Accidentally in Code

Tag: habits

The Year of Habits

Shaky Bridge, Cork

This time a year ago, I felt like my creativity had died of COVID. Died of boredom. Died of exhaustion. Suffocated under the weight of… everything.

In the struggle of this, I felt caught between the should of, I should be able to do this, and the recognition that the world was on fire. I felt called out by all the people using their extra time to achieve incredible things, and comforted by the people who admitted they too could not create in this timeline.

And then sometimes, I would just feel overwhelmed by the sense of loss. Loss of this medium, loss of the spark, the loss of connection – I would joke that I could “barely write a text message”, pointing at the emotion that was much too raw to actually touch.

I used to roam the world and mostly never feel too far from anyone.

Constrained to a 5km radius, by myself, was the loneliest I had ever been.

With another person – a special person, my person – was better, but still not enough.

I could not write. But worst of all, I didn’t want to write. Did not believe I had anything to say. I published just 20 posts in 2020, and my memory is that each one was a fucking ordeal.

So for 2021, I picked the word Habit. Each month I set myself an intention. In my weekly list I tracked my successes, and failures.

It took months for me to even try to set myself a goal of writing. But, each week I published. Every Monday (except one, which slipped to Tuesday, and was the better for the extra time). I started writing on Sunday nights, forcing myself to do it to end out the weekend, sitting in a corner on the sofa, at the counter in the kitchen, as my partner went to bed without me. It got worse when I gave in, and started writing on the Monday. Write and publish – normally late in the night. The habit of suffering. The habit of showing up – reluctantly, begrudgingly, at the last possible moment. The habit of believing in a future Cate and trying to support her, even if it’s just by writing something I think is a bit shit, eaking it out just inside the deadline.

When I was nomadic, people used to find my life so bizarre. They would think that surely all that moving around was disruptive, make it the goto for any sign of stress.

But, when I was nomadic, I was always grounded by habit. I struggled the most in the places where those habits were hard – this is what I remember about Santiago, and why I hated it so. I would create this frame to exist within – the gym, the cafe, the places to explore. I would orient myself in my habits, and pick up where I left off, from wherever I was before.

Far more destructive to my habits was the constant change and inflexibility of pandemic life. The first two months, I took the same walk every day. Then, I got a new job. Then things reopened. My partner moved in. Then things closed. Reopened again, bit by bit. Then we got vaccinated, felt more free. Then we moved. Then the world started to close in, again.

And now I look back over the past year, and I see – the habits were the grounding. They rooted me down, gave me a structure to determine what I cared about, to set my intention. Lowered the bar for myself that I just need to show up, no less, but also no more.

I’m rounding out the year of habit with a three week break from work. It took me the first few days to work through the life admin, but after that, I felt so free. Each day, I do three things.

I exercise. Peloton spin and yoga. The time and breakdown varies, it can be as little as 15 minutes / 10 minutes, but most days it is much more.

I cross-stitch. I listen to podcasts, and I follow instructions.

And I write.

I told myself, that all I expected from myself was to sit in front of a text editor for at least 30 minutes. That producing nothing, producing complete garbage was acceptable, as long as I tried.

It went better than that – much better – but I realized, that the act of sitting in front of the empty text editor is the hardest habit of all. I realized the problem wasn’t that I couldn’t write – I did write, week in, week out – the problem was that I didn’t believe I could, didn’t believe I had anything to say.

The first lockdown, I spent alone. So, so very alone. My friend and I used to go to the grocery store at the same time, just to have some semblance of human connection, when none was really allowed.

When the next lockdown came in, even though I was no longer alone, I realized that that first lockdown had been traumatizing.

The second lockdown, I got a horrific chest infection. Two rounds of antibiotics and a steroid. I barely remember any of it. I missed the whole thing.

The third lockdown, I shut down. Did a lot of crafting. Hunkered down to wait it out.

As we enter into the fourth lockdown, I finally see the spaciousness that can exist when “normal life” is cancelled. Finally, I understand how someone could use this time well.

But, I also see how what we have endured shapes everything around us. I see the hole that is left in the absence of other people, other perspectives, other ideas.

I see that for me, creativity has often meant something to push against, and that I have been existing in something of a void.

I see that I need to come out of the void, sit in front of the text editor.

I see that when I act as-if I have something to say, I can make it so.

