Our tendency towards inaction (and what to do about it)

On April 24, I made a note to buy new bath towels because my current ones hadn’t been replaced for 4-5 years. On May 15, I made a note to buy new eyeglasses when my daughter suddenly grabbed my current pair right from my face and made me realize a backup pair is likely necessary. On June 22, I made a note to watch My Octopus Teacher, an acclaimed documentary recommended by a friend.

It’s now August, and I haven’t done any of the above. It's not even due to lack of reminders - these items are directly visible on a large-sized Reminders app widget right in the center of my Home Screen.

Inaction was also an issue at the beginning of my recent focus on my health. Before my first run, I dug out my old Apple Watch so that I would have a heart rate monitor available. Setting up the watch turned out to be a complete headache (it’s 5 years old, took about an hour to install updates and sync, and inexplicably self-erased everything the first time I set it up). I “had to” skip my morning run, and eventually did it in the evening instead.

Similarly, I wrote down specific dietary changes in the Health section of this blog, but today I still had leftover McDonalds for breakfast and white rice for lunch and dinner. I ate no beans and no spinach. (My thought process: there were no beans or spinach in the house, and I was hungry.)

I’ve mostly come to the conclusion that our human nature conspires to keep us where we are. Change is painful, requiring us to break from our routines in pursuit of new and uncomfortable experiences.

Luckily, our rational brains are in control (sometimes). I’ve learned to employ a few tactics in my moments of clarity, allowing me to get important things done.

Schedule it

I’ve found that things in my schedule get done over 90% of the time. For things not in my schedule, it’s the opposite. (The only exceptions are daily routines/habits such as meals, showers, commutes, etc.)

Errands will never turn into habits because they’re too diverse. Perhaps one way to address the issue is to try and form a habit of doing all errands at a specific time each week.

My current fix is a bit simpler. I’ve scheduled shopping for groceries and bath towels for Tuesday afternoon, and shopping for a new pair of eyeglasses for Wednesday afternoon.

Do the minimum effective dose

This is a concept I came across from The 4-Hour Body, which I’m currently reading. To promote action, do the smallest thing that will have a positive impact - immediately.

I wasn’t willing to go running at 11PM after I wrote a blog post about improving my health, but I could take out a pair of running shoes and find my old Apple Watch that I’ll use as a heart rate monitor. I made a mental excuse that I couldn’t come up with an entire dietary plan right away, but I could download a food diary app, put it on my Home Screen, and begin to record everything I’m eating each day.

These almost inconsequential acts seem to have led me to take more steps in the right direction - I went on my first and second 3km runs last night and this morning, and I’ve made a simple list of four diet principles. The details are now updated on the Health page.

Now more steps are in my schedule for the coming week. I hope I can stay the course.

Visible reminders

Putting a pair of running shoes (that I haven’t worn in at least a year) beside the front door made it more difficult for me to “forget” that I’m supposed to go on a run. More importantly, the presence of the shoes in such a visible location reminded my family to ask me about my run.

A public promise to others seems to be more effective at motivating action than a mental promise to myself. This realization actually motivated today’s blog post, as I suspect that publicly stating what I’ll do will greatly enhance the likelihood that I’ll actually do it.