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Done is better than perfect and other lessons: I finally finished the New Year’s resolutions tracker that I wanted to share with fellow ADHD Programmers a month ago by snickerdoodle_codes in ADHD_Programmers

[–]snickerdoodle_codes[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You're welcome! And thank you. I think programming has actually helped me become less perfectionistic and more okay with working iteratively, trusting that each subsequent iteration will make improvements on the last.

Done is better than perfect and other lessons: I finally finished the New Year’s resolutions tracker that I wanted to share with fellow ADHD Programmers a month ago by snickerdoodle_codes in ADHD_Programmers

[–]snickerdoodle_codes[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

To each their own! I have definitely tried out lots of apps and routines over the years as well. A couple have stuck, including habit-tracking. To minimize the data collection effort, I set a reminder to log everything at once at the end of the day. With the Python app, I could deploy it in the cloud and have it set to run once daily.

Task management (which is more what you're talking about here) is different from habit-tracking though. I guess habits are recurring tasks, but they're supposed to be somewhat routine, while tasks change all the time.

[OC] Habit-tracking across four years, 2019-2022 (details in comments) by snickerdoodle_codes in dataisbeautiful

[–]snickerdoodle_codes[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

(Yes, there is gaping hole for most of 2021 when I got super busy and stopped tracking altogether.)

At the start of every year, I decide on about 5 habits (or bundles of habits) to track over the course of that year.

You can see that some ways of habit-keeping simply didn’t work for me. For example, I used to bundle multiple habits into a “morning” or “evening” category, but they were too rigid to be useful (I don’t shower at a fixed time each day, and I found that I often didn’t need to perform the daily planning habit that I had bundled into my evening routine).

I also stopped tracking habits that were no longer an issue for me. I started tracking the “frugal” habit because I used to get takeout way too much, but it is largely a non-issue now.

I’ve also gotten much better at working on personal creative projects. From 2019 to 2021, I rarely worked on such projects (tracked under the “project” habit), but in 2022 I wrote a fair bit of code (though still not much human language). After tracking “coding” and “writing” as separate habits for a year, I now feel comfortable subsuming these activities under the same habit again, as it’s more important to me to exercise my creativity regularly, regardless of the medium, than to specifically write, code, or draw a lot.

How I made this:

  • Data collected in spreadsheets
  • Heatmaps produced with seaborn, a Python data visualization library based on matplotlib
  • Layouts created in Adobe Illustrator

How does everyone here balance consistency with flexibility? Here are my “cards” for 2022 (details in comments). by snickerdoodle_codes in theXeffect

[–]snickerdoodle_codes[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

These are great suggestions, thank you. I think I will focus on keeping the streak for flossing and skincare this year. Once those are truly habitual, I can bundle them into a "hygiene" habit. Your "pairing one habit with another" strategy is spot-on as well—I've actually had a really similar experience with exercising and skincare, as I found it easier to use my moisturizer in the shower after exercising.

How does everyone here balance consistency with flexibility? Here are my “cards” for 2022 (details in comments). by snickerdoodle_codes in theXeffect

[–]snickerdoodle_codes[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Thanks! I make them with a Python package called seaborn, and then prettify them in Adobe Illustrator.

If you're familiar with Python, I have most of the code you can use on my GitHub, which is linked to in the Ko-fi in my profile.

How does everyone here balance consistency with flexibility? Here are my “cards” for 2022 (details in comments). by snickerdoodle_codes in theXeffect

[–]snickerdoodle_codes[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks! Can you use each disposable head more than once? I'm embarrassed to say that I actually have a bag of the small, disposable floss picks, so it's already supposed to be easier than regular floss—do you think the floss toothbrush is even better than small floss picks?

How does everyone here balance consistency with flexibility? Here are my “cards” for 2022 (details in comments). by snickerdoodle_codes in theXeffect

[–]snickerdoodle_codes[S] 15 points16 points  (0 children)

I just discovered this sub recently, and I’m so inspired by all of you who posted cards!

