Day Seven: For as Long as It Takes

Today is my seventh day on this year-long journey of fifteen minutes. One full week of daily writing! 

I know it is hard to assess anything after only a week. Making space for the fifteen minutes still feels effortful, and I have to be deliberate about making myself do it. 

This morning, all I wanted was a little more sleep. (With a toddler, a pandemic winding down, a book to promote, and a part time job, I am So. Tired. All. The. Time.) 

Still, I hoisted myself out of bed, made a cup of coffee, sat down at our kitchen island, and managed fifteen minutes of work before my daughter started crying. 

I'm still pushing myself to form this new habit. The day when this new program becomes automatic is still ahead, somewhere in the future. 

When will that be, exactly? 

I've seen numbers ranging from eighteen days to two hundred and fifty four (!). 

James Clear, a bestselling author who writes exclusively about achievement and habits, says that the average time to form a new habit is sixty six days. That would mean I'm still fifty nine days away from my writing feeling effortless. 

That's only about two months, which sounds long, but really isn't in the scheme of things. I'll be checking in on this idea as I approach the sixty six day mark to see if things have become more automatic. Until then, I'll be (sigh) relying on my alarm clock.