No Excuses

It’s too easy for me to avoid and put off things I know I should do.

I’m not sure why that is, why my willpower diminishes at odd points of the day and with little to no warning. Some days I’m buzzed up and feeling good and getting things done, which in turn helps me feel good and get more things done – nothing like a bit of achievement to drive more achievement, regardless of the scale.

But some days I can go from that to sofa mode in a matter of minutes.

I get around this by scheduling time and by keeping a list of things I need to do, even if I don’t always stick to them it does help.

For the to do list the app I use (Todoist) has a little gamification option called Karma points which I’ll admit do keep me more honest and more driven to both use the app and to complete tasks rather than deferring them.

For the scheduled time I have slots in my calendar (recently added) to go to the gym. I don’t have a way of gaming that but I do have a post-it stuck up on a mirror in the bedroom that says “No Excuses”. By and large my approach is to remove as many obstacles as I can because I know that even the smallest road bump could trigger an excuse and a switch to sofa mode.

For example I’m about to change gyms from one which is about a 10-15 min drive from my flat but has no parking, to one which I pass on my way to work every single day and has plenty of parking. I’m gaming myself in that respect, relying on the guilt of driving past the gym every single day I’m in the office to change my behaviours.

I’ve failed at this in the past, and I will fail again. As I’ve already said, that’s ok but I’m trying and that’s what matters to me.