Loose Change: Unstructured Habit Change for Lazy People

Over the past few years I’ve tried a number of goal setting techniques with the intention of improving myself, learning more or getting more work finished – none of them have worked. Earlier today I set out to discover why and found that structured change doesn’t suit me. I need loose change instead.

What went wrong?

My earlier attempts at a structured form of goal setting and habit change failed monumentally. While I diligently worked away at my goals and stuck to my aspired habits for a bit, after a few days the novelty fell off and I sacked more and more. This is testimony to my lack of motivation, perhaps another problem with goal setting. If I’m not motivated to work towards my goals then how can I hope to achieve them?

Another place where my structured system fell down was its timings. Each step in the process lasted a definite number of days and had a deadline at the end. Deadlines and schedules, say a lot of experts, are great. They motivate you to work towards your goal. Not if you’re me they don’t. Instead they morph a pleasurable and exciting task into something too much like hard work, ruining my enjoyment of it.

For example, attending the gym is a pleasure for me, when I go that is. However by strictly scheduling gym sessions into my calendar it becomes just another part of my concrete “work” schedule and ceases to be fun.

Rigid deadlines too are a problem, they force me to worry unduly about things which have no need for speedy completion. To add to this I suffer from an inability to correctly judge project times, I’m hopelessly optimistic when creating my deadlines.

The final nail in the coffin of structured goal setting was the amount of time I spend thinking about it. Either defining my goals exactly, organizing a progressive schedule towards them or redefining my deadlines and goals as my situation changes.

The Solution?

Loose Change.

This is the rather ridiculous term I’m using for my new goals/motivational/self-help system. When I set out designing it I needed some requirements. Everyone knows that a system needs requirements don’t they?

• Requirement 1: Simple – A simple system won’t take up much of my time and more to the point, it won’t have any novelty. It should be easier to stay motivated if it’s simple.
• Requirement 2: Free of deadlines – I hate deadlines.
• Requirement 3: Free of a regular schedule – This means less time spent planning, and that I’m more likely to enjoy myself.
• Requirement 4: Actually works – If it doesn’t work it’s all a waste of time.

I thought it would be nice if my system could help me achieve my goals without utilising specific “goals”. If my goal is to “get fit enough to run without dying”, my non-specific goal might be “The Gym”.

Brief interlude: I can see you thinking “this is ridiculous” but if you stick with it for a bit I might make more sense.

My non-specific goals have very little power, unless isolated and kept simple. To this end I reckoned on two categories for them, with one goal from each category running concurrently, as a segment (I love that word), until achieved:

• Self Improvement: One learning or improvement related goal.
• Play: One random, fun goal to work on.

After some reflection, I realised that the term “goal” is a bit misleading, what I’m really referring to is an area of my life: “The Gym”, “Painting” or “Eating Well”, for instance. With this in mind I redefined my categories:

• Self Improvement: A focus on a particular area of self improvement until it is refined and working well.
• Play: Continuing focus on one fun activity until I’m proficient at it, or until I’m bored.

You’ll notice the loosely defined time constraints in there. They aren’t deadlines but rather they’re stop conditions and when I’ve reached them I’m done with that goal. Thus far I’ve satisfied requirements one and two. To satisfy three was simple:

Each area has no schedule, one or other of the categories is to be pursued in my newly-unscheduled time.

After a little more thought about how I could improve this system I realised that some vague time constraint was needed. Without one my segment was likely to run forever as the stop conditions might never be reached. The time allowed for each segment depends on the nature of the areas and as I define each set of aims, I’ll define a “Loose Time for Segment” (in days) along with them. I know from past experience I’m more likely to stick to a deadline that isn’t strictly a deadline but is a guide.

After deciding on this time constraint it struck me that I could use this vague deadline to motivate myself towards completing some more pressing work within the same timeframe. This thought led me to add a third category to my original two:

• Self Improvement: A focus on a particular area of self improvement until it is refined and working well.
• Play: Continuing focus on one fun activity until I’m proficient at it, or until I’m bored.
• Project: Continuing work on one project until it’s finished.

So there it is. All that remains is to decide on my first three aims and see if the system stands the test of time, satisfying my fourth and final requirement.

My First Segment

I’ll not elaborate on these too much as they’re meant to be simple and obvious.

• SELF-IMPROVEMENT: A Study on study. Reading and learning about better methods of study and the human learning process.
• PLAY: Vector Illustration.
• PROJECT: Organisation of Admin & Building at 1440 Squadron, Air Cadets. A Project which needs pushing out of the way as quickly as possible.
• LOOSE TIME FOR SEGMENT: 30 days.

I’ve printed these in 72pt font and stuck them on my wall above my monitor. Hopefully every time I’ve got nothing to do I’ll work on one of these. As I started this segment on the 10th of January, I should finish round about the 10th of February. I’ll be posting a review of this system around that time, and defining my next segment then.

If you’re like me and hate deadlines then give this a crack, I’d be interested to hear any thoughts and criticisms (or perhaps forecasts of my success) in the comments.