75 Not-so Hard
Nothing wrong with this picture, till it’s hour five and you’re refreshing /r/tulipbreeding for the third time
Recently I found myself with two problems.
One, I was using my phone way too much. Most of my career has been in comms and social media, so several hours a day is pretty standard, but I noticed it was going past the point where it was fun. I was finding myself more than once shutting down a YouTube session because nothing good was appearing on the doomscroll, only to mindlessly reboot two minutes later.
Yurk.
Two, the algorithms were doing me dirty.
YouTube knows me. We’ve been mates since I was 19. It knows my love of Costco, my obsession with tiny home renos… and also my early history with disordered eating. Because it can tell, it likes to serve me me toxic sludge like #whatIeatinaday (spoiler, it’s always half an avocado after Pilates), videos where tiny influencers (probably) run 30K before breakfast, and memes like the noxious ‘75 Hard Challenge’.
If you haven’t heard of 75 Hard, please don’t reward the internet by Googling it. I’ll sum it up: 75 days of dieting, two workouts a day (no rest days), daily full body selfies, 4L of water whether you need it or not, and 10 pages of reading a self-help book. If you miss a day (peasant!!) you must start all over again.
But I was deep enough in the goopy content miasma that on at least four occasions I came across this challenge and googled the rules, thinking “maybe I was wrong and this would be good for me”. Each time I remembered it’s actually completely horrific, and went back to scrolling, only to repeat the exercise a few days later.
This was not ok. I was deep in a content hole and I needed to get out. But how?
Being a tragic nerd, I decided to hack the compulsion. I designed a challenge that would hit the same dopamine circuits without turning me into a scroll zombie. Something that would occupy my mind and day, but in a good way, not a doomscrolly way.
Forty days in, here’s how that feels. Spoiler: mixed results.
The challenge design on day 1
Here’s what I came up with at first. I made a list. On my phone, of course. I was clearly not yet free.
No Reels on my phone. Basics.
In the course of each work day, complete 12 Pomodoros. 25-minute focus blocks with 5-minute breaks. No multitasking. If I got stuck, I would stare at the big screen instead of the small. Inertia can be powerful and learning to have no phone would be good for me.
Take my vitamins and supplements. Boring, but while we’re here doing this challenge thingy, why not set a habit?
Read a book every day. Any book. Just read. For joy, for learning, for whatever just read. Reading has been a constant source of pleasure in my life. The phone took it from me in recent years - and I let it. No more.
Exercise every day, even if it’s just a short walk. Also,
Do something to make me feel good in my body; a stretch, a long bath, even a foam roll session.
Do a task that’s good for my career, outside of my job. How often do we have goals to learn a new skill, or update our website (!), or touch base with an old colleague? And we let them slide in the chaos of the present. I resolved to do something small every day, even if it was just to listen to a podcast.
Clean one thing in my house. I had an idea that cleaning one small thing every day would be less overwhelming than a big clean every few months. (This one did not age well).
How it’s going
It’s now day 40, and I’ve had a chance to reflect that the design of this… well, it was born of a particular desire to par.ti.ci.pate in a restrictive, antisocial idea and that showed.
However, there have been some huge upsides!
Here’s how each of the rules went and how I’ve changed them.
No Reels on my phone. Actually, I didn’t just keep this one - I quickly intensified it. I’ve removed or blocked every social media app on my phone, and have a new blanket rule: no reels at all, unless it’s literally for work. Some people can have stuff like this in small doses; I’ve decided I can’t. So now if I want to binge watch tiny home videos or catch up on Reddit, I need to pull out my laptop and watch long form. That scratches the itch without creating a doomscroll black hole.
Complete 12 Pomodoros in each workday. This is the bomb. Hard to do some days, but I’ve never been more focused or productive. Best of all, when I’m done with the 12, plus work chats, replying on Teams, and email - I know I gave the day my best. I can do more if I want or need to of course, but that impostor syndrome feeling… that I should just log on and do one more thing because I probably didn’t do enough… is surprisingly under control. More on Pomodoros in the office here.
Take my vitamins and supplements. Habit set. Cool. Moving on.
Read a book every day. Hell yes. I’m really looking forward now to my early mornings on the couch. Hot coffee, a great novel, brain at its best. I started with fairy nonsense because it’s hard to compete with the phone… then hit up some wonderful fantasy. I finally read Dune too (I have thoughts and they aren’t great)… hey! I have thoughts on new books again! I feel like I’m back home.
Do a task that’s good for my career and Clean one thing in my house. These were good in theory, but in practice, daily is the wrong cadence for these. It can feel demotivating to come home from work or training and still have a long list of tasks (and context switches) to get through.
Exercise every day, and also do something to make me feel good in my body. This was actually such a bad idea, that I’m shocked at myself for including them. Over the past year I’ve come to adore training for its own sake, as play and as joy - not as an item to be ticked off or measured. I was starting to feel like my runs, sauna sessions and long bike rides were something to ‘get done’ rather than what they are at their best… play. I don’t want a list that takes all day, like that silly social challenge does. I want to do what matters, then make a new choice: a catch up with mates, a soak in the bath, or an escape to the trails to jump over roots and rocks like a six year old when the recess bell goes.
The new rules*
*That feel amazing and will, I hope, last a lot longer than a silly 75 day challenge… that I am no longer even slightly bothered about. Hell yes.
No socials on the phone, and no reels ever.
Read a book - any book. Hopefully one that brings a great deal of joy.
12 pomodoros in each work day.
Take your gosh darn vitamins.
And then, a couple of times in the course of each week - get into a learning task and a cleaning task. Don’t let these get too far out of sight, but you know what? If it’s dishes or a swim with mates,
The swim always wins.
Why The Swim Wins
One of the biggest issues I found, even on my modified challenge, was how socially distancing something that has a big daily cadence can be. If you must hit ten different things daily (gods help you if that’s two workouts), the room to change things up is nonexistent.
Some days you do need to tools down and go play, or go deep into one thing at the expense of another. Some things, like freedom, play, and saying yes to a glass of champagne with a mate on a Tuesday night, or your kids’ request to hit the park - are so precious, that they must be protected. So good habits are great - but challenges? Choose wisely.
