Atomize Your Tasks
James Clear Knows What’s Up
Discuss: Atomic Habits by James Clear. Talk about applications:
listening in the car
habit stacking:
SRS needs the most help.
Structured Inevitability
I used to travel for work a lot, often to remote locations, and spent lots of time in hotel rooms. Each night when I got off work late, I would go to a restaurant and order two meals: one for myself now, and one for myself the next day. Because the offerings at my destination was usually lacking, I would drive into a bigger town after work and save myself an unfortunate lunch the next day. Brilliant right?
Well, brilliant until I would forget the meal in the hotel fridge and lose both my full per diem and my meal 😭. (The drawback to driving to a larger town is that forgetting a meal makes the error irreversible). I did this not once, or twice, but continuosly. I would tell myself to remember before sleeping, but in the morning rush I would inevitably forget. I needed a way to force myself to remember my lunch, and so I did something rather silly: I put my car keys in the fridge.
From the day I started that practice, I had cold keys each morning and a warm meal at lunch. This is what I call structured inevitability. Structured inevitably is a set-up—typically environmental—you do in advance to help yourself remember to do something you that you’re not in the habit of doing. James Clear uses the example of putting a book on the bed you make each morning to force yourself to pick it up (and hopefully read) before sleeping that night.
Part of the difficulty of intermediate study is structuring your learning to become inevitable. If you can, find ways to structure inevitability. Consider changing the homepage on your web browser to a site you can use to read content. Or perhaps delay checking your choice of social media apps until your reviews are done for the day. The option for daily email service providing spaced repetition reviews and content of the day is one way I’ve tried to help you add this option to your own Nihongo Journey. But use your own habits and interests to create your own.
Personalize the Habits
Make sure your habits are suited to you. That means not just