My Bathtub Is Competing With My Writing Habit—Guess Who Won?

Every time my plans suddenly change, and I am home much later than intended, I feel reminded that fortune doesn't favour the bold. Fortune favours the prepared.

Instead of having to write a coherent post and then make it publishable, I can edit something I wrote a couple of days back and leave today’s writing in its first draft.

This workflow has gotten me over a tired evening more than once.

There are still days where I almost miss my "very important things". Right now, for example, it is past 9 PM, and I have not written anything. First, I wanted to go and have a bath but then decided to skip the tub because I knew that writing would only become harder once I went into relax mode.

I love taking bubble baths. They are one of my greatest passions. They soothe me when I am irritable, they help me relax, and they are just generally a very good time for me. Sometimes, I take a bath in the middle of the afternoon for no particular reason. It feels very luxurious. Almost decadent.

A good life definitely involves taking baths during daylight hours.

Writing, on the other hand, is often not nearly as pleasant as taking a hot bath.

Even after two years of daily practice, I struggle. Not with the words, but with the getting to them. Even after so many daily posts, I have not reached the stage of "this is an automatic habit" yet.

So, if you want to know how long it takes to stop questioning a good habit, I don't know.

I know that it took me more than half a year to get to a point where I didn't have to remind myself about the writing. I have not forgotten to do it in a long time. That's good. The first time I broke my writing habit way back when I started, it was because I had just forgotten. Once I missed a day, it was hard to get back into it.

Sometimes, I still don't want to write.

Not in the "I loathe doing it" way, but for sure in the "I would prefer a bath right now" way.

I don't know if it will ever get any better than that.

Perhaps, developing a habit is not about never wanting to break the habit.

It is about never actually breaking it even though you want to.

What makes a habit is not "feeling like doing it", but a choice to keep your commitment to do what you set out to do. The feeling gets you going, but simply ticking off your box every day keeps you on track.

In the end, choosing the writing over the bathwater is all it takes to have a writing habit.

Besides, now I can have a bath at noon tomorrow.