Give me good habits to adopt?

[TopHatFox]

Pretty please? Looking for new ideas. I'm not looking for anything in particular, whatever goood habit you've really found useful I'd like to know about!

On my end, I'm working on adopting an alternating "stretch, strength, meditation, cardio, reading, language study, podcasts" daily programme.~

[BRUTE]

heavy squats and deadlifts
animal products-exclusive diet (low in fibre) <-- british spelling for Olaz' convenience
not talking to any humans except during work hours

[jennypenny]

floss regularly
wake up early every day
read 150-200 books a year

[daylen]

light stretching right before bed (keeps you away from screens, makes it easier to get comfortable when trying to sleep)
at least 30 min of reflection each week (no distractions, think about if the past week has brought you closer to your long term goals)

[jacob]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTJ7AzBIJoI (the older you get, the truer it gets)

[Dragline]

Yeah, I always like this version better: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9yBPcn8IqU

[jacob]

@Dragline - Point taken, like, yesterday, already.

PS: Here's -2 Wheaton level perspective, for pedagogical edutainment.

[James_0011]

'not talking to any humans except during work hours'

This cracked me up, how is this a good habit?? @Brute

[7Wannabe5]

@jacob: The old friend who first sent me a copy of that article is currently happily married to her third husband who was also the boy she was engaged to in high school and dumped. They became re-acquainted playing an online game.

@Olaz: Also, DEFINITELY heed the sunscreen advice. I am a foolish old woman, so I spent a whole day in my garden without sunscreen this past week, and ended up with a severe outbreak of rosacea which led to an incidence of Bell's Palsy (temporary paralysis of half my face.) Then I woke up from a drooling nap in stale clothing yesterday, swearing to myself because my sister's three dogs were barking, opened the front door and found my married ex-lover whom I hadn't seen in over 6 months standing there saying "I can see you now." Meanwhile, my other ex-lover, who I thought was just my garden-partner now, tried to have sex with me on the day I had too much sun-exposure, and my current lover who I know is my boyfriend because I spent an hour chatting with his mother about his custody issues and recipes on Saturday, finally finished building the bed in his new apartment and is going to pick me up this afternoon and put me in the bed and feed me anti-inflammatory soup. So, once again with emphasis, DO NOT DATE WOMEN WHO READ BOOKS!!!

[stand@desk]

Take up running. It's a great lifelong sport. Watch some Ginger runner videos on Youtube to get some motivation to start and enter a race at some point. My wife and I took up running more seriously in 2013 and it has changed our lives.

[BRUTE]

'not talking to any humans except during work hours'

This cracked me up, how is this a good habit?? @Brute

he has been complaining about feeling lonely when alone. practice makes perfect.

[7Wannabe5]

Seriously, since I am someone who has spent most of her adult life mostly free to structure most of her own time, I have given much thought to the pros and cons of adopting routines and habits. Given the fact that all life, by definition, and certainly my own at times, is a hot chaotic mess, there is certainly benefit to be derived by the process of hacking some sort of path for yourself through the jungle.

OTOH, it is entirely possible, even within the scope of very limited domain of authority/responsibility or range of activity, to fill your entire day with nothing but best practice routine. For instance, you could spend your entire day on routines/habit that would tend towards optimizing your physical health and appearance, or the comforts and attributes of your home, or your financial and career status, or your level and depth of erudition, or your social circle, etc, etc, etc. It can be as tempting to maintain the routine of good habits that no longer best serve current purpose in life as it is to hold on to a pair of still serviceable steel toe boots or your grandmother's best china service for 20. Sometimes you have to let go of one set of good practices to gain yourself the freedom to adopt another set of good practices. For instance, I am in possession of decent skills in the realm of baking. I could tell myself "Re-enact weekly baking routine of 1999" and be up to speed or once again self-sufficient in that realm in short order, but it is my judgment that it does not best serve my current purposes to boot-up that sub-routine at this juncture. And, that remains true even though I "waste" a good deal of my time on less productive or even counter-productive activities. Maybe I'm not explaining very well, but it has been my experience that this is a realm in which the great can be the enemy of the good.

[cmonkey]

@OP, Become addicted to the good feeling you get after a good workout.

read 150-200 books a year

So 4 books per week? If we are talking 200-400 page non-fiction (primarily) I'm impressed! And far behind.

[vexed87]

@cmonkey, stop wasting time with DIY and gardening

My advice: Give a whole lot less shits than your currently do. Oh and, the correct number of bicycles = n+1.

[Dragline]

read 150-200 books a year

So 4 books per week? If we are talking 200-400 page non-fiction (primarily) I'm impressed! And far behind.

She's in the Excessive Reader Extreme category. Much to learn from such folk, even if you don't choose to adopt their ways.

[cmonkey]

It definitely sets the bar higher than myself, I'd say I get 2-4 books of said category in per month if I'm lucky. Of course my 2 hour commute* and 9 hour work day isn't any excuse at all.

* Mornings are good for reading, but afternoons I get motion sick due to lazy potatoes who can't walk more than 1 block.

[jennypenny]

Are you guys really busting on me for reading too much?

I read for a living* so I get lots of practice, which helps because the more you read, the faster you get. And if you adopt a polyphasic sleep schedule, you won't waste time sleeping when you could be reading.

*I'm not counting books I edit in my reading tally.

[BRUTE]

read 150-200 books a year

So 4 books per week? If we are talking 200-400 page non-fiction (primarily) I'm impressed! And far behind.

brute would be more impressed with fiction at that pace.

[Dream of Freedom]

I'm curious if you have a specific method for acquiring habits. Personally I've been trying an app called habitica.

general
get out of bed when the alarm rings (I find this one very challenging)
journaling before/after day
meditating before/after day

perception:
try to notice details in a room you hadn't noticed before
try to notice details in people you hadn't noticed before

Cleanliness/keeping organized
What happens to coat, keys, ect. when arriving home? Put them in the same/appropriate place.
when you get dressed for bed do your clothes end up on the floor? put them in the hamper
digitize paper documents/bills when you recieve them so you don't have to keep them all around
wash dishes right after eating

[BRUTE]

the getting out of bed has nothing to do with "habit forming", but with setting the alarm to a time matching Dream of Freedom's circadian rhythm. nobody will be able to easily get out of bed if woken up in the middle of their deep sleep. there are apps on the iphone and android that track the circadian rhythm by sound/vibration, and then display it in a graph. setting the timer to a light sleep period at the end of a sleep cycle (hopefully after getting enough sleep) will ensure that Dream of Freedom is actually awake when the alarm rings.