The 15-minute habit hack

We have thousands of books advising on how to manufacture habits and follow them. Over time, we find ourselves in demanding, overcomplicated situations with our fuel tanks empty.

I do not challenge any of these authors and I’m sure their well-researched, data-backed theories have helped a chunk of their readers. I also admit that I have given genuine tries to couple of such theories myself (I’m also guilty of purchasing/subscribing to the infrastructure they provided like particular formats of to-do’s, ledgers or trackers that can be updated and so on).

However, I noticed that these habit forming techniques didn’t last long enough in practice. I finally came to my ‘the grapes are sour’ moment and concluded that if I really want to do something, I will do it irrespective of scientific studies and methods until I stumbled onto this quote from one of my all-time favorite books – The One Thing by Gary Keller and Jay Papasan…

“Success is actually a short race– a sprint fueled by discipline just long enough for the habit to kick in and take over”

…this simple statement changed my paradigm.

To test the waters, I started with activities I wanted as a part of my routine. Being in the field of investment and consultancy, reading comes as one of the implied part of our job description and I had my inhibitions in that I would like to read only when I had enough time and confidence in my schedule that I won’t be disturbed.

I wasted a lot of days trying to find the right time to continue my reading. The result was a sporadic reading with no link between any two sessions where I can build on to my thoughts. Eventually, I broke down my target into achievable blocks of 15 minutes (at least!).

Although it may look less, the momentum helped me build on my thoughts on a daily basis and now my mind automatically rings alarm every day.

Full Disclosure:
I did not read for exactly 15 minutes daily, my average reading time was about 1.5 hours a day. I broke my streak on 64th day due to personal commitments but now that I’m habituated to read, the record doesn’t matter to me anymore. I’m trying this hack with exercising next…