Simplify Your Life

I am a wanna be Perfectionist. So of-course there are areas of my life and about myself that I want to improve. There are things I want to stop doing and things I want to start doing or keep up the momentum. I have tried to take these on many time but usually end up not being able to consistently keep at it.

Are there areas in your life that you have wanted to improve on? Maybe you want to not lose your patience so often, maybe its sticking to a diet or maybe its ensuring you do something regularly that you know is good for you, for examples reading more books. Have you tried to take on such “resolutions” at the start of the year and found that it’s hard to stick to them?

The biggest challenge to achieve your objectives is simple. For the things you want to start doing, you simply don’t “love” doing these things in the first place. Things that are good for you are not often “fun”. On the other hand, if you find it hard to stop doing some things, the biggest challenge is having the will power. Not everyone is born with the same level of will power, just like not everyone has the same level of drive to achieve their objective. 

So if above are the key reasons for your struggle, follow the below suggestion. If the challenge you facing are things like lack of time, not being sure how to go about the task etc. the below wont help you. Also, these suggestions are meant for those who respond to gamification i.e. you are motivated by achieving a quantifiable target (vs your original target which may be qualitative).

1. Make a list of things you want to stop/control doing (call it the control list) and a separate list of things you want to start/keep up doing (call it the intense list)
2. The list should be objective i.e. you should be able to clearly judge if you were able to achieve the item very clearly
3. For the control list, ensure not more than 5 items
4. For the intense list, decide when you and for how long you will do the task (i.e. exact day and time, it can be a daily, weekly or monthly task). Ensure that the max number of tasks to do from intense list is not more than 5 per day.
5. You get 1 point per day for not doing the items on the control list (max 5 control points)
6. You get 1 point per day for doing the item on the intense list exactly as described (max 5 intense points per day)
7. Set a monthly target for each types of points (eg. 120 control points per month and 100 intense points per month)
8. Calculate the points daily first thing in the morning for the previous day
9. At the end of the month, check if you hit the target
10. Increase the target if it’s too easy to hit or reduce it if its too hard
11. See if this process is motivating you to try to hit the target each month for 3 months
12. If its not motivating you even after 3 months, this method is probably not for you

The key advantage of this method is that even if you do lose your control /drive on some of the items and are not able to achieve a particular task on a particular day, you still get points on other tasks which you achieved so you don’t get completely dis-motivated. 

Below are some examples of items on my lists 

Control list

1. Talking too much (without a clear purpose)
2. Getting angry (scolding kids, giving them timout etc. are indicators of getting angry)
3. Spending on items costing > $100 without it being in my reminder for more than 1 day
4. Diet (No fast, fried or sweet food)

Intense list

1. Reading for 1 hr on Saturdays
2. Sleep daily at 10.30pm except on Fridays
3. Praise a friend or family member per day

With 5 items on each list, I am able to hit about 130 points each per month (i.e. about 4.3 points per day) which means I end up getting either 4 points or 5 points per list each day which is a tangible improvement for me vs a previously state where I was not sure if I was improving and that probably made me assume that I am not. 

Try these and let me know how it works out for you.