I have a little rag-bag task list of things I do on the regular; I call them my “dailies,” and they use up a good chunk of my morning. Some of them, you wouldn’t think I would have to keep on a list; “make coffee” for instance. I don’t have any problem remembering to have a cup of strong coffee first thing. In fact, I should have “put in hearing aids” first on my list instead, because I keep forgetting to do that all the time. This morning, when I played a podcast, I thought for a minute that my wireless living room speaker was broken, but it was just that I couldn’t hear any of the higher frequencies, so it sounded like someone talking underwater. But if I put “make coffee” on my list, it gets me started, and I have a little momentum.

The next daily task, one I am more likely to forget without a great deal of effort, is “scrape cat litter.” The litter pan is in the basement to protect Uncle Louie’s delicate sensibilities; I have almost never witnessed him using it, because he is a very cautious soul (he was clearly “second cat” in his previous home, and bullied), but he does use it. Neither Louie nor I wants to have to think about that, but there you are.

The rest of the things I have on my list are tiny long-term challenges. The list changes from time to time, but currently, every day I listen to a short podcast in French, write in my journal, make a blog post, draw something, do a math lesson in Khan Academy, work on the current novel, plan my day, and (after 4:00) do my stretches.

I keep my expectations deliberately low, and each of those tasks counts as completed if I spend five minutes on it. No word count for the writing tasks. Only one lesson and one five-minute podcast. Did I do it or didn’t I? That’s all that matters.

If I sketch something in the margin of my journal, that counts as drawing something. If I go through what I wrote on the novel yesterday and fix a handful of errors, that counts as novel-writing.

Somehow each task grows leaves and roots and takes way longer than planned, though. Journaling, for instance, only requires writing the date and jotting down a few thoughts. Except currently, it also involves writing the date in Blackletter Gothic with an italic pen, making an accurate drawing of one of my beetles in resin I keep in a box, reflecting on the previous day, planning the current one, and thinking about the projects I have in mind. I usually write at least two pages in my tidy cursive script, with one of my fountain pens, but sometimes I write ten pages. And I end each entry with my current set of mantras, things I want to keep in mind, like “I have enough” (which I want to say to myself when an ad catches my eye or I go into a store), or “I don’t need to know” (for when I get sucked into doomscrolling).

So somehow, when I close my journal, it’s half an hour or an hour later.

I would still be content if all I wrote was the date and “nothing much happened yesterday, no time to reflect,” though, and that’s my key to maintaining a habit: Lowered expectations. Just showing up.

I highly recommend half-assing it as a spiritual practice. There is never enough time to do things properly, so the hell with it, do it improperly.