A little over 100 days ago, someone posted about 750words.com on FM. My writing has been sporadic at best lately.  I checked out the site.  The site author compared it to morning pages, but he does oh so much more.  He keeps stats and he offers badges for achieving various feats at the site.  I figured, why not?

So I logged in and began writing.  Mostly, I’m using the site just like morning pages are intended — a way to brain dump whatever is in my head, so it usually is an enumeration of what I did that day, what I plan to do that day, what I plan to do tomorrow, some gripes, some things I like — just whatever I can dump out of my head.  Sometimes it’s character ideas.  Sometimes it may be related to writing or something else, but I do it every day.  Today, I passed the 100 day streak point.  I have written every single day since I started.  I didn’t think I’d be able to do it while I was on vacation, but I found a way to keep the streak alive.  Now that I have the MiFi and the Keyboard Dock, I have no excuse for not writing while on vacation next month or any other month.  I have, sometimes written offline and copied and pasted to the website when I’ve been able to get on line.  That messes up the stats a little, but it all counts.

It’s been pretty easy to write every day.  But it would be just as easy not to write.  And that brings me to my next step.  At the end of August, Buster (the site developer) posted an experiment he’s running called Health Month. It’s a game, and I’m pretty sure it’s more than experiment — he plans to support his family with it.  It has Do Rules and Don’t Rules.  You pick the rules you want to follow that month and log them.  You either earn points or lose points based upon how well you follow your rules.  Other game players can help you, and you can help other players.  The idea is if it’s fun, you’ll do it, and you might establish some healthier habits.  If you have three or fewer rules, the game is free.  If you have more than three rules or join a team, it costs $5 per month (or $50 per year).

For now, I’m playing the free version of the game.  I started at 750words.com for free and eventually decided to support the effort with patronage.  I may or may not decide to do so with Health Month.

What’s the correlation between the two?  I have had success with weight loss and other health initiatives in the past (distant past), and when it was going well, it seemed easy — just as easy at writing 750 words a day.  But when it was hard, it was impossible — just like not writing 750 words a day.  But the challenge with health initiatives is, they can seem overwhelming.  People always say you didn’t get overweight overnight, so don’t expect to lose weight overnight.  Yeah.  I get that.  But it seems like too much, so I wonder why I bother.  But, really, if you don’t bother, will you be in a better situation in six months?  A year?  No.

But what if you do one thing.  Do it regularly enough that it isn’t a problem anymore.  Yeah, you could quit doing it, but why?  It’s become an ingrained habit.  It’s easier just to do the thing.  Then you add one more thing.  Eventually, you’re doing all the things you’re supposed to be doing, and before you know it, you’ve accomplished your goal.  It may take two or three or five years — maybe even more than that, but if you didn’t do the one thing, would you ever accomplish the goal?  Probably not.  In fact, I’m certain not.

So, I’ve added three rules in Health Month for the month of October.  They aren’t difficult rules.  In fact, I’ve done them before or I could do them easily if I just made sure I did them.  Since I’ve gotten my mouthguard, brushing my teeth every day became a no-brainer.  It’s always been something I should do, but I had a tendency to let it slide.  For some reason, I didn’t want to put a clean mouthguard into a dirty mouth before bed, so I immediately began brushing every night.  Just like that.  Easy as can be.  Then my dentist got back onto me about flossing.

I floss, but, if I’m honest, I don’t floss nearly as often as I should.  But how easy if flossing?  Easy as can be, isn’t it?  So it’s just a matter of triggering the reminder to do it.  That’s one goal for next month.  Floss every day.  Easy as can be, right?  Just do it.

The second rule is Track Your Meals Everyday.  I’ve done this before, but I’ve slacked off.  I have an iPad app that makes this fairly easy.  Actually, I have three iPad apps for doing this, but only one works offline.  Just need to do it.  I’m re-establishing the habit this month.  It’s a foundation thing.  I’ll build upon it.

The third rule is Read for Thirty Minutes Each Day.  I enjoy reading.  I’d been doing it, then I got caught up in other iPad activities and let it slide.  I’m looking forward to getting back into reading each day during next month.

I’ve refined rules all month — I began with different rules (except for flossing — I wanted to get that one down, but I started with six days a week, and I decided it was important to do it every day).  The rules I started with were good rules, but I’ll be traveling for half the month, and I was setting myself up for failure.  No reason to do that.

I’ll do these rules until, like 750words.com (write 750 words per day is one rule option), they get too easy or I’m motivated to do them for other reasons than the game.  Then I’ll add more rules designed to BabyStep my way to better health.  See?  Health Month fits right into FlyLady.