Okay, I was on a roll after the previous post so I’m just going to continue working in advance on another post as a reward for being productive. Ideally, I would be posting something every day as this supposed to be a daily habit, but I can’t resist continuing if I have the inspiration. Maybe what I will do is add a daily update to whatever I’ve already written.

I just realized some things about my previous post that I need to note – by actually writing everything out in the post, I can already see how things I mentioned fit in James Clear’s laws on how to build a good habit and how to make my system better.

He says that to create a good habit, you need to:

1st Law: Make It Obvious

Clearly define your daily habit – for example: [WHEN] immediately after I turn off my work laptop for the day, I will turn on my personal laptop and BEFORE I track my food (a current habit), I will [HABIT] 1) spend at least TWO minutes on my job search (see the 3rd law) and then 2) write a post every day on what I did / my progress.

2nd Law: Make it Attractive

By pairing the new job and writing habit with my present food tracking habit, I’m creating pressure / motivation on myself to do the new habit.

I am going to experiment with turning on music as a subconscious cue to get myself in a positive mood to start writing.

(Make a call today to see if someone is interested in joining me on similar writing / habit challenge!)

3rd Law: Make It Easy

James Clear suggests using the Two-Minute Rule: “Downscale your habits until they can be done in two minutes or less”. In my previous post, I even let myself make no progress as long as I posted about not doing anything. Realistically, I need the bar for success to be on the absolute floor because it’s more important to me that the habit stick than that I meet a word count for the day, since I’m starting from zero. To start, maybe the first two minutes would be just looking for job openings to list what I am and am not interested in and then later the two minutes would be actually applying for jobs or tracking my applications.

Clear also suggests making the interruption of the good habit difficult – and as in the previous post, if I have to think about reporting what I have actually done instead of posting, maybe that will force me to practice the good habit.

4th Law: Make It Satisfying

I felt oddly accomplished just being immersed in what I was writing for my previous post and then seeing that the sun had come up after I finished. It’s been a long time since I’ve had an early morning like that and it was actually kind of nice.

I don’t think I will be making that itself a habit because the job writing habit in the morning wouldn’t then pair with my food tracking habit but it’s something I could try at some point if I get to the point of not needing to pair it. But I want to note anything AT ALL enjoyable about this new habit. Actually, doing the new habit before work might be a good way to ease into the workday guilt-free after having put my own priorities first.

I could possibly pair a morning habit with a morning drink…. I guess it can be an aspiration and I can do it after work as an alternative.

Note to self: I think my previous post took me about three hours. And this one presently is taking me about 2 hours.

Other random thoughts: I think this is going to be an interesting test of how easy or hard it is to get views on a blog nowadays if you blog consistently. With the glut of information on the internet, it will be interesting to see how traffic goes once I start this process.

Yesterday, I didn’t plan what to do with my subsequent days of two minutes – I think I should read through job listings in my target city first until I think I understand the patterns in job demand.

So today was 20 minutes on Craigslist for telecommuting jobs – a lot of web design and legal jobs. One posting looked interesting. I might just send an email for more information later today, but I’ve done my two minutes.