There is something interesting about our psyche, or at least mine. Simple and concise rules, when applied for a long time, are much harder to break¹ than rules which make room for exceptions, or rules that are broad or ambiguous.

No desserts at the office canteen, ever

Let me give you an example: I never have desserts at my work office’s canteen. No exceptions. This makes my decision process straightforward: “Should I have a dessert? No. Move on. Nothing to see here”. I’ve been able to maintain this habit for 5 years. If I want a dessert, it will need to be elsewhere, like at a dinner night out.

If I would allow myself for dessert only now and then, I am pretty confident it would derail by sugar consumption, since “every now and then” would be dictated by how much will power I would have available on any given day, and there are days where I just have too much going on and will power is at short supply.

A single dessert at the canteen would break the streak, allowing for optionality to creep in, and deliver me to by swaying will power’s mercy.

No exceptions, less decisions, more output

I’ve been consistently accumulating several of these simple rules / habits throughout the past years, which allowed me to build strong foundations, move towards the type of person I want to be, achieve what I want to achieve, and sustain a high output for a significant amount of time. Here is a list of the most impactful ones:

• At least one hike or long walk every week. 9 year streak.
• No alcohol consumption, other than new year’s eve. 8+ year streak.
• No desserts at my work office’s canteen. 5 year streak
• On work days, starting at about 9AM until I finish the work day, I disable internet access on my personal phone, but still have it available for incoming calls or SMS. It allows me to focus, and enter “the zone”. 5+ years streak.
• Every work day, write down on a personal .txt log the relevant work events that happened throughout the day. 5+ year streak
• Deeply ingrained habit to write relevant events in my personal journal. 12+ year streak.
• On the first days of each month (normally the first weekend), go through every financial asset I own and write down their balance, invest or move stale funds. 8+ year streak - link to post about investment tracking
• Intermittent fasting: only start eating at 12AM, this is, no breakfast. Even on hiking days. 3 to 4 year streak.
  • Makes me feel good, focused, and end up spending less time with yet another meal during the day.
  • When I first started skipping breakfast, I would end up eating something before a hike, and every time that happened I would end up breaking the streak, and have breakfast again most of the days. Once I realized that it was completely ok to hike without having breakfast that the routine really stuck for good. Can’t tell if this will work forever, but until now it has been working great.

Simple rules, consistent habits

These simple rules were a boon for me to implement consistent habits, and reason why I think they kept working so well are:

• they are simple and easy to remember
• they don’t make room for exceptions, thus less dependent on my will power (a limited resource)
  • as a result, I am able to redirect that will power to more productive endeavours.
• they become so ingrained, that they become almost like a personality trait which some people know me for. This external expectation of consistency also starts to help.

They are all so ingrained in my life that if any of them slip, something starts to feel really off and uncomfortable, just like any other deeply ingrained habit or routine that gets halted.

Give them a try. There are rules and obsessions worth having.