July 22, 2016

How easy is it to just get outside of the house? An experiment.

Exercise is probably one of the highest value wellbeing interventions one can apply ot their life[citations needed]. It's sure a lot easier to get errands done when I'm already planning to be out and about. Not to mention, I live in a temperate coastal city with pleasant weather and scenery that merits enjoying.

How easy is it to just get outside of the house? An experiment.

I noticed I resisted decision/preparation timeouts in leaving the house. I thought I could train a discrete progression of actions (remember, decide, get ready, GO!) and turn it into a keystone daily habit that I can make other plans around.

Starting March 22, I decided that if I noticed I had no plans to leave the house, I would use the next break to step outside and wander a bit.

Data

Review Apr 8 - The "breaks" I take are not discrete, actually. I'd forgotten about this. I made a ritual habit to venture outside at noon every day instead.

Todo Notes Apr 11 - I haven't used my scooter in a while. Instead, I got rides with my romantic partner. The sky got cloudy and rained over the weekend. Fat chance I was going outside in that.

Review Apr 29 - Over the past week I have gone on multiple walks, 2 drives, and to lunch with a friend. I'm not really paying attention to this anymore; whether I do anything about it is highly dependent on my mental state.

Conclusions

This provided some useful information. When I am in a good mental state, I'm willing and ready to try to solve problems. Readiness to leave the house comes as a natural extension of this. With this in mind, I conclude that I need to improve my mental state in general.

Followup

I threw some trigger-action habit flashcards in my anki deck to cover some 80% of situations that tank my mental state, and these have been in action to varying success since April.

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Was this a nice read? Does this seem like something worth performing for yourself? I would greatly appreciate it if you took a couple seconds to comment yes or no.

3 comments:

  1. I find that, as you said, if you're ready to go, it's easy to head out for short spells throughout the day. My habit of wearing clothes I slouch around the house in, and never putting on shoes makes it less likely that I'll leave the house.

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  3. As someone who also occasionally struggles to get from goal to action, I relate to this post naturally. However, the post is written in a way that isn't very palatable. A touch of humor would engage the audience without destroying the good objectivity.

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