I see that it can be easier to write an entire article than a text message. That these two things are, in fact, not comparable.

The way that I existed before the pandemic, there was so little space in my life. I was here and there and everywhere. Working hard in time but perhaps even more so in energy. I used to reclaim space where I could, slotting in a long weekend between commitments for an adventure, making the most of a day before a late flight. Writing in cars, in airport lounges, on planes, in the space between the meetings. Eaking out in bits and pieces, because I needed it, and that is all there was.

The start of the pandemic coincided with a level of exhaustion so overwhelming, that it made it clear that I needed to leave that job.

And then, I never really figured out how to recharge. Spent two months addressing the mountain of life debt that constituted my life. Thought that once that was addressed, I would create space for something better to come. Which, I guess it did, but that was a relationship – the last thing I expected in this timeline. The level of creative exhaustion remained, unchanged.

I kept coming back to the question of what it means to recharge. I did not find a neat answer crafting, on vacation, or in the pool. I could never be sure if the problem was the power source or the faulty battery.

And so, I committed to the habits. The things that ground in the day to day. The things that I know are good for me, even if they don’t always feel that great. The things that I believe in. The things that have worked before.

And finally, I started to want to sit down to write. Finally, I believe I have something to say. My creativity did not die of COVID. It just took a break, got some R&R, did some self-reflection, got ready to do something better – or at least from a better place – than before.

I do not know what changed. But I choose to believe that it is the habits that brought me here. Back above the baseline, ready to expect more from myself – even as the world continues to burn – in 2022.

December 27, 2021
The Habit of Ease and Flow

All year I’ve been doing the Positive Intelligence app program. Every day there’s a focus (not always different, they rotate) with multiple prompts spaced through the day to meditate on. Some days it’s the exact thing I need, and others it’s not, but the one that always, always, lands is the one about “choose the way of ease and flow”.

It’s infuriating in the same way yoga is infuriating. It seems like trite nothingness and then is shockingly effective. (I took a yoga class this morning and felt fantastic the rest of the day. Damn it.)

Essentially the prompt asks you: what are you making harder than it needs to be? What could be easier if you approached it differently?

This is the counterpoint to the habit of suffering. Of thinking things should be hard, should be difficult. Of expecting stress and misery and then making it so.

It’s a very tempting habit in this timeline. A consistent question in my 1:1s and coaching call is, “how are you suffering?”, and helping people see that with some attention and action they can just… not. They can have the conversation they’ve been avoiding, let go of the worry that is weighing on them, schedule the break that they need.

Type-A people, insecure-overachievers, whatever you want to call it, we often have a habit of making things harder for ourselves than they have to be. We don’t trust the things that come easily. The alternative habit – the habit of ease and flow – is to make things easier on ourselves. Not to achieve less (although sometimes that’s fine), but to get to the same, or better result, without the useless overhead, the friction we put on ourselves that makes it harder than it has to be.

In Rotterdam, it’s been much nicer (ease and flow!) to go to the gym. A huge part of this is that I don’t have to book a specific time. I have more flexibility to fit it into my day, no need to rush, time to linger. But also, because we arrived with almost nothing, I bought a new gym bag. It is quite dinky, and has a separate compartment for my sneakers (tidy!). Since I didn’t have a bunch of tiny hotel toiletries, I added a mid-range shampoo and conditioner, a face wash I was a little bored of, and a basic eye cream / serum / face cream (a balance of things I am happy to use but wouldn’t cry if I left them in the shower by accident) also in their own little compartment. I paid for towel service so I don’t have to carry a towel about (not sure it would fit anyway).

My organized little gym bag with everything I need in it makes me so happy each time I use it. Like bizarrely happy. It has come to epitomize ease and flow to me. I didn’t realize my more chaotic system in Cork was bothering me, but it turns out my trips to the gym can be vastly improved with a very minimal amount of time and euro.

As I come to the end of the year of habit, my thinking about habits has shifted. I started the year beating myself up for not being “better” at certain habits, but having proven to myself – repeatedly – that the habits I care about are attainable and enjoyable when prioritized and integrated, now I’m back to the habits of thinking that hold me back from that enjoyment. Consistently, the thing that has worked has been making things easier on myself. Consistently, I’ve found that when I’ve struggled, it’s been because I’ve been making things harder than they needed to be. The habit of suffering, versus the habit of ease and flow.

