The Long and The Short Of It

Episode 266 - Habit Audits

Transcript:

Pete: Hey, Jen.

Jen: Hey, Pete.

Pete: So, I've come across a question in my travels in the last few weeks that I think might shake you. It's shooketh me, and I need you to help me make sense of it.

Jen: Shake me.

Pete: Shaking, here it comes: "If I did not already do this, would I start doing it now?" And this relates to habits, I believe.

Jen: Oh, "If I did not already do this," this meaning this habit, "would I start doing it now?"

Pete: That's right.

Jen: I feel like I am shaken. Let's go. This is The Long and The Short Of It.

Pete: I have this visual of us both shaking this tree.

Jen: Ooh, so can I just repeat the question one more time? I want to make sure my brain has properly digested it.

Pete: Yes, of course. I've had a week to have this moment that you're having, so please process.

Jen: "If I didn't already do this," meaning like all the time, if I didn't always do this thing and I could choose new behaviors to adopt, "is this a behavior I would choose to adopt today?"

Pete: Yes.

Jen: Woof. Ouchy.

Pete: I feel like it's a beautiful question that articulates the sunk cost fallacy, actually. And I'm sure we've done an episode called Sunk Costs way back in the day. I'll find it, dig it up from the archive, and put it in the Box O' Goodies. But essentially, it's this idea that we have a hard time letting go of things that we've invested so much time into, i.e. the sunk costs of time and money and energy. Whether it's, "I did a law degree, and now I'm realizing I don't actually want to be a lawyer. But I've already done the law degree, so I'll just be a lawyer," is, it's like this weight that we put on the things that we've done in the past, to enable decisions for the future. But actually what a lot of people talk about, and I think what this question gets to, is, what if you get to decide with a clean slate now? Would you do the thing that you're doing now? Whether that's be a lawyer, or whether that's any number of examples, which I'm sure we can get into? It feels like a provocative question to help with breaking you out of sunk costs habits. What do you think?

Jen: Ah, yes. It's...I'm having this fantasy right now of the day that I think I'm going to have tomorrow, which is from the moment I wake up to the moment I go to bed, I kind of want to ask myself, "Is this a habit?"

Pete: Yeah.

Jen: Because I think I have a lot of habits that I have intentionally set for myself that this question would shine a very interesting light on. And I also have a lot of habits that I have unintentionally set for myself that this question might also shed a light on. For example, I'm sitting here at my kitchen table. Next to me is another chair, and laying over the top of the chair is my fall coat. That, like a habit, I just draped over the chair.

Pete: Yeah.

Jen: I didn't hang it up in the closet, which is where it belongs. And so the question is, "If I did not already do this," meaning draped my coat over the back of a chair every time I come into my house, "would I choose to do that today?" And the answer is no. I would hang it up.

Pete: You'd hang it up. Interesting. Yeah.

Jen: Yeah.

Pete: Yeah. I feel like it's a, you know, we've talked about audits before around, I think habit audits in particular around, "What are the things we're doing? And are they serving us?" That question of like, "Is this still serving me," or, "How is this still serving me," feels like it's another version of this same thing. So, I really agree. I think that some of the things that popped up for me when I was shooketh by this question was, in my context, a lot of the time I spend helping leaders in corporates, as the listeners know. And I think about a lot, the amount of time people spend in meetings that are just recurring meetings. And so the question I want to pose to these people, these leaders, these executives, which I will, is, "If this meeting didn't already exist, would you set up this meeting? Is it serving where you want to go? Or is it just that you're doing it because you've always done it?" And I suspect...it would be probably foolish to put a percentage on it, but I want to say like 80% of the time we attend them because they're in the calendar.

Jen: Yeah.

Pete: And they're in the calendar because they've always been in the calendar. And we don't pause enough to go, "Is this meeting still serving us? Why is this still serving us? How is this still serving us? Or would we start doing it now if it didn't exist? I think Seth might have mentioned the story on the podcast we recorded with him, Seth Godin, where his friend like wrote a script to delete all the meetings in people's calendars in the company that he ran. And he said, "You're welcome to start a new meeting and set it up, but just do so with intention because you now have a blank calendar."

Jen: Right.

Pete: That's a pretty intense version of what this question is trying to get at.

Jen: Yes. It's reminding me that...I know I've mentioned this on an episode before, but it was probably like two hundred episodes ago, that when someone asks me, "Do you want to have coffee? Or do you want to schedule a lunch date," and they're asking for it like months in the future, the way I decide if I'm going to say yes (and I borrowed this from someone else) is to ask myself, "If I had to put this on my calendar for today, the day that is fully booked, would I move things around to put this on?" And if the answer is yes, then I say yes. And if the answer's no, I say no.

Pete: That's good, yeah. Because we kick the can down the road by saying, "Sure. In a month's time, I might feel like having a coffee with you." But right now, if I answered that question, probably not.

