Better Than Before: What I Learned About Making and Breaking Habits--to Sleep More, Quit Sugar, Procrastinate Less, and Generally Build a Happier Life

by Gretchen Rubin

First things first—but we must all decide what comes first, for us.

I’d been treating as a bad habit, but it’s not a bad habit, it’s a good habit—my habit of wandering through the library stacks to look at whatever titles catch my eye. I love doing this, and I’ve found a surprising number of good books this way. I’d always considered it an inefficient use of time, but actually it was a perfect distraction. The fact is, I can’t write for three hours straight, or for even forty-five minutes. I need a lot of breaks. It’s a Secret of Adulthood: To keep going, I sometimes need to allow myself to stop.

I love the monkish horarium, or “table of hours,” the highly specific routine that runs on an annual cycle, with variations for the days of the week and the seasons. Every part of the day has its own character and purpose, with time set aside for prayer, manual work, rest, eating, sleeping. Few decisions, no hurry, time for everything.

Research suggests that when we have conflicting goals, we don’t manage ourselves well. We become anxious and paralyzed, and we often end up doing nothing.

Like Buridan’s Ass, the donkey that starves because it can’t decide between two bales of hay, I become paralyzed by indecision.