depriving myself of pleasure throughout my life and it has always been so natural to me. I could say I am gifted at punishing myself, but don't do so well in the area of rewards. I think I might set up a new writing routine that involves going to a cafe in the morning, since I don't seem to function well at home during the break. Then, my cue would be getting dressed, and I would get out and go to the cafe, the reward could be a treat at the cafe.
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5 comments:
I love your quote from Alice up front. Well, we have all been where you are. It has its little pleasures and it is only temporary.
Is it a good cafe at least?
This can be useful. http://juliacameronlive.com/the-artists-way/
I think you did a great job your first semester.
Thanks for the encouragement and suggestion, Prof. Z. I watched the free videos, and just purchased the book. This is going to be a fun year!
I have to confess that my "habit" is reading books like this rather than reading related to my research. I think my reward for writing today might be this book!
I read _The Artist's Way_ way back when I was dissertating. From Cameron came the idea to write in the morning every day--mind dump first--and it worked. I saw the argument to my last chapter develop such that I was able to type it directly into my word doc. Somehow, I have not been as good at this since then.
So, I need to figure out how to make that a habit again. Does the Duhigg book tell you how to ingrain habits, too?
n.bluestocking, I think Duhig is suggesting that once something becomes a habit, it IS ingrained. The hard part, of course, is creating the habit. Supposedly, it is easier to replace one habit with another rather than just give it up entirely, so that might be one approach.
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