Smartwatch and Discipline

As I am a runner and I believe in being physically active, I wear a smart watch. I have been wearing it from the past 2 years and it has become a part of the lifestyle now. A very surprising series of events happened with me few days back, which gave me an amazing life lesson. Through this blog, I want to share the same with you.

My routine involved the following:

1.     Running/ Walk

2.     Workouts

3.     Eating Healthy Food and Fruits

4.     Working towards my goals

5.     Reading books or listening to audiobooks

6.     Practice public speaking

7.     Meditation

These were few things I was doing every day and I was progressing in my work, health and overall quality of life.

Then suddenly 1 day I noticed that half of my smart watch’s screen is becoming grey. I restarted my watch and after sometime, it was again going grey. I still survived with it somehow. But the grey part was slowly increasing in it and covered 75%. It means that 75% smart watch’s screen was not working. So I took off my watch and kept it in the drawer. I thought of getting it repaired but due to work load and procrastination, I didn’t take it to the service center.

It remained in my drawer for almost 20 days. Things I noticed in those 20 days:

1.     My work productivity went down by at least 60%

2.     I went for running just once in 20 days

3.     I didn’t go to the gym

4.     I ate fast food and order food from restaurants frequently

5.     I didn’t eat fruits

6.     My sugar intake rose 300%

7.     As I was not running, my consumption of audiobooks and podcasts went down by 75% to 80%

8.     I practiced Public Speaking only twice

9.     I was irregular for meditation

10.  I got up late

Basically, my life was in a mess. I felt disillusioned and got really worried. I used to wake up everyday with full enthusiasm but within next 30 minutes or so, I felt the day slipping from my hands. And it slipped so badly that I was unable to catch it till late night.

So after 20 days, I tried wearing my watch again. It worked fine!! Maybe because it got shut down and remained like it for 15 days. My life is back on track from that day. I feel guilty of wasting those 20 days of my life which could have been very useful in reaching towards my goals. But because of this problem, I learned about ‘Smart Watch Concept’ which I have named as ‘Habits Anchor’.

Habit Anchors can be anything which keeps the entire routine up and running. If you discontinue the anchor, the entire series of activities gets disrupted and leads to mismanagement.

Have you also felt the same? If yes, write back to me and let me know what has been your Habit Anchors?