Procedures -VS- Habits: Whatever Works

Read time: 3.5 minutes

tl;dr –> check the links

Why do I talk about procedures?

Why not habits?

Here’s why.

There’s what it takes to do the thing.
There’s what it takes to form the habit around doing the thing.

These are entirely different kinds of work.

According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, this checks out.

Procedures:

A particular way of accomplishing something or acting

A series of steps followed in a regular definite order

Habits:

A settled tendency or usual manner of behaviour

An acquired mode of behaviour that has become nearly or completely involuntary

In my world, it’s fair play to stick to the first part.

I like procedures. I’m not anti-habit.

Procedures are micro-projects.

Procedures have a beginning, a middle, and an end.

That’s it.

What People Need In Their Situation

There are reasons to focus on running procedures rather than forming habits.

Maybe you have ADHD and habits are hard if not impossible-feeling.

Maybe you are tired of being told to form a habit. You want some options.

Maybe missing your habit *even once* creates fresh anxiety.

Maybe habit language is not the thing that you need.

For six months during pandemic, I co-facilitated a monthly online support group for women with ADHD. h/t Louise at WAM.

As a woman with ADHD, facilitating that kind of meeting with up to 20 ADHDers taught me a lot about online facilitation and the value of procedures.

It also taught me that many neurodivergent people are tired of hearing that they have to form habits of a certain kind, in a certain way, in order to be successful in a world built for neurotypical folks.

I looked up a few things on this topic, beyond a casual google search. What I found is: Directly focusing on habit formation is only going to work for some people, some of the time.

The rest of us need a detour.

I believe that procedures are one detour.

A Detour Through Procedures

Procedures are valuable b/c they are there when you need them. You can be deliberate.

You look it up and follow the steps.

You set yourself up to do the thing.

You don’t need to make a procedure into a habit.

Sometimes you don’t have to transform into what I call a habitful person.

You follow a sequence. You already know how to do that.

If you forget it and come back to it, you haven’t failed.

That’s because not doing it all the time is built in. Use it when it’s useful.

Whatever works.

Habits Add Extra Commitments

Habits add commitments. There is a huge productivity / self-help industry to help habit-formation customers with the work involved in these commitments.

Sometimes this added layer of commitment is exactly what I need, and sometimes *absolutely not.*

For example: Say I am in a situation that is going sideways. This may not be immediately a great time for me to make a brand new commitment.

–> Including a new commitment to building a new habit that is supposed to get me out of that jam.

I can increase my risk of not doing either one. The thing or the habit-formation.

Often following a procedure doesn’t require a person to make a new commitment.

Procedures First

It’s easier to carry out a procedure in a particular situation when you generally know the steps ahead of time.

–> This is why I share so much about my own process up front.

If you learn a procedure that works for you, maybe you will develop a habit.

It’s not required. And it’s possible.

You’re the one who is going to find out what you need.

And you can.

“Managing Oneself” With Peter Drucker

Sometimes we need novelty in order to keep doing something.

AND: Sometimes we need to know that we can do the same thing, in the same order, and get a certain kind of result. Something simple and reliable.

Both of these needs are built into the way that I work with procedures.

A stable method that’s also spacious.

There needs to be room for *you* based on:

Your strengths
What you care about,
How you operate, and
How you deliver results.

In his classic Harvard Business Review article, “Managing Oneself,” Peter Drucker recommends that we put in the work to understand ourselves this way, in our particularity.

I believe that figuring out how we work with Procedures -VS- Habits is part of this process.

People In The Habit Business

I’m not in the habit business.

A person who *is* in the habit business is James Clear. They are all in. If you need a habit, they are your go-to person. They have a website, a book, a newsletter, an app. It’s all about the habits.

For critical context, some reviewers describe the Atomic Habits book as fat-phobic, reinforcing harmful messaging from diet culture, and not always centring neurodivergent ways of operating. Here’s a sample of these reviews.

Multiple reviews I’ve read say that much of the material is familiar if you have read attention, productivity, and habit-formation self-help books before.

That’s pretty good because there are some tried-and-true methods and research on habit-formation for neurotypical people out there. Along with some solid, basic guidance on getting things done. Putting it all together in one place is great.

It’s good to hear these reminders. For example: “Make it easy” is a theme that came up recently in James Clear’s newsletter. Make it easy is also a core saying in physical rehabilitation. That’s where I picked up *my* Make It Easy motto, as a part of Long Covid recovery.

It sounds like James Clear’s work is well-packaged and witty with some zinger one-liners, and who doesn’t appreciate that. Definitely checkit.

I have no doubt that as a smart person receiving a lot of encouragement, they will respond to the critical context around neurodivergent nuance and fatphobia/diet culture harm in future editions.

You’re Invited! Learn A Procedure: Scaling For Momentum —> July 22nd

Learn a Procedure: Scaling For Momentum

Monday July 22nd, 7pm eastern on Zoom

I’m hosting a Digital Drop-In. You are invited to join. We will run through the Scaling For Momentum procedure described here: https://hilarymartin.ca/scaling-for-momentum/

A Digital Drop-In is a no-cost group facilitation hosted on Zoom. By me!

You learn something new in 20 minutes for free + maybe you meet a few interesting people on a Monday night.

The Digital Drop-In format is:

10 minute overview
10 minute exercise
10 minute debrief (optional)

I stay on the call for 15 minutes after if you have any questions or want to socialize as a group. It’s maximum 45 minutes long.

Info: https://hilarymartin.ca/invites/

This Digital Drop-In is a short, general, skills-building version of a Solutions Session: https://hilarymartin.ca/solutions/

Links In This Post

Procedure definition by Merriam-Webster https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/procedure

Habit definition by Merriam-Webster https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/habit

Women With ADHD Meetup (WAM) Toronto: https://www.meetup.com/WAM-Women-with-ADHD-meetup/

“Managing Oneself” article by Peter Drucker in the Harvard Business Review https://hbr.org/2005/01/managing-oneself

Atomic Habits platform by James Clear: https://jamesclear.com/

StoryGraph App reviews of Atomic Habits with content warnings on fatphobia, diet culture + neurotypicality: https://app.thestorygraph.com/book_reviews/7595d6e0-b75d-4f37-9226-50d5a73851df/content_warning/24

Long COVID and Physical Therapy: A Systematic Review through PubMed: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10660729/

Scaling For Momentum, a standard scaling procedure in my style: https://hilarymartin.ca/scaling-for-momentum/

Digital Drop-In invitation to learn procedures on Zoom with me: https://hilarymartin.ca/invites/