January 2, 2008

• The Rule of One

  I've been playing around with the rule of one (RoO) for almost a year now.  A great friend of mine came up with it as an organizational tool/motivator, and I've been refining my thoughts on it since then.  It is a very simple thing, but I'm going to drag this out and be as thorough as possible.  I've been planning on writing this entry for quite awhile, and may have even written about it last year.  But I wrote so little last year, and am making 2008 a much different year than 2007, so here it is (possibly) again.

  Resolutions and goals often fail because we bite off more than we can chew.  Setting too high of a goal can be a deterrent to finishing it, or even starting it.  Let's say that you make a goal of reading thru the Bible in a year, which works out to roughly 5 chapters a day.  You keep up with it for the first week, or even month, but then you have a day with some unforeseen emergencies crop up, either at work or at home, and you literally don't have time.  Or you are just exhausted after a long day, and promise yourself that you'll catch up the next day.  Well, ten chapters the next day just doesn't happen, but you'll catch up eventually.  But as this continues, and Leviticus gets really boring to you, you give up in frustration.  Maybe next year you say.

  Or maybe you have an exercise goal of let's say 30 minutes a day.  You start off strong, but then things keep happening.  Overtime at work, getting home too tired to do anything, getting sick for a spell.  So this daily goal, as it gets skipped more and more, quickly turns into a broken resolution.

  One way to make a resolution stick it to make it easy to do every day.  Once you've done it consistently for a month or more, it is very likely to stick.  I'm not sure I believe the old adage, "it takes 6 weeks to make a habit, and a lifetime to break it."  I've broken both "rules" in less time, but there is some truth in it.

  So I'm rambling a bit here, as usual, but here are the basics of the Rule of One.

  • Make your goals extremely small.  Don't promise to read the Bible in a year, promise to read some of it daily, even if only a verse.  Don't promise to work out for 30 minutes a day, promise to do some form of exercise daily, even if it is only one push-up.
  • Make your goals somewhat general.  Like in the above exercise goal, don't promise yourself 30 minutes on the treadmill.  You may be somewhere without a treadmill, or your's could break.  Keeping it general, to any form of exercise, gives you options, and increases the chance of you doing it daily.

  I know that many of you are saying something like, "one verse, that's silly", or, "one push-up, that doesn't do any good."  Well, those observations are true, but here are some things to consider.

  • Just because your stated or even printed goal is one verse, or one push-up, it doesn't mean that you are only going to do one.  Seriously now, not many people are going to open the Bible and read only one verse, or get down on the floor and do only one push-up.  I'm doing both goals this year, and always do at least double digit push-ups (ok, I'll be honest, even ten is a chore for this out-of-shape blogger, but with daily practice I hope to increase my numbers).  And so far, I'm on the 5 chapter a day average to get thru the Bible this year.  Many days are less, as low as a few verses, but so far, I've always caught up within a day or two.
  • Having your goals easy to complete greatly encourages daily completion.  If my printed goal was 5 chapters a day, I would be much more likely to skip a day.  I work 12 hour days that sometimes turn into 16 or more, and it was often difficult to think about doing one of my resolutions of year's past when I knew I only have 4 or 5 hours to sleep once I get home.  Well, now that my goal is only one verse and one push-up, I always have time to do that.  Again, I've never done that few, but it nice to know that it is all I "have to do."
  • The easier your goals are, the more likely you are to do them consistently for long stretches of days.  And the longer you fulfill a goal, the more likely that it becomes a permanent habit, without the need of writing or making goal/resolutions.
  • Something is better than nothing.  If you set your goals too high, you are much more likely to skip it entirely.  A little bit is better than nothing.  One push-up may not sound like much, but at least it keeps it in your daily mindset, and most days you'll do many more than one.  One verse is better than nothing.  The Creator of the universe has chosen to communicate with us thru the Bible, and daily time with it is my number one goal this year, and every year.  My friend Michelle, who created this rule, has a massive filing problem.  She has literally thousands of papers at various places in her house that need filing.  She used to plan weekends to the task, but you all know how that goes.  You start a task, but it just seems so overwhelming that you use any excuse to move on to something else.  So she used the RoO to create a "file one piece of paper a day" rule for herself.  No matter how busy you are, you can probably find time to file one piece of paper.  And if you're going to bother to do one piece, you 're likely to do at least a handful or pile.

  So anyway, there is my big new philosophy.  Very simple, and nothing that hasn't been talked about for years.  But I'm latching onto it this year with full force.  So far, I'm 35 for 35 in four daily goals (Bible, a non religious daily devotional, exercise bike, and push-ups).  Yep, the blogging goal is a bit behind.  I started this entry back on January 2nd, but am only finishing it on February 4th.  But I have a few private, draft entries, so I'll get caught up soon.

  • 8:32 am
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