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Comment by kiernanmcgowan | Hacker News Reader

One thing that worked for me was to break up the year into three 100 day chunks. In each of these chunks you focus on establishing a habit that you want to have and you do that action every day. At the end of the 100 days you’ll be doing that activity as second nature which helps to lay the groundwork for a better life.

My three habits from this year were:

* work out everyday

* do something “interesting” everyday

* read everyday

As I look back on the year I can definitely say I’m in better shape, more active in finding cool stuff to do, and reading more books than I have in my adult life.

YMMV, but I suggest focusing on the little things that point you towards where you want your life to go.

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This seems like a great practical framework- I've noticed that establishing habits like the ones you mention are the only reliable first step to long projects in my life.

Very curious about what you would do on a daily bases that would qualify as "interesting"? Any particularly rewarding "interesting" activities? I'd love to inject some routine variety in my life.

I defined "interesting" as I should be able to list 7 things of note when I call my parents on the weekend. This generally ended up being one of a few different actives:

* Read in a cafe / the park

* Try a new restaurant with a friend

* Go see a movie in theaters

* Go to a concert

* Check out a local art show

* Try an art project at home

The gist of it was that I ended up putting more effort into planning my week by asking myself "what's the cool thing I'm doing today". From there you end up finding venues and actives that have an event that you want to attend (eg a concert) and on slower days you find an excuse to hang out with a friend / do a hobby you find relaxing.

I like all of these things. Kudos.

How do you force yourself to read? I have a mountain of books in my backlog but every time I pick one up, I lose focus and keep reverting to skim reading. The information density just feels so low compared to what I could find on Wikipedia.

Books are a slower source of information —- and that’s a good thing. Like most of us you have trained yourself out of being able to sustain focus on long term but ultimately rewarding things, like reading a long or challenging book.

My advice is to set a timer and gradually increase it. Start with 10 minutes. Put your phone in the other room. Set you timer. And just read. Repeat. On the third day raise it by a minute. Repeat. Start looking for other ways to exercise your ability to sustain focus and reduce quick hit, dopamine juicing time sucks. You will get better over time.

It sounds like maybe your reading list doesn't match well with the type of material you find engaging? If you're finding your nonfiction to be a bit sparse perhaps you would prefer titles targeting a more academic audience? This year I discovered that the local universities will loan material out to anyone who lives in the region and found no shortage of challenging, rich material.

I have had the same issue and for me it was to start with something more gripping.

I had a long list of really technical and hard to read books. So faced with reading them, I always defaulted to something easier.

Instead, if you start with something gripping and easier to read (even some trashy fiction) it builds up momentum and the habit. Once you get some momentum you can start tackling the harder books, alternating back to easier stuff when motivation wanes

This is a good framework. Why don’t you do 90 days though? You’ll much more cleanly fit 4x90 day blocks into the year that way.

Because the holidays tend to throw off any sort of planning. 3x100 gives you some wiggle room between blocks and the ability to not have to manage habit forming around the holidays.

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