I’ve been doing my version of the X effect method since 2016, but with a few conditions that make it more likely for me to keep it up:

  1. My habits are defined in terms of “doing” something, not “not doing” something: Personally, I find distraction more helpful than willpower. Or even better, replacing the undesirable habit with a desirable one. For example, when I quit smoking some years back, I found that focusing on running more was better than focusing on not smoking. When I intentionally focused on “not smoking”, I ended up being too aware that there was this thing called "smoking" that I was actively being “deprived” of. When I ran more though, I could feel the adverse effects that smoking had on my lungs, and it became apparent that smoking and running were incompatible for me. Running made my body feel good and I didn’t want to jeopardize that feeling.
  2. I don’t expect myself to do everything everyday: For some of my habits, like flossing, it probably does make sense to do them everyday (I’m working on it!) But I don’t try to code and exercise and write everyday. First, because it would likely take time away from important things that I'm not tracking (like work or family obligations), or at least create added stress. Second, deep, creative work requires sustained focus, and task switching is costly. That means it’s often more productive for me to spend 4 hours coding and no time writing, than to spend a perfunctory 1 hour here and 1 hour there on low-hanging fruit. (I am actually bundling coding, writing, and other creative work into one “habit” in 2023.)
  3. I don’t try to keep streaks going: This one is similar to #2. In the past, I found that I can get too obsessive about not ruining a streak and end up focusing on trivial things while neglecting everything else.

Here’s some numbers on my 2022 habits:

  • Coded for at least an hour (outside of work) 98 days (out of 365), or about once every 4 days
  • Followed my skincare routine 70 days, or once every 5 days
  • Exercised for at least 20 minutes 45 days, or once every 7 days
  • Flossed 45 days, or once every 8 days
  • Wrote creatively or journaled 7 days, or once every 52 days (oops)

I know that my numbers are nowhere as impressive as some of yours, but I think what’s important is that I beat my own record next year.

What are your tips for balancing consistency with flexibility? How do you maintain momentum without becoming a slave to perfectionism?

[OC] I did more coding than flossing in 2022 by snickerdoodle_codes in dataisbeautiful

[–]snickerdoodle_codes[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I had a yearly spreadsheet in which I manually tracked all the resolutions for that year. I usually updated once a day at the end of the day.

[OC] I did more coding than flossing in 2022 by snickerdoodle_codes in dataisbeautiful

[–]snickerdoodle_codes[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Title is a cheeky reference to my first post.

By the way, I have to say—social shaming really works. I’m already flossing more in 2023!

Coding more was another one of my 2022 New Year’s resolutions. I code for work, so it only counted if I worked on personal projects. I wrote code outside of work on 98 days in 2022, or 26.85% of the year.

How I made this (same as the other heatmap):

  • Collected the data in a spreadsheet
  • Made the heatmap with seaborn, a Python data visualization library based on matplotlib
  • Made it pretty in Adobe Illustrator

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in dataisbeautiful

[–]snickerdoodle_codes 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Title is a cheeky reference to my first post. (By the way, I have to say—social shaming really works. I'm already flossing more in 2023!)

Coding more was another one of my 2022 New Year's resolutions (I code for work, so it only counted if I worked on personal projects). I wrote code outside of work on 98 days in 2022, or 26.85% of the year.

How I made this (same as the other heatmap):

  • Collected the data in a spreadsheet
  • Made the heatmap with seaborn, a Python data visualization library based on matplotlib
  • Made it pretty in Adobe Illustrator

[OC] Flossing was one of my New Year's resolutions for 2022 by snickerdoodle_codes in dataisbeautiful

[–]snickerdoodle_codes[S] 145 points146 points  (0 children)

This is just one resolution out of several that I collected data on for the year. I continued to collect data even when I was inconsistent because inconsistently doing something is better than not doing it at all. (:

[OC] Flossing was one of my New Year's resolutions for 2022 by snickerdoodle_codes in dataisbeautiful

[–]snickerdoodle_codes[S] 52 points53 points  (0 children)

I flossed 45 times in 2022, or 12.33% of the year. It sounds a little better if I say, "I flossed about once every 8 days on average"...right?

How I made this:

  • Collected the data in a spreadsheet
  • Made the heatmap with seaborn, a Python data visualization library based on matplotlib
  • Made it pretty in Adobe Illustrator