In Environment Hacking, I wrote:

In [the Fogg Behavior Model], we add prompts to our environment for things we want to do more […] changing our environment to influence our own behavior. I have been thinking of “habit totems” I can put into the environment to prompt me.

So, in the past, when I’ve tried to institute daily startup and shutdown routines, it would fall apart eventually because I didn’t remember to do it. It was a partial habit at best.

So, this time, I designed a custom bookmark. I use them in my journal, my sketchbook, and any book I’m reading. Here it is (I got them made on VistaPrint):

The words under each routine are a short-hand. “Breathe” means meditate, which could be with the Breathe app on my watch, or any other way. “Practice” means to do my daily practice of coding, writing, and sketching. Hone is my yearly theme.

In practice, the biggest help is to remember to plan the next day. It only takes a few minutes, but makes all the difference.

I tried to think of something clever to put on the back of the bookmark, but I was so indecisive about it that I finally just stuck a photo I took of a Florida beach sunset and called it a day.

This is a follow up to my end-of-day tomorrow planning.

I run my weekly plan Monday-Sunday, so sometime on Sunday I’ll start to make my plan for the upcoming week.

The first thing I do is collect my WINS from my daily plans. At the end of each day, I tried to pick out something from the day that would bring me joy to reflect on later. Now (at the end of the week) is later.

Under that I put a BIG 3 checklist for the week. These are tasks I commit to do the following week. Each might take several days, so I need to break them down.

So, under that, I write the date of the next seven days on separate lines. I try to break down my Big 3 into tasks that need to be done each day that will eventually accomplish them. These will feed into my daily plans that week.

I’m not going to write a separate post for it, but I also have a monthly plan with a monthly Big 3 and biggest WINS. The entire thing rolls up to my yearly plan, which is a one-word theme and some high-level ideas of the kind of things I want to do that year. Months and years are not planned out as thoroughly as weeks and days—they are mostly a guideline to provide some direction.

I’m a big believer in changing your environment to influence your own behavior. I wrote in Self Control that I block social media, news, and other distracting sites on my work computers (I now do it on all computers and devices I use). This means I don’t need to expend any willpower avoiding those sites—it’s simply impossible to get to them.

I also use Due and my own app, Habits, to give me reminders to do things I want to do, but forget.

These apps are using what the Fogg Behavior model calls a Prompt. In this model, we add prompts to our environment for things we want to do more and remove them for things we want to avoid.

My blocking of social media is using the environment to impair my Ability, which is another variable you can affect by changing your environment.

Fogg covers this in-depth in his book Tiny Habits.

One of BJ Fogg’s insights is that you already have habits that are completely automatic, so he suggests using those as prompts for a new habit you are trying to build. You repeat to yourself, “After I do [some automatic habit], I will do [some tiny version of a new habit]”. For example, “after I brush my teeth, I will floss one tooth”. In this case, the environment is your existing habit.

This works great, but I have some habits that I can’t easily tie to existing one (or at least I haven’t been successful at it yet). For these kinds of habits, I have been thinking of “habit totems” I can put into the environment to prompt me.

One example is that when I run, my arms tend to cross-over in front of my body instead of staying out at the sides. If I notice it, I fix it, but I can’t get it to be top of mind while running. So, I cut out a small arrow out of electrical tape and put it on my watch band.

This has helped a lot. I see this part of my watchband a lot during my run, and it leaves enough of an imprint to help me keep my arms out.

The difference is the habit totem is location-based, rather than time-based (like an alarm) or behavior-based, like another habit.

I’m a proponent of yearly themes to tie together a general direction for the year. I was first exposed to this idea from Gretchen Rubin and Elizabeth Craft’s Happier Podcast. It’s also a recurring topic on Cortex with Myke Hurley and CGP Grey. Here’s a video CGP Grey made about it:

My theme for 2021 is Hone. I am mostly fine with the things I am doing, but I just don’t do them enough. 2021 is about doing them more deeply and getting better at them.

I want to run more seriously, and since we might be able to race again in 2021, I’d like to try to set some PRs.

I am going to write more. My goal is quantity because I think that will be the best way to improve. To drive this, I am reading and note taking more diligently.

I have been sketching for years, but not often enough to improve. Now, I am setting aside at least a little time every day to sketch. One easy way to start this is blind sketching, where you look at the subject and not the paper at all. It lowers the bar enough to make it an anytime activity.

I became mostly vegan in 2019 for health reasons. My cholesterol is now normal, but I want to lower my oil and processed fat intake as well to see if I can get it even lower.

So, I am grouping this all together as HONE, which I interpret as sharpening via repetition.