Habits and daily tasks
Earlier this week, I wrote about keeping todo lists simple. And yesterday, we talked about how it’s much easier to do tasks when you find them interesting.
One aspect of getting things done with ADHD that we didn’t talk about, though, is habits.
I have a handful of tasks that I tend to do every single day without really thinking about them. They automatically get added to my digital second brain every day so I don’t forget them, but most days, I do them before I’ve even looked at my list.
How? They’ve become daily habits.
I’ve written about this before, but habits are much easier to build when they happen every day. After a week or two, it just becomes automatic. You feel weird if you don’t do it.
For me, my daily habits are…
- Writing a short article for my Daily Dev Tips newsletter.
- Writing a short article for ADHD ftw!
- Doing work in my yard or garden (mowing the lawn, weeding, moving some plants, and so on).
Slowly building habits over time has been one of the big open secrets about how I get so much stuff done.
Little habits add up into big changes over time.
Writing an article every week day adds up to 260 articles over the course of a year. If you wanted to write a book or build a course, it’s a great way to get there without every realizing it.
Working in my garden is physically taxing. I cannot force myself to exercise (I try over and over again), but gardening? It’s a habit that tricks me into being healthier.
So how do you form a habit?
- Pick one thing.
- Start really small.
- Do it every single day until you stop thinking about.