wbc;49798 said:
- How have you developed or are still developing your self-discipline?
- Do you know good blogs about getting self-discipline?
- Do you know good books about getting self-discipline?
- Do you have other tips and tricks?
-wbc
wbc,
"Self-discipline" is a complex notion. Thinkers since at least the time of Plato, have pointed out that both the person meting out the discipline and the person being disciplined are the same. So, in a sense, we have multiple selves and one of them is disciplining the other.
Most of us who participate in this forum live in highly competitive societies. A big part of the appeal of GTD is that it will help us become more productive, hence, more competitive. Of course, it is the nature of our market societies, that one can never rest on one's laurels. The market rewards constant improvement. So restless dissatisfaction with one's level of discipline and productivity is a given. I might have been doing very well yesterday, but today my competitors have caught up to me and now I must meet their challenge.
With that preamble, I have three books that I highly recommend. I first learned of all three of these books on this forum. The first one is
Self-Help Without the Hype, by Robert Epstein (out of print but I got it on Amazon). Like most effective learning tools, it is incredibly simple to understand. It's written at a third-grade level. It outlines some of the basics of behaviorism as developed by B. F. Skinner. I have always rejected behaviorism as a theory of mind and found many of its implications about human nature, culture, and politics repulsive. But behaviorism has areas where it can be incredibly powerful and useful.
This book suggests that you do 3 things to develop self-discipline: modify your environment, monitor your behavior, and make a commitment to others. There are no formulas for carrying out these recommendations. You need to experiment and find out what works best for you. By far, I have found the "monitor your behavior" aspect to be supremely effective for me. For example, one facet of GTD that I have always had difficulty with was getting to "zero base," that is regularly processing my in-boxes, physical and e-mail. So one year, I set my goal to be "Get to zero base at least once a week." I then monitored my behavior by logging how many times I got to zero base. The next year I upped my goal to getting to zero at least twice a week.
Writing stuff down is a very effective way to change behavior.
The second book I would strongly recommend is David D. Burns's
The Feeling Good Handbook. Just as Epstein showed how to develop self-discipline using the methods of behaviorist psychology, this book by Burns shows how to develop self-discipline using a more cognitive approach. The goal of self-discipline is to change one's behavior. But our thoughts mediate our behavior. Burns's method shows how to change one's thoughts so that they enhance one's self-discipline. By changing one's thoughts, one can modify one's emotions and one's behavior. This is an effective method for becoming more disciplined.
Both the Burns book and the Epstein book affected me in a manner similar to the GTD book. As soon as I used them I recognized how powerful and effective they were. The last book,
The Now Habit by Neil Fiore, was different. I did not get much out of it the first time I read it. But upon rereading it, I realized that it had some pearls of wisdom that I had missed. The most important thing I learned from Fiore was that it's OK to spend time not working. In fact, it's
essential to spend time not working. What's more, it is important to learn how to use this nonworking time to enhance one's self discipline.
I had always read in other books that it's a good idea to reward oneself after one finishes a big project, like some 3-month project. And these books usually tell you to buy yourself something, or eat something good. What I learned from Fiore was that I need to find out what my own rewards are and I can use these rewards multiple times throughout the day, if need be. Those rewards can be determined by looking at what one does frequently. So, wbc, if you find that you spend a lot of time reading the GTD forum, instead of doing your research paper, then perhaps reading the GTD forum (or writing to it) would be something you could use as a reward. What helps is to keep track of what you are doing when you are not disciplined. These activities will probably make good rewards. So you could promise yourself that after doing 30 minutes of research, you will spend 15 minutes surfing the web.
Lastly, I would suggest you embrace the principle espoused by Charles Darwin, that great changes can come about by the accumulation over time of many small changes. In other words, if you are getting 45 minutes of real work done per day, set yourself a realistic goal for next week. Maybe you want to increase it by 33% to 60 minutes a day. In a couple of months you can see enormous change.
Now, for short answers to your questions. My self-discipline has increased enormously after using GTD and the methods of the books I mentioned. But I would like to see it increase even more. I try to preserve my good habits and slowly work to reduce my less-good habits.
I don't know any good blogs for this. I think that reading blogs can serve as a reward but it's not clear to me that reading blogs is an effective way to develop one's self-discipline. I can learn much more from a few good books than from thousands of blog entries.
I know 3 good books and they are the ones I mentioned above.
Tips and tricks: monitor or log the time you spend doing research (or whatever it is your goal is). Buy
The Feeling Good Handbook. Start reading it and complete it within one month of starting it. Do
all the exercises contained in it. Determine what activities you engage in frequently when you wish you had been working instead. Call those activities rewards. Allow yourself
x minutes of reward activity after you've engaged in
y minutes of work activity. Note, don't expect to
fee like working before you work. Learn to accept that it's OK to start working before you feel like starting. In the words of David Burns, "Action precedes motivation." You are much more likely to feel like doing research after you've done it for 15 minutes.
Good luck! And keep us informed of your progress.