Jen: Yeah. Because in a month's time, I'm going to be as busy as I am right now, it's just that I don't know what I'm going to be busy with.

Pete: Yeah. Fascinating.

Jen: This idea of habit audit is really exciting and scary to me.

Pete: I feel like we've been dancing around this topic and also talking directly about this topic for the last bunch of episodes. And I feel like I've felt called out in all of them. And maybe the activity I need to do to help me nudge all these things forward is a habit audit. You know? I think at one point we were talking about rules, and I talked about like the rule of going to a co-working space one day or not, or the rule of, you know, starting work at a certain time, or exercising in a certain way. I feel like that and habit audit, it just feels like a rich activity to spend some time on. Also, a confronting one.

Jen: So speaking of confronting, do you immediately have something that you're aware of that your answer to the question is no? "If I wasn't already doing this, would I start it today," do you have a no? And do you also have a yes?

Pete: Oh, I need to think about the yes. I immediately have a no. I feel like it's something about my relationship with my phone.

Jen: Mmm, yeah.

Pete: And it's like, you know, would I check my email after dinner on my phone, three times before I go to bed or however many times it ends up being? No, I wouldn't. Because I know, intellectually, that there's nothing that's that important that can't wait until the morning. I don't want to be doing it. But I find myself doing it mindlessly, endlessly, because of that habit. And so, if someone said to me, "With a clean slate, when you're sitting on the couch with your wife, after putting your son to bed, and you have a couple of hours to just like spend time together, would you want to spend a bunch of that time on your phone?" "No, of course not. I want to spend the time with my wife." But I...and I have friends I know, they do the same thing. You can't help but pick up your phone sometimes, because of the habits that we've formed and the fact that they obviously are designed to be super addictive, which is something that's a little hard to grapple with. But if I had the choice and the willpower, no, I wouldn't do that. What about you? Have you got a no immediately?

Jen: Yeah, but I feel like I need to not let that comment slide by. You do have the choice.

Pete: Yes, yes.

Jen: You do have the choice. And what it sounds like is you want to cultivate the willpower, that's what I'm hearing.

Pete: Right. Good call out.

Jen: So, I'm just reflecting that back to you.

Pete: Good call out, good call out, good call out. Tracey, if you're listening, you can call me out too when I don't have my phone or when I do have my phone.

Jen: Yeah, I mean, my immediate no is a habit I recently re-picked up, which is the second cup of coffee around three o'clock in the afternoon. I had kicked that habit for many, many, many years. And then, I got a Keurig at the studio. And it's just so convenient, because I don't have to clean the coffee pot. I just put the pot in, hit go, and then have that afternoon cup of coffee. But if I were starting a habit today, that is not one that I would opt to start.

Pete: Alright, that's a good one. That's a good one. The immediate is an interesting one. I think I do have some habits that I definitely would continue to do, that I'm quite proud of. And that includes doing some morning pages each morning. That includes using my Five Minute Journal, which is a...I'll put it in the Box O' Goodies. I've mentioned it a bunch of times, I'm sure. It's just a journal that you use in the morning that asks you like three questions, and that sort of provokes a gratitude practice. So I'd definitely do that, those kinds of habits. I move my body every day. I would continue to do that habit. Interestingly, though, would I move it in the same way that I am now? I'm not sure. I feel like I need to think about that. I feel like some of my exercise habits, they haven't adapted to the fact that I'm no longer in my twenties and with a bunch of autonomy, I have responsibilities and sore joints that I didn't have back then. So I feel like maybe the habit of exercising I would keep, but maybe the form that that takes I would challenge.

Jen: Interesting.

Pete: So, yeah, they're my immediate yeses. What about you?

Jen: Well, my immediate yeses are the way I start and end the day. I love my morning routine. I love getting up before everyone, and making my coffee, and sitting on the couch, and reading. Like, I just, I love my alone reading coffee time in the morning. And if I had to wipe the slate clean, that's probably the first thing I would put back because I love it so much. And I go to bed early, which doesn't sound that revolutionary but having been a Broadway actor, the early bedtime is just not a part of that lifestyle. The show comes down at 10:40pm, then you've got to get the adrenaline down. By the time you're feeling like a normal person again, you know, it's 1:00am. Now, I typically go to bed at like 10:00pm or 10:30pm. And that is a habit I really like.

Pete: Yeah. It's funny how everything is relative, that 10:00pm or 10:30pm is early in your world, and I'm thinking like, "Gosh, that sounds so late."

Jen: I'd go to bed earlier if it was feasible. And actually, when I can, I do. But 10:00pm is like almost always a feasible time for me.

