This week marks the completion of the first month of the program. One thing that can help keep you motivated during each week is to have a physical calendar hanging on your wall. As you finish each day’s schedule put a big X on that day. As you fill up the calendar with Xs a chain forms. If you Google the term “Don’t break the chain” you will find a ton of articles about a motivational technique used by Jerry Seinfeld.
The theory behind it, is the more Xs you have in a row the less likely you will be to break the chain. If you were to go a whole month completing ever day’s task you wouldn’t want to skip a day, breaking the chain. You would do whatever you could to keep the chain going.
As you use this or any habit setting program get out that calendar, hang it up somewhere prominent, where you will see it everyday, and mark off each day with an X.
Week 4:
Day 22
As an opposite to the 6th day of each week, being the most intense, the 1st day of the week is the most relaxed. This day is just a reading day. Don’t worry this day will soon be a writing day.
While I only list 30 minutes of reading feel free to read more. As long as you don’t subtract time from a timeframe, add as much time as you like. The times that are listed are here to help ensure that a particular amount of time is dedicated to a specific event. If you want to read, write, or exercise more by all means go for it.
Day 23
More writing has been added to this day. A full hour, two 30 minute, of writing needs to be completed.
Day 24
No more rest days during the week. Today adds a 30 minute reading session to the program.
Day 25
Just like Day 23, this day has a full hour of the day dedicated to writing.
Day 26
A light day of writing, just one session today.
Day 27
This is the weekly long writing day. Two full hours of writing. Like all the other writing, break it up into 30 minute sessions.
Day 28
Rest Day
One thing that I have noticed is that sometime between week 3 and 4, if you are starting out as a beginner, is when the first stages of struggling to write comes in. This is where those Xs I talked about earlier come in handy. Keep up the good work. Building a good habit in never easy, but with dedication and perseverance the habit will form and soon it will become second nature.
Remember we are treating this like a new part-time job. With any new job there is the training period where we are still learning. Take this time to get used to writing in short bursts; it will make things easier when you have to write during longer writing stretches.
