I wrote about my micro-habits system back in Sept last year. My previous micro-habits system were centred around the keystone habits that I’m building as part of my million dollar goal project:  

• sleep
• meditation
• health and fitness
• downtime for deloading, reviews & reflection
• deliberate practices for deep work

I then translated these keystone habits into a daily weekday schedule:

11.30pm: Bedtime

08.00am: Wake routines - wash up, yoga, meditate, bathroom

09.00am: Workout - alternate between running or the 7min workout. On days when I do the 7min workout I save time and can leave earlier.

10.30am: Recovery, shower, prepare to get out

11.30am: Commute to one of the cafes I frequent for work. Listen to podcasts while on the move.

12noon: Lunch (breaking fast for intermittent fasting)

1.00pm: Work - task review (top 3 tasks to complete), reading for first hour, then deep work. Use mindfulness bell with 20/20/20 rule for eye breaks, and standing desk to have some movement.

6.00pm: Commute back home. Continue on podcasts while on the move.

7.00pm: Dinner, family time

8.00pm: Food consumption stops for intermittent fasting to start. Household chores.

9.00pm: Writing on 200wad

10.30pm: Shut down laptop and phone to reduce bluelight sources before sleep. Shower (the decisive habit-forming moment for sleeping on time).

11.00pm: Wind-down, chat with wife, some light reading, or short night meditation

11.30pm: Sleep

But sooo much had changed since then, that this habit system had effectively been upended. Like, everything. 

First, caring for a newborn means you shift your schedules around him. Next came COVID, lockdown and stay home measures, meaning the places and spaces where these habits get acted on are now restricted to just my home. Deep uninterrupted sleep is basically a non sequitur when you have a newborn needing to feed every two hours. Morning routines are trimmed down to the bare minimum – yoga and meditation are starting to feel like distant memories. I had done sitting meditation daily for more than ten years, and never had such a long dry period since I started. With caring duties interspersed throughout the day, deep work at home is an occasional luxury, and whatever remaining pockets of time I get, I focus on getting tasks done. That means I no longer get to have my regular one-hour reading before starting work. My prolific reading streak had suffered because of that. Inspiration had all but dried up. Fitness and running had similarly disappeared. Ironically, zero commuting time means I don’t get to listen to podcasts as much. Forget about downtime and deloading too.

My micro-habit system had been the stable bedrock from which I based my productivity and ambitions on. With almost everything upended, everything I do now feels shaky and immaterial. But that’s why I’m writing this post now. Recognizing you have a problem is the first step to solving it.

What can I do with the cards given right now? How do I make the best of the constraints, or better yet, use these constraints to achieve what I want, despite?

To be continued tomorrow….my new keystone habits and micro-habit system.