Habits and the Clear Path to Success

I have a crazy weekday schedule. I get to work around 6:30 in the morning and leave around 3:30.

A few weeks back, I was getting to work at more like 6:40-6:50. The main problem was that I was getting lazy at night and leaving stuff to do in the morning, and also procrastinating leaving in the morning, since running 6 1/2 km in double-digit sub-zero temperatures takes more energy than I tend to have at 5:30 in the morning.

Anyhow, missing 10-20 minutes of work is not the end of the world, but it bothered, me, mainly because I wasn't able to take control of it.

This is the kind of problem in which my father-in-law would say there is a "clear path to success". There's all kinds of problems which are actually complicated and require complicated solutions, but there are a whole class of problems in which the solution is painfully obvious, and yet oddly elusive. I know exactly how to solve this problem. Get my shit together the night before. Leave promptly in the morning. Don't be a lazy ass. And yet I didn't do it; day after day I was showing up late.

I have some opinions about this. I'm sure I'm wrong (here's why), but nonetheless it's a working theory:

1. There are some "clear path to success" problems that some people will never have. I will never have problems with overspending and debt. I hate debt and I rarely have the impulse to buy anything. I don't try hard to stay out of debt, it's just who I am. It's not a matter of will power or zen, I just don't want to buy stuff. The Superhero really loves to run. She'll never be out of shape because she really likes to exercise. It's just who she is.


2. Everyone has some "clear path to success" problems that they struggle with. Punctuality is one of mine. My instinct to leave for scheduled events is not strong enough to get me there on time.


3. "Will power" is an unreliable way to solve these problems. The best way I've found is to get creative and find a strategy other than will power to make myself behave properly. For instance, in my early days of running, I ran with my brother-in-law, which forced me to get up in the morning. Now running is my transportation to work, which is often my only way to get there.
   


4. Sometimes the only way fix the issue is suck it up and change my habits. This is trickier than it sounds! I've read that it takes about 3 months to make new habit. The "new kick" motivation wears off after a week or 2. That's a long 2.5 month gap in there to stick with a new behaviour before the "habit pain" of doing something out of the ordinary wears off.
   

I took approach #3 to solve my work-arrival time issue. Before reading on, take a minute and think: How you would solve this?

It took me a couple of days to figure out what to do, but the moment I thought of the New Plan, I knew it would be successful. And it has been; my work start time now varies a bit, but the average start time is 6:30. Exactly 6:30.

My scheme is this:

Day 1: Get up whenever the hell I want. Try to get to work on time.
Day 2: Adjust my alarm by whatever would have been needed to get to work on time. E.g. if I set the alarm for 5:30 on day one and got to work 20 minutes late, set it for 5:10 the next day.
Day 3 (and so on): repeat Day 2.

Now, if I'm slow one day, I pay for it the next day. Getting to work on time was never good enough motivation to hustle in the morning, but getting to sleep more the next night sure is!

On that note, I'm off to bed... wake-up time is 5:04 tomorrow!