I was lying in bed with my laptop lamenting this newsletter. It’s usually pretty late in the evening when I write this, and it’s generally due to a lack of ideas on what to write. Unfortunately, I haven’t gotten to the point of having a queue built up to give myself some relief.
My wife suggested I let myself off the hook and take a break for a day. “But that will break the chain,” I replied.
The chain I refer to is Jerry Seinfeld’s Productivity Secret. According to the story, a young comic asked Jerry Seinfeld for advice. Seinfeld’s advice was to write better jokes. To write better jokes, he said, you need to write every day.
The story goes on to say that Seinfeld advised getting a wall calendar and coloring every day that the comic wrote jokes. Once the chain of completed days started growing, the only key was to keep the chain. A year or two ago, I found a fantastic app that helps you keep track of daily habits. It’s called everyday.app.
You create a habit for each item you want to track, and each day you check it off. You can also have a “skip” if there’s a reason you don’t make a habit on a given day. It’s a neat feature – it lets you keep your chain going but without counting that day. I use it for things like rest days on exercise habits.
So far this year, I’ve maintained every habit I started. That includes daily writing. This newsletter is vital to keeping my streak.