Merge branch 'Women-Coding-Community:main' into main

Author: rajashreemunoli

_posts/2025-07-02-habits-challenge-lessons.html

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+---
+layout: post
+title: Breaking the Procrastination Cycle
+date: 2025-07-02
+author_name: Silke Nodwell
+author_role: Lead at Women Coding Community
+blurb_img: /assets/images/blog/2025-07-02-habits-challenge-lessons.jpg
+blurb_img_source:
+description: Lessons from Our 4-Week Habit Challenge
+category: Productivity
+---
+
+<div class="text-justify">
+    <p>There is magic in believing you can become a better version of yourself.</p>
+
+    <p>We have all felt this magic on New Year’s Eve — the thrill of a fresh start and the promise of finally becoming the person we aspire to be. But that excitement often gives way to dismay a few weeks later when we realise, once again, that deeply ingrained habits won't change just because the calendar did.</p>
+
+    <p>As a pragmatist, I generally avoided New Year’s resolutions. I certainly avoided publicising them. The fear of disappointment felt too great.</p>
+
+    <p>But after our recent book club on <a href="https://jamesclear.com/atomic-habits" target="_blank"><em>Atomic Habits</em> by James Clear</a>, I decided to run a four-week habit challenge with the Women Coding Community. The concept was simple: each participant wrote down their name and the habits they wanted to form in a shared spreadsheet. Progress would be tracked daily and weekly.</p>
+
+    <p>The timing was perfect. I had recently joined an LLM Engineering course in the community but had struggled to get started. So my first habit was: <strong>15 minutes of LLM Engineering study per day</strong>. Following Clear’s advice, I made it as easy as possible — not quite the 2-minute version he recommends, but 15 felt like the sweet spot: long enough to get immersed, short enough to feel easy.</p>
+
+    <p>My second habit was more ambitious: <strong>waking up at 5:30 a.m. every day except Saturday</strong>. I had done this occasionally when work piled up, and I loved the feeling of accomplishing something significant before the world was awake.</p>
+
+    <p>And the third: <strong>15 minutes of strength or stretching exercises twice a week</strong>. I am a runner, and I know strength training prevents injury and improves speed — but I find these exercises incredibly dull. Still, surely I could manage 15 minutes.</p>
+
+    <h3><strong>So… Did It Work?</strong></h3>
+
+    <p>Yes and no. I did not have a 100% success rate. But I did make meaningful changes — some I had not anticipated.</p>
+
+    <p><strong>The most impactful shift?</strong> I began using a timer — setting it for 15 minutes (or even just 5 or 10 minutes) whenever a task felt overwhelming. This simple trick helped me <em>start</em>, which was often the hardest part. In fact, this article was written with the help of a 10-minute timer.</p>
+
+    <p><strong>The exercise habit?</strong> I “cheated” — by getting a gym membership at a place with a strict no-cancellation policy for classes within 4 hours. No room for last-minute hesitation. Of course it is not really cheating. But booking 2–3 fitness classes per week was <em>far</em> easier than convincing myself to work out at home. And being in a group setting naturally pushed me harder.</p>
+
+    <p><strong>The 5:30 a.m. wake-ups</strong> lasted about a week before I revised my goal to 6:30. As much as I loved those early mornings, I was too short on sleep to continue. Still, waking up at 6:30 has become a welcome and sustainable habit.</p>
+
+    <p>In the end, it was the <strong>LLM study</strong> goal that led to the most impactful shift in my morning routine. Instead of taking my latte to go, I brought my laptop and stayed at the café. That small change created a space for focus, and what began as 15-minute study sessions soon turned into 1–2.5 hour stretches of deep, uninterrupted work.</p>
+
+    <p>Ironically, the LLM study habit worked <em>too</em> well — I made real progress in the course but began falling behind on other commitments, including my volunteer work for Women Coding Community.</p>
+
+    <p>I went from squeezing in an hour of volunteering in the evenings to regularly spending 8 to 17 hours a week at coffee shops — learning, organising events, and steadily working through the most tedious items on my to-do list.</p>
+
+    <h3><strong>The Result?</strong></h3>
+
+    <p>I feel different. I feel capable. I created space in my week to actually follow through on the things I care about — and that has transformed my self-esteem. The cycle of procrastination has started to reverse.</p>
+
+    <p>We might not be able to reinvent ourselves overnight. But we <em>can</em> keep experimenting — and the more we try, the more we learn what works for our unique personalities. When we find those tiny shifts that lead to meaningful results… that really <em>does</em> feel like magic.</p>
+</div>