How To Create A "Habit Plan" - Don't Break The Red Line

Practicing The Write Stuff Issue #17

There’s a non-fiction project that I’ve had in my head for getting on for the best part of a decade. I’ve made numerous attempts to get it off the ground and resistance has kicked my ass every time.

Sidebar: one of the sneakiest tricks in the resistance playbook - that’s not mentioned in Steven Pressfield’s THE WAR OF ART - is to give you a great idea to run with that distracts you from the idea that’s more important to you. And that your Ego is terrified you’ll go through with.

Last week I started watching Ali Abadaal interview Nathan Barry:

I haven’t watched all of the video, but somewhere in the first hour or so Nathan says that his success is founded on writing 1000 words a day.

And 1000 words a day, every day of the week, every week of the year, will lead you to creating a ton of words. 365,0000 to be precise. There’s more resonance around the idea of writing 1000 words a day in the fiction community too.

I was thinking about my long delayed non-fiction writing, and writing 1000 words a day, and made the snap decision that with all the projects I have planned this is the kind of productivity I need to aspire to.

Note: this is outside the music niche that my existing books are published in. I already write the equivalent of two to three thousand words a day most days for that. This new goal is for writing that’s not music related. More related to the emerging themes of Practicing the Write Stuff.

But.

I know from previous experience that if I try and write 1000 words a day, I’ll succeed for a few days and then fail. And get knocked off the wagon. Back to resistance again: one of the favourite stunts my resistance alter-ego pulls on me is to say: “Yeah, you missed today, but that’s OK because we’ve gotta write this bass related stuff….so let’s just crack on with that. We’ll pick this other writing up another time.”

Damn. I hate that resistance guy.

What I need to beat him is a habit plan. That’s what this Issue is about.

#1 How I Discovered ‘Don’t Break The Red Line.’

Back in the day (2008 to be precise) I had to practice my bass and rework my skills after a hiatus of 20 odd years where I’d just been a gigging musician and was looking to transition to teaching. Note: being a gigging musician meant that any playing I was doing was, at best, maintenance practice. See Practicing The Write Stuff Issue 6 for more on that.

I estimated I needed to be practicing around 90 minutes a day, 6 days a week. But it was just not happening.

I came across an article by Steve Pavlina about a system he used to build practice habits. Which I believe he learned from Jerry Seinfield. I don’t know if Steve called his system Don’t Break The Red Line as I can’t find the article in his archives, but that was the name I ended up using and use to this day when creating habit plans.

What I like about Don’t Break The Red Line is that it’s super simple but, providing you’re honest, is brually effective.

#2. The Components Of Don’t Break The Red Line

You only need two things (apart from that honesty with yourself mentioned above) to run the Don’t Break The Red Line system:

• Some kind of wall chart with dates on. Like a calendar.

• A red pen.

That’s it.

I do mine using free printable monthly calendars and superimpose a red X using Keynote. It looks like this:

Back at the end of November I was trying to finish a 240 Lesson Bass Course that was overdue, and my goal was to create a complete lesson every day, Monday to Friday. You can see that I hit my goal every day except the 24th November.

Every time I create a new daily version, that JPEG is uploaded as the screensaver on all of my computers. So I’m always seeing it.

You only put in the red X when you’ve successfully completed your goal. And the kind of chart above is what you use when you’ve acquired a habit.

First you have to build it.

#3 Using ‘Don’t Break The Red Line’ To Build A Habit

Back to my original bass goal of practicing 90 minutes a day.

When I first tried this….the results were hit and miss.

So I rejigged my goal. And the goal changed to practicing for 30 minutes a day, Monday to Saturday every week.

And I tracked this with a physical wallchart/red pen and a practice journal that I made. The only rule I had was: if you miss a day, you go back to Day 1 and start again.

That way, if I did miss a day I wouldn’t spend several days beating myself about it, but would get straight back into it.

To complete that thirst 30 day streak (5 weeks of 6 days of 30 minute practice sessions) took four attempts.