I’m looking for more such gym bags, and starting with this one. When looking at a big project, I have a tendency to look at it like an engineer, try and find the optimum path through. Instead, I’m asking myself a different question.

What would be the easiest thing I could do to make progress on this thing?

December 13, 2021
The Habit of Adequacy

I think about habits a lot. That my word for 2021 is habit is a product of this, and a useful lens to cycle back on it. I think about habits, how to intentionally build and maintain them, and then I remind myself that I set it as a priority for the year for a reason.

Lately, I keep coming back to the concept of adequacy. I think about embracing adequacy as a mechanism for improving my life. Practically, it doesn’t make sense to excel at everything, some things merely need to be adequate, to be done at all. It helps get me out of my head and “just do” things that I don’t care about, but that are a requirement of being an adult in the world. I think about adequacy as a minimum bar for any habit. The purpose of a habit is consistency; showing up. And then, it’s the endless March of 2020, we are exhausted (burnt out), sometimes adequate is all we’ve got.

Swimming is a habit I’m focusing on right now. It’s good for me; great exercise, good for my shoulder, and the pool is a place where – if I’m lucky – I find great mental clarity. Tonight I pushed through all the reasons – real and imagined – to get myself into the pool, promising myself that adequacy was sufficient, that showing up was enough… and I had a great swim.

I was practicing the habit, whilst thinking about habits, and it was an aha moment for me. I was thinking about what it means to honor the word habit, and I realized: I honor the word habit not on the days when it’s easy, when I feel energetic, or inspired, or whatever. I honor the word habit on the days that it is hard, but I show up anyway. The habit serves me on the days when I doubt that I can, but I show up and give myself the opportunity to surprise myself. To have it be great even though my expectations are low.

After posting something every Monday all year, I thought this was going to be the day that I missed. Legitimate reasons, “self care”, but also: out of cope. But this clarity from the pool inspired me, and if all this blog post is, is a note for a future Cate? That is adequate. That is enough.

October 4, 2021
Habit: February & March

At the start of the year I wrote that my word for 2021 was habit. In January, I challenged myself to do something creative every day, a habit that I’ve continued (although not quite as diligently).

In February, I challenged myself to do two things every day. The first was read a book, the second was exercise. I continued challenging myself to exercise in March, but replaced books with email.

Reading Books

Reading was prioritized because “typical” for me is finishing a book a week but I was barely picking up my kindle. Not reading is never a good sign for me, but some of it seemed like life changes – I used to read in cafes (lol), on planes (lmao), on a lazy morning in a hotel waiting to head to wherever I was going next (rofl). And then, cohabitation means that typically at mealtimes I eat with my partner and make conversation, rather than losing myself in a book.

Forcing myself to set an intention and make it a habit helped a lot. Sometimes I just read a chapter, but some days it was more. I’m not back to reading a book a week, but around two a month, and I’m consistently making progress so that’s something.

Email

I am so so bad at email, and March let me test a theory that I’m bad at it because it backs up and becomes overwhelming. So in March I tried to chip away at it, or at least get through that day’s mail. I didn’t manage it every day – but I did manage it most days, and for the first time in… I don’t even know, I’m ending the month less behind on email than I started it. This momentum helped me make inroads on other things, and the random things for my taxes that were buried somewhere in my inbox have been dug out and dealt with.

The challenge proved to me that chipping away at it helps, and the mindset of trying to stay on top of things stopped me from avoiding things until I forgot them, and pushed me to delete the things that might be interesting if I hadn’t read them within a couple of days. We’ll see if I can keep this up or if I am immediately buried again.

Exercise

The hardest one – I am truly tired of continually rebuilding this habit throughout this pandemic. I made it 26/28 days in February, and somewhat less in March. There were a couple of phases to this one.

Phase 1: Redefine what “counts”.

Pre-pandemic, I had a definition of “worked out” that was contingent on the gym and the pool. A year ago, I would focus on meeting my step goal. But everything being shut, and being constrained to a 5km radius and very limited hours of daylight, that wasn’t really working for me. It was really annoying to go for a 1 hour walk, but only have ~8K steps and be feeling like it “didn’t count”. Now we have a spin bike, so I refined it around “zone minutes” which worked better. Two months in, I’m less worried about metrics, I know when I exercised (and when I didn’t).

