There are a couple of schools of thought when it comes to habit forming. How do you get over that initial friction, until you’ve repeated something enough that it becomes second nature? One is that you must exercise willpower. Set those reminders, make yourself stick to the schedule, keep hitting that rock until it breaks.

The other approach contends that willpower isn’t really a thing - some people just find this stuff easier, and like to dress up that natural aptitude as virtue. So, instead of fighting your natural inclinations and forcing through the obstacles, find ways to remove them. Get your running gear laid out the night before, so when you wake up and really can’t be bothered the barrier to entry to doing the right thing is that much lower. That feels like the better approach to me — dig a little channel on the beach, and the ocean quickly follows the path of least resistance.

All of this preamble is to say, I have recently bought myself a shiny new laptop computer, and this is actually a very smart and justifiable decision, rather than a frivolous and exorbitant expense.

Hear me out. The ‘going for a run’ I want to do is switching my idle scrolling time to stuff more useful and fulfilling¹: writing little thoughts like this blog and maybe something more substantial, getting on top of some admin rather than putting it off, and generally being more mindful and intentional about my unstructured free time. The ‘laying out my running clothes’ is having something I can pick up on the sofa and get straight into it.

My work laptop is more locked down than it used to be. The windows desktop is great for games but going on it feels like a Whole Thing - going to a different room, booting it up, sitting at the same desk I just spent the day working at. The phone is full of all the usual awful apps, and as a millennial, certain tasks just need the Big Computer. I wanted something which was easy to grab at a moment’s notice, but big and powerful enough to do proper productive stuff. I landed on the normie choice, the Macbook Air².

I’m hoping this has the desired effect (and look, I’m writing a blog right now!), but worst case scenario, I have a little toy to play with. Like digging that channel on the beach and watching the water flow through it, setting yourself up to form better habits can be fun! Work with the person you are, rather than punishing yourself for not being someone else.