I only started doing cardio consistently once I paid the upfront cost of trying 14 different pairs of shoes till I found some that made my feet hurt less.
Getting rid of all but ~100 belongings permanently decreased how much time I spend cleaning since the worst things ever get still only takes 10 minutes.
Learning to make 3-4 meals, not in the sense of ‘I know the procedure’ but in the sense of ‘I buy these specific things at these specific stores in these specific quantities and follow this exact procedure each time’ ingrained it into muscle memory enough that it no longer occurs as aversive.
Buying a Reach Access flosser made me floss.
Practicing the muscle memory of opening a new note in my favored note taking app and reducing the number of buttons I need to press to do so eventually bootstrapped to a very robust note taking system.
Learning to make 3-4 meals… in the sense of… muscle memory
I confirm that it makes a different experience when it feels like the cooking (and shopping) can be done by System 1 entirely. Here is a list of trivial inconveniences it removes:
you don’t have to choose from a long list of recipes you know (or you could google); additional criteria like “I have all ingredients at home” and “not the same thing I had yesterday” sometimes immediately narrow it down to 1 choice;
you don’t have to read the recipe to know the list of ingredients; this also adds the meal to the list of things you can buy on impulse;
you don’t have to read the recipe, so you can start cooking immediately;
while cooking, you can talk with other people / think about something / read a book, because only a small fraction of your attention is needed for cooking;
you can do things in parallel, again without paying much attention to it, because you already know there is enough time to do X while waiting for Y.
In practice this means that even having a busy day when my attention and willpower are depleted, cannot stop me from having a healthy meal. As a bonus, my kids love 2 of my muscle-memorized meals, so I don’t have to worry about their reaction.
Thanks for mentioning the 14 pairs of shoes. I felt a bit silly when doing something similar but I realized that while it’s a hassle to carry lots of boxes to and from the local UPS drop off location, I’m not doing anything that is out-of-the-ordinary (if I were buying shoes in person at say, Nordstroms).
To extend your thought a little...if you have any pain walking around and switching shoes doesn’t help or it hurts while walking barefoot, consult a doctor.
Practicing the muscle memory of opening a new note in my favored note taking app and reducing the number of buttons I need to press to do so eventually bootstrapped to a very robust note taking system.
This one is great. Having a hot key for opening your notes in less than a second is crucial.
Never identified from multiple run labs. I do pronate but only slightly. I also tended to ‘kick out’ my right foot on the backswing a bit, and fixing that improved things. But even with good shoes and analysis and practice of running form I can’t run more than 3 miles. Don’t have flat feet.
I settled on Altra shoes, which is one of the few companies making shoes shaped like a human foot as far as I can tell.
after several more years of experiments I was able to run up to 10k with softer shoes and attending closely to how I was tensing my feet slightly, which had a cumulative effect over the distance.
Have you tried barefoot running? I haven’t tried running with shoes on all that much so I don’t have much to compare to but I find barefoot running really fun and anecdotally it seems my knees act up a bit less with it. I was partially inspired to try it originally by:
I only started doing cardio consistently once I paid the upfront cost of trying 14 different pairs of shoes till I found some that made my feet hurt less.
Getting rid of all but ~100 belongings permanently decreased how much time I spend cleaning since the worst things ever get still only takes 10 minutes.
Learning to make 3-4 meals, not in the sense of ‘I know the procedure’ but in the sense of ‘I buy these specific things at these specific stores in these specific quantities and follow this exact procedure each time’ ingrained it into muscle memory enough that it no longer occurs as aversive.
Buying a Reach Access flosser made me floss.
Practicing the muscle memory of opening a new note in my favored note taking app and reducing the number of buttons I need to press to do so eventually bootstrapped to a very robust note taking system.
I confirm that it makes a different experience when it feels like the cooking (and shopping) can be done by System 1 entirely. Here is a list of trivial inconveniences it removes:
you don’t have to choose from a long list of recipes you know (or you could google); additional criteria like “I have all ingredients at home” and “not the same thing I had yesterday” sometimes immediately narrow it down to 1 choice;
you don’t have to read the recipe to know the list of ingredients; this also adds the meal to the list of things you can buy on impulse;
you don’t have to read the recipe, so you can start cooking immediately;
while cooking, you can talk with other people / think about something / read a book, because only a small fraction of your attention is needed for cooking;
you can do things in parallel, again without paying much attention to it, because you already know there is enough time to do X while waiting for Y.
In practice this means that even having a busy day when my attention and willpower are depleted, cannot stop me from having a healthy meal. As a bonus, my kids love 2 of my muscle-memorized meals, so I don’t have to worry about their reaction.
Thanks for mentioning the 14 pairs of shoes. I felt a bit silly when doing something similar but I realized that while it’s a hassle to carry lots of boxes to and from the local UPS drop off location, I’m not doing anything that is out-of-the-ordinary (if I were buying shoes in person at say, Nordstroms).
To extend your thought a little...if you have any pain walking around and switching shoes doesn’t help or it hurts while walking barefoot, consult a doctor.
This one is great. Having a hot key for opening your notes in less than a second is crucial.
What was the root cause of your feet hurting?
I’m going through the same thing, but don’t know if I’ve found the right pair of shoes—I have flat feet and tend to overpronate
Never identified from multiple run labs. I do pronate but only slightly. I also tended to ‘kick out’ my right foot on the backswing a bit, and fixing that improved things. But even with good shoes and analysis and practice of running form I can’t run more than 3 miles. Don’t have flat feet.
I settled on Altra shoes, which is one of the few companies making shoes shaped like a human foot as far as I can tell.
after several more years of experiments I was able to run up to 10k with softer shoes and attending closely to how I was tensing my feet slightly, which had a cumulative effect over the distance.
Have you tried barefoot running? I haven’t tried running with shoes on all that much so I don’t have much to compare to but I find barefoot running really fun and anecdotally it seems my knees act up a bit less with it. I was partially inspired to try it originally by:
https://www.ted.com/talks/christopher_mcdougall_are_we_born_to_run?language=en
I tried 3 different barefoot shoes. I like them for grass and sand.