Developing new habits & finding time for your hobbies

"I bought the diet book, but ate my usual foods."

"I filled the prescription, but didn't take the meds."

"I took the course... well, I watched the videos... but I didn't do the exercises in writing."

Merely looking at something almost never causes change. Tourism is fun, but rarely transformative.

If it was easy, you would have already achieved the change you seek.

Change comes from new habits, from acting as if, from experiencing the inevitable discomfort of becoming.


I came across the above interesting post from Seth Godin. How often do we fret over inability to adopt a new schedule or do simple things on a more regular basis? It could be hitting the gym, reading books, practicing a hobby, or a simple thing like remembering to take medicines when you fall sick. Adding tasks to a to-do list or putting up stick-it notes doesn't seal it - you end up looking at it a bit more frequently, but may not get down to do it repeatedly.

From my personal experience, one effective way to achieve this is to fit the aspirational task into your daily habits/sequence of rituals. For instance, setting aside 30 minutes everyday after dinner, to read a book before you hit the bed. If you have a long commute to office, create a library of all those audio podcasts/ted-talks that you always wanted to catch up on.

There are enough undefined/adhoc times in our limited daily schedule, that you could carve out to accommodate that elusive task you aspire to make a habit. Couple of months back, S Kumar, a friend had posted a nice article on the same topic. Do check out his article on "How I found time and got certified in 54 diverse online courses".