Thursday, December 11, 2008

Don't Break the Chain!

Jerry Seinfeld, at least in certain periods, wrote comedy in a disciplined
way every day. He allegedly uses this technique which I read about here:
http://lifehacker.com/software/motivation/jerry-seinfelds-productivity-secret-281626.php
Every day when he completed his writing quota he would cross off that day
on the calendar. If he felt like skipping it one day, he would tell
himself, "don't break the chain!" meaning don't make gaps in the sequence
of marks on the calendar, and keep growing those chains as much as
possible.

So far I'm just repeating another blog, but what got me excited about this
technique when I read it is that it is something I've been looking for for
a while, a perfectly balanced motivator. Reward and punishment systems (at
least when self-administered) don't work for me, because I already feel
crappy when I let myself down and can't bear to actually exact the
punishment or deny the reward on top of it. The seinfeld technique
combines a very mild punishment and a very mild reward, which in fact are
just reminders of my own resolution to myself.

You don't need to buy a calendar for this; if you start a new document in
Word, there's an option to download templates off the web, and if you do
a search for "calendar" there are files with pages for the months of the
year that you can print off and put, along with a pen, in a place where
you can reach it from the place you'll be doing this thing.

Tonight I really didn't want to do my 1 hour nonrequired reading that I
have resolved to do every evening; but by repeating to myself, "don't
break the chain", and also something that Anthony Trollope apparently
said, "A small daily task, if it be really daily, will beat the labours of
a spasmodic Hercules," I made it.

1 comment:

Liz said...

The Google Calendar print capability is really good too, if you don't own Word or feel like fussing with templates.

I realise this is my second Google plug in 24 hours. I swear they don't pay me.