Phase 2: Rediscover enjoyment.

At the end of February I was consistently checking the box but… it felt like a chore. This felt even worse than not exercising at all in some ways – I’m someone who loves physical activity, but I wasn’t feeling that love. I would either begrudgingly walk the same circuit I’ve walked for the past year, or get on the spin bike with some TV show I felt ambivalent about, and try and clock the zone minutes as fast as I could so that I could do something else instead.

Finally, I got the peloton app. I had been contemplating it but not doing it for weeks, mainly on the basis that 1) I hadn’t been taking spin classes before, so would I like it and 2) that was the only idea I had, so if that didn’t work… I had no more ideas.

My first peloton class I ugly cried for… a lot of it. Turns out, it felt so good to really get my heart rate up and enjoy exercise that all the grief I have for the gym came pouring out of me. Now I’m trying to do a peloton class every other day, working up to longer ones, and on other days I either go for a walk or… chill. It took two months, but I feel much better about this habit.

What’s Next?

In April I’m focused on two things.

Skincare. After having a bunch of issues that resulted in a trip to the dermatologist, I’m finally doing better, less strung out by the regime she has me on, and trying to rediscover my love of beauty products. In April I’m trying to do something every day that makes me feel good, whether it’s a mask, a scrub, or actually wearing makeup.

Human contact. This timeline has been pretty isolating, and at times I feel like life is so boring I have nothing to say. My challenge this month is to have a meaningful human interaction with someone who isn’t my partner or a colleague every day. This already pushed me to make up a bunch of packages I’ve been meaning to send out for months, but y’know, more phone calls, more longer text message conversations, more making an effort to check in.

April 5, 2021
Habits that Helped in 2017

Credit: pxhere

My coach had been taking me through some things reflecting on the past year, which has been brutal on a number of levels. The word I set for the year was “thrive” but it felt a lot more like “survive” most of the time. One of the things I did at the end of last year was write a letter like I was sending it from the end of this year – it was like Past Cate saw exactly what this year would be like… but thought I would handle it better than I did.

However there have been some things that helped this year. Some of them things that I kept up, and some of them things I returned to.

Coaching. Really this has been key to taking on more and surviving all of it. It’s really helpful to have the consistency and someone pushing me to be the best Cate with nothing invested in what that is.

Disconnecting. Not having work Slack on my phone when I’m home. Going on an adventure and leaving my work laptop behind. I really like my job and there’s a lot to do, so it’s easy to get pulled back into it… but it’s important to get away sometimes.

Exercise. This is a foundation habit for me. It’s what I always go back to and start with when things get off the rails – which they have, multiple times this year. But having it as a strong part of my identity helps me be confident that I’ll get back into it, even when travel and being sick has kept me away from it longer than I would like.

Exploring. I love to have adventures. Making a point to get out into the world and experience it is really important for me. I went to some new places this year, but I also try and make a point to experience the places I spend more time – it makes me happier.

Reading. I always know I’m really overwhelmed when I stop reading 1-2 books a week (and start watching TV instead…). The internet is great, but I like reading books, too. Novels to disconnect and relax, and then non fiction books go into a depth that you don’t find in online articles – I find it really valuable.

Sleeping. Tied into this – waking up relatively naturally (I use this instead of an alarm clock – Amazon). Sleep is so important and I really don’t cope well without it. I get 8 hours (or more) very consistently and I make sure I prioritize sleeping. Now that I have a home (finally), I bought the nicest sheets and pillows and everything else I could to make for a cosy and comfortable night.

Supporting. I do look for ways to support others, which I find personally rewarding. It also means people are usually willing to support me when I need it, too.

Tracking. I write an internal notes post each week where I document what I did. I sent my coach a weekly “prep” outlining where I’m at – which turned into a daily one when I was super overwhelmed last week. I always refer back to the last one when I write the new one, and it’s a way to see things getting better or why things are the way they are. She’s also had me to monthly “commitment journals” which I’ve not been as reliable at… but have definitely been helpful when I do them.

Writing. I really value the clarity this brings, whether I’m documenting things internally or for my blog. It’s helpful for me to refer back to, and sometimes useful for others, too.

What about you?