The first two attempts lasted less than a week. The third attempt stalled at 9 days.

But once I went past 10 days and 10 successive crosses on my wall chart, it created a sense of momentum where even if I didn’t to practice, I didn’t want to have start from Day 1 again.

And I sailed through to 30 days.

When I got there, I gave myself a day off, and then started a new 30 day red line. This time I could only mark a red cross for a succesful day with 60 days of practicing. This took just two attempts to complete - I had a three day flu at Day 9 or 10 that knocked me over. Once I was through that, I sailed through to Day 30.

Again, I gave myself a day off, and then started a new 30 Day Plan - this time at 90 minutes a practice day in order to earn the red mark. I went from Day 1 to Day 30 on the first attempt…because all the previous efforts had built a practice habit.

#4 Adapting This For My Non Fiction Writing

My stated goal: to write a 1000 words of non-fiction a day that’s not related to the bass guitar.

But I still have at least six months of intensive bass guitar lessons to do. So I know that my writing time is limited.

So I’m going to build up to that.

My first goal - and I’ll post every week in The Ride Out of PTWS with a copy of my latest chart(s) - is to write just 500 words every day. That doesn’t include writing for PTWS either. I started on Tuesday and here’s what I’ve got so far:

You can see I missed Friday….so I started again on Saturday. So tomorrow will be Day 3 of my 30 Day Plan.

When I complete that, then I’ll start a new plan with the goal of writing 750 words a day. When that’s completed, the next plan will be 1000 words a day.

#5 Turning The Tables On Resistance - Add Accountability

As I understand what I’ve read about Resistance and The Ego, what’s happening is that humans have evolved to a point where the Ego is programmed by evolution to steer us away from change. Back when our ancestors were Caveman change could lead to death. Or bad stuff.

So resistance fucking hates change.

But.

You can turn the tables on resistance by making statis be the more dangerous option than change.

That’s why I included the screenshot of my ‘Habit Plan’ above, and why I’ll be including one in the Ride Out of every issue going forwards. Because if I fail, then resistance thinks I’m looking professionally stupid….so the stakes got raised and resistance will help me get stuff written rather than try and get in my way.

That’s the plan anyway.

#6 You Don’t Have To Start With 500 Words

I chose 500 words because that’s a minimum amount I’m comfortable with. On a good day I can write 500 words in 15 minutes. A bad day…it might take an hour. But I can find the time for that on top of the intensive bass teaching I still have to do for 6 months.

For you it might be different.

So if you want to build to writing 1000 words (or more) every day, but 500 words is too ambitious a target, don’t beat yourself up about it. Just set a lower target for your first 30 day plan.

Maybe 200 words.

That’s five or six paragraphs depending on how densely you write. Whatever it is, start with a target that’s achievable without being too difficult. Hit that for 30 days - and track it on your ‘Red Line’ chart - and then up it. And repeat until you hit your intended target.

When you get to that point, you can keep the line of red crosses going as an accountability partner.

The Ride Out

A couple of subscribers to PTWS will know my longer term goals for 2024: to get to a point where I can cut down the number of hours (and the mental effort) spent on bass and business stuff and start writing fiction again.

At some stage later in the year I’ll start writing fiction regularly again. And the way I’ll do it will involve a version of the habit plan methodology from this issue.

If you’re struggling with productivity, the Don’t Break The Red Line system could be the difference between achieving your goals and falling short. Don’t be afraid to adapt the system to your goals. And don’t be afraid to start out with something that you know you can achieve to build up the habit. And then gently increase your production in stages.

End Note: if you can build meaningful accountability into the process your chances of success go up exponentially. That’s why I’ll be posting my weekly ‘Red Line’ charts in this section of future issues of PTWS.

Issue 18

In this issue I’ve talked about avoiding resistance by turning the tables on resistance. Another way that could work for you - it works for me but not for everyone - is by having a hard and paindful deadline. That’s what we’ll talk about in Issue 18.