Habits

Of all the topics in this handbook, habits are the ones I have least to say about and the most certainty around. Brief, then.

The work is paid for, in the long run, by a few small daily transactions: that you sit down, that you read for an hour, that you keep one notebook for everything. None of these will save a project on its own. All of them, together, change what kind of person makes the project.

There is a temptation to spend habit-energy on appearances — the perfect setup, the right pen, the correct app. Resist it. The thing that compounds is the act, not the staging.

If a habit becomes hard, ask whether you’ve made the action too large. The habit of write for thirty minutes will fail more days than it succeeds. The habit of open the document almost never fails. Pick the smallest action that puts you in front of the work; everything else takes care of itself, most of the time.