December 26, 2017
Habits, Revisited

Credit: PublicDomainPictures / Elisa Xyz

I gave myself March off blogging. Which seems like it might be a weird thing to do – to take time off a thing that is clearly optional. But, I live by the schedule. So every week writing is not optional, there’s a deadline, because otherwise I am not sure I would ever consider things to be finished.

Last year this experiment didn’t work so well, or at least I didn’t feel like it worked that well. This year I feel like it went better – in part because I changed what I wanted to get out of it. I had this idea that I needed to rebalance inputs vs outputs, which I did. I read more, some non-fiction, quite a few novels, and notably less trashy novels than has been my wont. I finally finally reviewed my book chapter one last time (a task that had been hanging over me for months). I made notes about things I want to write about, wrote some drafts, spent time on talks I need to prep for May. I replied to email, and I filed expenses. And I did a lot of Duolingo. My Spanish has noticeably improved over the past month, despite spending it outside of Colombia.

I feel refreshed and recharged and excited to write again – on a new schedule of 2x a week instead of 3x a week.

And more than ever I believe in the utility of stepping away from habits for a while, to miss them, and to consider why I have them.

April 5, 2016
Another Break

Credit: Flickr / Zhao !

Last year I took a month off blogging. I live by the schedule, but sometimes it seems oppressive. I don’t want to break it arbitrarily, but if I’m so busy living by the schedule how do I understand what it does for me, and what should change?

Last year I didn’t get the desired effects. I just worked a lot, and watched the West Wing. Or maybe I just didn’t get the desired effects at the time. In retrospect, I think it not working was something of a kick to find other things that did. To carve out more time for my own projects.

So this year, I’m going to try again. With slightly different reasons and ideas of success.

I want to balance inputs and outputs. Writing is an output. I want this time to read more. Articles. Books. Whatever. Lately I feel like these are out of whack. I write more than I read. I review more than I code. On a slightly more practical level, I don’t think I really responded to personal email through the entirety of February.

There are only so many hours in the day, and effectiveness only goes so far. I’m freeing up some hours to read. And maybe write more… code.

I’ll still be doing weekly wrap ups, Technically Speaking, and Where the Hell is Cate. Other than that! I’ll be back in April.

February 29, 2016
Book: Better than Before

I’ve been reading Gretchen Rubin‘s blog for a long time, including (I think) the whole time she was writing this book, so wasn’t sure how much I would get from reading Better than Before. A lot of the ideas in it I’d seen in her blog, but actually having it all in one place at one time was a helpful prompt for me to think about my habits. Bonus: one of my friends was reading it at the same time which made for a spontaneous book club! We made time on a Sunday afternoon to video-chat about it.

One of the most helpful ideas in there was this one of “questioner”, “rebel”, “obliger”, “upholder” which is about what prompts you to get things done – because you consider it and deem it worthwhile, because you feel like it, because other people want to, because of any kind of commitment. I’m a questioner. Questioners come with either rebel or obliger tendencies, and I couldn’t decide which I had! This prompted me to spend May trying to eliminate my obliger tendencies, something I called #choosememay. In May I made a point of when it came to a decision between myself and some imaginary obligation, I chose myself. It was amazing. I’ve been trying to keep parts of that with me once the month ended, with mixed success.

The focus is on finding what works for you. This caused me to realise things like the reason why I have never got a morning gym habit going for long is that I like working out in the evening too much (it allows me to disconnect from my day). I see morning workouts as an opportunity to do a double, not replace my evening me-time. So for example I’ll miss a morning workout because “now I’ll have to work out this evening” when the truth is I just want to work out in the evening. As a result I started to experiment with breaking my workout in two, and doing half in the morning and half in the evening. This worked really well and I super enjoyed it, but did eat into my work day a bit. Still working on finding a balance there.

Another type is whether you are an abstainer or moderator. Do you abstain completely? Or do you moderate and have a little? A friend and I talked about things where we will say abstain for part of the day. For example: no carbs after 2pm. Reflecting on this I realised something that sounds really obvious – if you are a moderator you have to actually moderate, and these “partial abstention” strategies are actually strategies for moderation. This has also prompted me to look for ways to moderate. For example with food not finishing things I’m not enjoying, and reminding myself “I had X earlier” which is a more positive framing than “I shouldn’t have that”.

