On Monday morning, Deptford was covered in several inches of snow. The trains and buses were cancelled and I struggled to get on the DLR (Docklands Light Railway). I did make it into the Canary Wharf office and found virtually no-one there. However, there was just about enough public transport running to meet up with an old uni friend. Who was now a TV reporter for the International Channel Shanghai. I did not order steak.

The rest of the week was spend in a (stupid) competition with my friend, Andrew, to see who could wake up within 30 seconds of the alarm. I’m leading by 1 – but my sanity is suffering. Only 20 more days to go.

I can look forward to sleeping in my own bed tonight. No doubt I will want to have a long lie in after a week of having my sleep cut short.

This is actually a bad habit. I feel tired during the week when I need the energy. On the weekends I waste several hours of my precious free time. How do I change?

I’ve been having conversations about habit change with my friend Andrew. We’ve both been inspired by the "4 Hour Work Week" by Tim Ferris. There was a chapter devoted to habit change. I decided to use those principles to achieve two aims:

Be out of bed 30 seconds after the alarm goes off
Sleep for at least 8 hours and only 8 hours

The principles come from the writer of the Zen Habits website: 13 Things to Avoid When Changing Habits

The main principles were:

Keep it simple
Do it for 30 days
Write it down
Make it public

Andrew and I have decided to try for the only one of the habit changes first. You can go to this link and track our progress over the next 30 days.

So far, we are failing miserably!