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I'm a solutions engineer lead, GitHub Star, Director of WomenDevsSG, and co founder of ragTech. I work at the intersection of tech, systems, and leadership, and this blog is where I share my journey through all three. Expect honest reflections, real experiences, and thoughts that are still forming rather than polished career advice.
Thank You so much Victoria Lo for this informative article. I love your writing style so much !!
Great article. Thank you for writing it Victoria :)
No problem! Thanks for reading :)
My pleasure!
Wonderful article :) I stopped drinking caffeine since August 2020 and it's been helping me think clearly. Taking breaks is essential, especially when starting off.
Thanks! I agree! It's also important to take your time and don't expect to change your lifestyle immediately :)
My pleasure! Thanks for your talk as well! Truly inspiring :)
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Let's face it, we all procrastinate one way or another. But that's what makes us humans and not robots. It's impossible to never procrastinate but it is not impossible to be consistent.
In this article, I want to take what I've learnt from Tapas Adhikary's insightful talk at the Hashnode Technical Writing Bootcamp and reflect on how I stayed pretty consistent in writing for over 4 months at Hashnode.
They say humans are creatures of habits. It is our habits that drive our day-to-day activities, routines and behaviors. From the time you wake up to the time you sleep, habits are the control centers that determine that.
So, in order to write consistently, I identified and fixed bad habits of mine. As I mentioned in The Scientific Approach to Planning and Prioritization, before working towards your goals, fix your system (i.e. habits) first.
Some bad habits of mine I noticed are:
After identifying these bad habits, I realized that they were the source of my procrastination and made me inconsistent. After all, people tend to procrastinate not because they want to, but because of a deeper underlying reason.
So how did I break these habits? Well, these habits themselves do not form overnight so breaking them is also not something that can be achieved in a short amount of time.
Here's what I do - I don't remove the bad habits, instead, I replaced them with good habits.
So the replaced good habits are:
After I replaced the bad habits with good ones, I start putting them into action. Gradually but surely, these new habits develop while old ones fade away.
However, along the journey, I noticed pitfalls that almost break the momentum of developing these good habits. Recognizing and overcoming them ensures that these good habits stay as they are developing within you.
Yes, overplanning is a thing. A very neglectable pitfall that can hinder your success at being consistent.
When you overplan, you list out everything you plan to do but you rarely execute them. Because you think so much about the future, you forgot your present reality to start getting things done and checking items off the to-do list.
Once I realized I am overplanning, I do the following:
Overthinking happens when you start worrying over the smallest details. This probably happens as you overplan. You'll start thinking of negative "what if" scenarios...
What if my articles are terrible? What if everybody hates it? What if I just can't finish the next one on time?
This often leads to stress and cause a person to become demotivated, resulting in a halt of the good habits' development. It can even completely stop you from doing anything productive.
When that happens, I tend to:
When you start replacing bad habits, it might take a lot of mental energy and discipline to start getting used to your new routines.
Over time, you may feel burnt out and it becomes tempting to go back to your bad habits. To overcome burnt out and stay motivated, I'd usually:
My final formula for consistency is:
Identify bad habits -> Replace them with good ones -> Keep doing it (Habit Loop) -> Recognize/Overcome pitfalls that may hinder you -> Stay positive and healthy
Thanks for reading. I hope you find my experiences helpful in some way. If it does, please like and share it around. Thanks Tapas again for the inspiring talk on How to Write Consistently. Also, what are some of your personal tips on being consistent? Please comment below, I'd love to read them.
Till next time, cheers!
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