Loopholes – the excuses we make to ourselves to justify our choices – are a big topic! And as a result I’ve also been thinking more about the excuses I make. Maybe it’s also turning 30, but when I catch myself I think about how this is my life, not a loophole. It’s making it easier to make good choices.

There’s a quote “habits are the foundation of our lives” and it’s true. Better than Before is worth reading – it’s inspired me to be more mindful of the foundation of my life.

August 7, 2015
My On-Going Delusion About Being Human

Credit: DeviantArt / Daydreamer6123

I have, and have had for years (I’ve written about it again and again from either side of thinking I’m going mad), this on-going delusion that I should be super-human. That I should be killing it at work, on my side projects, working out like a crazy person, having an active social life and a functional relationship that is actually going somewhere, whilst living in a beautiful spotless apartment and dressing fabulously!

I’m not sure that I’m doing great at any of these things right now. In fact about a month ago I decided to just give up dating for 6 months. This has freed up a bunch of time and emotional energy – it’s a good decision for me right now. I’m focusing on Cate.

So I’m talking to one of my friends about how hard it is to figure out habits, and how thrown my habits are by this latest move. And how I feel pulled in all these directions, there is a show I really want to see and tonight is the last night, and there’s a piece of work I need to finish, and I need to weight train more and there is a class I could take but I’m not sure I can do that either and meanwhile my shoulder is really sore from the yoga class I did yesterday and just how do I possibly fit it all in. And commute. And deadlines. And job more emotionally demanding because I’m more optimistic and engaged in what I’m doing and I hadn’t quite thought of that.

Meanwhile I moved back thinking I could spend more time with my family, but had a completely serious conversation with my parents about whether it was feasible for me to meet them in Dubai in a couple of weeks. Because otherwise I’m unlikely to see them until April.

Really, I’m just not good at the day to day logistics of life. I am late filing my taxes. I don’t book my own travel anymore, and there are plenty of reasonable reasons for that, like when I do crazy trips with multiple stops you basically have to have a travel agent, but the real reason is that booking travel can be viewed as an optimisation problem… but you can never really solve it. Because that flight can be delayed, or cancelled, or something horrible can happen, and voila, no amount of advance thinking helped at all. So it’s better just not to worry about it too much, lay out my parameters, have someone else deal with it, and then just live with whatever they come up with.

And I’m too prone to seeing life as an optimisation problem. And there are these aspects to maximise, and then these constraints. Like, the best way to get a good workout in is to do it in the morning. But, getting in early to work makes me so much more productive. Pick one. I can work on side projects and do a long workout at the weekend, but if I workout first I’m sometimes to be too tired to do any. Only one can be the top priority. The way to get up early is just to do it, be tired and deal, but I spend all day staring at a screen and too little sleep isn’t just being tired, it’s also spending the afternoon with a horrible headache. Not today, please.

And so I create these arbitrary rules. Like, only eat sandwiches at the weekend. Only watch TV at the gym. Do something cultural every week. 5 positive things around the house for every 5 chapters of a book.

These rules, ingrained, work really well. Only I got the flu, and then I took a trip. And voila, everything fell apart. I started watching TV at home, and overwhelmed by the grocery store self-medicated with bread. And I got into work later, having not worked out, because I was so exhausted. And the more I felt like I was failing at every aspect of my life, the more I wondered why I was trying with anything at all.

The thing about habits, is they can disintegrate so quickly. Even a short trip can throw me right off, if I have terrible jetlag and I’m exhausted everything feels like a catastrophe (talking to my friend, I realised that my messed up sleep schedule is the root problem for at least two things I’m failing at). Meanwhile, I pack out my schedule – as I write this, the following week I have plans Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, an 8pm meeting on Thursday, and on Friday I’m supposed to be in Manchester.

(Not that I’ve figured out a hotel or a train to Manchester at this point. Logistics are hard.)

Even when all habits fall apart at once, you have to build habits up bit by bit. So last week, I got a reasonable amount of cardio and one yoga class in, and I was mindful about what I ate in the evenings, despite feeling exhausted (always harder). I dealt with a bunch of personal email, and made a significant amount of progress on The Project. This has to be a win.

Next week, I’ll focus on fixing my sleep schedule, and finishing up this section of The Project. If these are under control by next Sunday, I’ll view that as a win.

March 17, 2014