Pete: I like it. Okay, yeah. So this is I guess a little version of our habit audit, is looking at (I think your question was a really good one), where have you got habits where you have an immediate no to that question? And where do you have an immediate yes to that question? One of the questions I once upon a time got asked by a friend of mine, Josh Janssen, who...him and Tommy Jackett here in Australia had this podcast called The Daily Talk Show, which they did for over one thousnad days. And it was helpful for so many people, myself included, during the pandemic, where, yeah, they had a podcast every single day. And I remember going on it a few times. And one of the questions in one of the episodes...I'll put it in the Box O' Goodies, it's a bit of fun. We talked about, the question Josh asked us all was like, "If you had to describe your perfect day, from the moment you wake up to the moment you go to bed, what would it look like?" And we all kind of grappled a bit with this, of like, "What would it look like? And how much of what I currently do would be in that day, versus not in that day? And is the difference anything other than the choice that you get to make?" Like, if in your perfect day was you went for a twenty minute run every morning, but you don't actually do that now, what you might realize is there's nothing stopping you from going for a twenty minute run now. So, why not do that? And one of Josh's was so funny. He was like, "I've got a coffee. And I'm walking down the street. And it's sunny. And I'm near a brick wall."

Jen: Alright.

Pete: And we all just kind of laughed, and we were like, "You live in a very industrial, beautiful area in Melbourne. There are coffee shops everywhere. There are brick walls everywhere. And sometimes, it's sunny in Melbourne. So like, we could create that for you. You know?"

Jen: That is so funny. Can I flip this a little bit?

Pete: Please.

Jen: Because it's occurring to me that we're talking about external behavioral habits. But I could also see this applying to internal mindset-related habits. For example, if every time I go to send a business-related email for example, I have the internal dialogue with myself of, "Who are you to send this email," every single time, the question I might ask myself is, "If I wasn't already doing this every day, and I had to instill a habit today, would I instill the habit of trying to talk myself out of pursuing opportunity?"

Pete: Ah, that's good. Yeah. "Would I talk myself out of it?" And I guess the other way of looking at is, "Would I encourage myself to do the reach out in the first place?"

Jen: Yeah. So, I could see this being both an external behavioral question and internal mindset self-talk question.

Pete: Yeah. I feel like I need to call myself out. I shared on an episode earlier in the year, it must have been around the time Ollie was born. I wrote a blog every single Sunday for five years, maybe. And I don't think I missed a day. In the last like four months, I would say I've probably averaged like one a month. And it's so wild, how quickly you can fall out of the habit and how quickly you can convince yourself it's not important or you don't need to do it or you don't need to worry about it. And I think if I had a clean slate, I would probably say that was a really good practice for me. I would continue to do it. I would get back into the habit of doing it. So, I guess it's also looking at habits that we've lost along the way.

Jen: Yeah.

Pete: Hmm.

Jen: Are you familiar with the Continue-Stop-Start exercise?

Pete: Yes. Yes, when you look at the activities that you're doing and decide whether you're going to continue with them, stop them, or start them. Is that right?

Jen: Yeah, essentially. And you can, you know, apply this in so many different contexts. But it seems like a way to put an exercise on top of the question, is, "Would I continue this habit? Would I stop this habit? Or would I start a different habit?"

Pete: One of the things I love about the "stop" in that is, I feel like so much of the tension is you haven't decided to stop and yet you're not quite continuing,

Jen: Right.

Pete: You're kind of...like, my blog is a great example. You're in this nebulous gray zone where it takes up so much brain space because you beat yourself up about it, because, "You didn't do one, and it's now it's Monday. And I didn't do it on Sunday. Should I do it? No, I'll just do it next week." You spend all this mental energy because you haven't decided to either, "Yes, I'm going to continue," or, "Yes, I'm going to stop," or, "Yes, I'm going to start." And I feel like the "stop", in particular, is one which we often avoid. And that if we actually commit to stopping, then hopefully that actually frees up brain space for other things.

Jen: That's right. Because we all have something called subtraction aversion, where when we're looking for a solution, our tendency is to look for things to add, rather than to look for things to take away. We have an aversion to subtraction.

Pete: Mmm.

Jen: So, the stop is actually a great reminder.

Pete: Right, which is why I think the blank canvas is both amazing and empowering, and also terrifying.

Jen: Yeah. Exactly, exactly.

Pete: Because that means you've said no to all of the things. Yeah.

Jen: Oh my gosh. Wow, Pete, I can't wait to do my habit audit tomorrow. I'm truly committed to doing this. And I've got my little reMarkable tablet here, my favorite thing that I own. I'm going to pull up a template. I'm going to make myself a list during the day. And then the following day, my intention is to go through all of my habits and do a little Continue-Stop-Start habit audit.

Pete: Mmm, love it. I love that framework that you've added on top of the question which prompted this, which is: "If I did not already do this, would I start doing it now?"

Jen: So if you did not already record a podcast with me every single week, would you start doing it now?

Pete: 100%. This is the perfect example of the habit I would continue every single week.

Jen: Yay. Me too.

Pete: I'm not going anywhere, Jen Waldman. Don't you worry.

Jen: And that is The Long and The Short Of It.