The 3-point list
Even though it is still vacation, as a house owner it is important to keep the momentum going with regards to long-term improvements. It is not enough to just deal with the daily upkeep, one also must invest some time in improvement and development of the property. I have a long list of things that I know should be done, because they will bring about many quality-of-life improvements. However, they are not mission critical like moving the lawn, house cleaning or buying groceries. A method I have used to great success is to define three special tasks that deals with development, and make sure that I execute them the next day. It brings about a very good gut feeling when I tick off these three boxes, because they are clear progress towards a larger aim.
After years of trial and error with habit formation, I am now convinced that important things that need to be executed should be dealt with as early in the day as possible. Every hour of procrastination increases the probability that the task will be skipped, thereby breaking the habit. Get out of bed and act, is the most successful method I know. During the vacation unfortunately, I have lost my focus and often resorted to executing the tasks late in the night, usually after the rest of the family already have gone to sleep. This works, but it is not optimal. To execute important tasks while being very tired is not a good idea. The focus is so much harder to achieve in the evening after a full day of sensory inputs that need to be processed and dealt with. In comparison, in the morning hours my mind is a blank slate and thus very calm and 10X easier to direct on a specific task.
So why don’t I get out and practice what I preach during the vacation then? Fair point. Part of it is that I have created an evil dark spiral with working late in the night, becoming more tired and consequently unable to get out of bed in the early morning because of sleep deprivation. Productivity and focus thus decrease, which necessitates even longer work sessions further into the night. And so on and so forth… It is a challenging pattern to break out of. At least during vacay mode.
The real excuse is that I finally have a couple of weeks to be more playful. Sleeping in with the wife and kids need no rationale, and another habit that has materialized during this vacation is morning gaming sessions in Minecraft Dungeons, couch coop with my son. The game is a dungeon crawler set in the Minecraft universe, and it is exceptionally fun. I think it beats Diablo 4 by a mile, mostly because the difficulty level is close to perfection. You have a ton of skill settings to choose from, both above and below your current ability. You are always tempted to increase the difficulty level as much as possible to get the best loot, but the game also becomes very difficult on the highest difficulty levels, so you will really need to work it and fight. A game that is just a little bit too difficult is simply wonderful, when you work so hard to beat that boss and then on your last life you finish him with no margin at all and 1% left in your health bar. It is old school level gaming fun. Bravo Mojang! I have noticed that I have entered proper flow state several times during these gaming sessions with my boy. I am hard pressed to figure out better activities than that. We are both completely immersed and are constantly pushed to the limits of our abilities. That is some quality time spent right there.
Anyways, vacation is almost over and when I get back to work in early august, it is very important that I revert to my old habits of getting everything important done early, or else I will severely regret it. I start my day with some of my personal/private habits/hobbies and then I do the same thing at work when I sign in. Check your list of three crucial activities, prioritize and execute. When that system is running, it is a pure joy and I get a lot done every day. But for now, I will not feel bad for prioritizing some leisure over productivity perfection. Sometimes you just must be a bit “worthless” for a while. To be perfectly productive constantly, is probably stupid and counterproductive. I think it might be a good idea to schedule “nothing” every once in a while and treat it just like a crucial activity.