\r\nWritten January 15th, 2026<\/i>\r\n<\/p>\r\nChaotic Discipline<\/h2>\r\n
\r\nA lot of people expressed being impressed with how disciplined I am…and my inclination\r\nis to disagree. I don’t feel disciplined and I can barely keep up with a schedule, or\r\nbeing on top of all the things I should<\/i> be doing. Heck, I can’t even manage to have a\r\nreasonable and stable sleep schedule, even when I actively work on it.\r\n<\/p>
\r\nOn top of those, I can be rather lazy at times, and tend to both procrastinate and waste\r\na ton of time. I also struggle a lot with planning things ahead of time and taking care\r\nof appointments and the likes.\r\n<\/p>
\r\nYet, I can’t deny some of their points, I have<\/i> managed to start a few really good habit,\r\nand keep up with them for an extended period of time, despite how time-consuming they\r\nmight be. For example:\r\n \r\nIt is true that all of those require time, energy and motivation, which is often in\r\nshort supply. Yet, at some point, all four of those were happening concurrently.\r\nTherefore, I must<\/i> be doing something that allows me to get through with these things.\r\nWell…I guess, maybe there is.\r\n<\/p> \r\nI am not organized and I can’t follow a tight schedule. Those sound like prerequisites\r\nfor “traditional discipline”. Yet, one could still argue I’m disciplined, since I know\r\nwhat I need to do and manage to get it done. How?\r\n<\/p> \r\nLet me call this Chaotic Discipline. And honestly, it mainly borne out of stubbornness.\r\nEach habit I’ve started, I did because I cared about them, valued them. And over the\r\npast five years, I’ve acquired a lot of experience related to starting habits…and failing\r\nto keep them going. And the biggest lesson I’ve learned (when it comes to me): \r\nAccordingly, I have only one simple rule for my habits, and it can be rather painful: \r\nThe logical consequence? Plenty of late nights that could otherwise have been avoided.\r\nHowever, I believe it has been worth it so far. Moreover, the pain of those late nights\r\ntends to push me into gradually correcting the habit and handling those tasks earlier\r\nwhen the opportunity presents itself.\r\n<\/p> \r\nObviously, for the sake of motivation, these are habits I care about, habits that\r\nI believe are worth it. If I were instead doing for someone else instead, with a habit\r\nI don’t really care about….well, I’m not sure I could really motivate myself\r\nto keep on going.\r\n<\/p> \r\nAlso note that, while each task is usually<\/i> time-consuming, I tend not to have strict\r\nrequirements on how long<\/i> I will spend on them. On tough days, I tend to be more lenient\r\non myself, and allow for smaller outputs. And that’s ok too. Keeping the habit\r\nalive is what matters! As an example, during a trip to India, there was an evening where\r\nI didn’t have much time to write and was extremely tired already.\r\nI ended up just writing a quick poem in five minutes.\r\nWas that lazy? Maybe. Did it keep the habit alive? It sure did! And it didn’t start a\r\ntrend of only writing short things. When the inspiration comes knocking, I sure\r\nwrote much more than this. And that’s the other thing, sometimes when you get started,\r\nyou have no motivation or energy, but once you’re into it, you’ll feel inspired and motivated,\r\nand do much more than you would have expected!\r\n<\/p> \r\nSo…that’s my secret. I am “disciplined”, but only in-so-much as I won’t allow my habits\r\nto die, no matter the cost. And cost there is! However, the execution is extremely\r\nchaotic, both in terms of how and when I take care of the tasks. Not at all the image of\r\ndiscipline one would envision!\r\n<\/p> \r\nIf you’ve been struggling to start your own habit, consider giving this technique a try,\r\nyou might surprise yourself! Obviously, it working for me does not imply it will for others,\r\nbut still worth a shot!\r\n<\/p> \r\nAnd as always, stay curious and keep striving to improve!\r\n<\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Written January 15th, 2026 Chaotic Discipline A lot of people expressed being impressed with how disciplined I am…and my inclination is to disagree. I don’t feel disciplined and I can barely keep up with a schedule, or being on top of all the things I should be doing. Heck, I can’t even manage to have … Continue reading Chaotic Discipline<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"bgseo_title":"","bgseo_description":"","bgseo_robots_index":"index","bgseo_robots_follow":"follow","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2703","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shawnmeanders.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2703","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shawnmeanders.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shawnmeanders.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shawnmeanders.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shawnmeanders.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2703"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.shawnmeanders.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2703\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2705,"href":"https:\/\/www.shawnmeanders.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2703\/revisions\/2705"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shawnmeanders.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2703"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shawnmeanders.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2703"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shawnmeanders.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2703"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\r\n
\r\nThe biggest way to lose a habit is to skip one single day. One day failed, and I’m too\r\nlenient on myself, allowing another day to pass, then another day, and thus does the habit\r\nwither away and die, collapsing to dust.<\/em>\r\n<\/p>
\r\nNo matter what, I will<\/i> complete my daily task before the end of the day, no\r\nrationalization allowed.<\/em>\r\n*(Do note that I have my own definition of “the end of the day”, and it’s not midnight,\r\nit’s going to bed)\r\n<\/p>