Task vs Time for Habit Development
3 Jan 2022 · 6 min
Matt Ragland argues that new habits should focus on protecting time, not hitting task targets. When you're starting out, you can't predict how long something takes, so committing to 30 minutes of writing beats aiming for 1,000 words. Consistency builds the data you need to plan better later.
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Hello everyone, and welcome to your first Monday in 2022, January 3rd. Hope you all had a wonderful Happy New Year weekend wherever you are in the world. Mine was pretty nice, just hanging out with the family, watching some football, resting up as much as I could. I gotta tell you, the only habit, the only routine that I started on the new year was this daily podcast. So we'll see how long it goes. If you waited until the first Monday, more power to you. No shame in that. Don't let anyone tell you that you have gotten started late. There is no late in starting something new that is good for you. In yesterday's episode, we talked about planning a productive winning week to start the year. Now, I do think this is important. We want to build some momentum. And though, yes, you could say that every Monday is a new opportunity, every day is a new opportunity, every week, that's absolutely true. But I think we all would agree that there is a certain vibe of newness in the air at the beginning of the year. So let's use that momentum and build on it as we go into this first week. So make sure you listen to yesterday's pod. Again, all these are only like 4 or 5 minutes long, so not, not a big commitment of time, and follow that GAT method. Now, something that I touched on briefly, I want to elaborate on today, is this idea of task versus time management. Now, when you are protecting your time to do that one goal or one task, that one habit that's really going to matter to you to help build momentum and stack the first winning week of 2022. It's easy to say, okay, I think this is going to take me 30 minutes. It ends up taking me an hour and you feel off already. So what I want you to think about doing is maybe you start it by focusing on the task that you want to do or the time that you want to do it in. I'll give you an example. I learned about this as an athletic trainer and coach many years ago. Say you want to start a writing habit. Well, you could say to yourself, okay, I'm going to write 500 words or 1,000 words today. The problem is if this is new to you, and this doesn't just have to be about writing, could be about anything. If you're new to this, then you're not really sure right now how long it takes to write 1,000 words. And so maybe give yourself an hour to do it, but you only make it through 500. You know, you feel kind of bad, like you didn't actually do the thing when in fact you did do the thing. You did write today. So what I want you to think about doing instead of what we often consider to be a task focus, I want you to instead have a time focus. So if you're doing something like a writing habit, then just focus on writing for 30 minutes or an hour. No matter how many words you actually get out. You do the same thing for exercise. It's, uh, like I said, I learned about this through athletic training. So you might say to yourself, I'm going to go for a jog for 30 minutes, no matter how far I go. Okay. So that's a good way to think about your time protection and the task that you're working on. It also gives you a little bit of an idea. Like, let's say you protect time, you protect those 30 minutes. And you're, again, writing is an easy thing to use as an example, but you could say every day, let's just say for 30 minutes, you're going to write. Well, at the end of the week, now you're going to have some data to play with and you can look at and say like, okay, I averaged 300 words during that 30-minute block. Okay. So now maybe, especially if I'm getting into a rhythm, maybe I could write 750 words in an hour. If you expanded it out. Now the, the consistency that you have, the confidence that you build will accelerate. It'll build that momentum, especially something that is a creative habit. Often the more that you write, the more ideas that you have, the easier it becomes. Strangely enough, the more you do it, the easier it becomes. But I want you to think about that. That's today's lesson. Little takeaway nugget is consider the option of task versus time when it comes to protecting your time for whatever habit, whatever goal you have for this week. Just keep an eye on how long it takes so that you can have a better understanding going into next week for the amount of time that you need to protect. Okay. Hey, say hi to me on the socials, Instagram or Twitter @MattRagland. Love to say hey and know that you're listening to The Daily Dot. And also I'm hosting a free webinar for helping you set up this productivity flywheel. We'll talk about this more tomorrow, but go to productivitypowerup.com if you haven't yet. You'll learn about the course that I'm starting next week. You'll also be able to sign up for the webinar. Again, just go to productivitypowerup.com. Free training to help you have your most productive year ever. Okay. Thanks so much for listening, and I'll see you tomorrow.