My right arm hurts. Nothing that would make Bruce Willis wince or Steven Seagal squirm or anything… just an niggly ache.
I suspect it might be RSI.
I say “suspect” because my medical training thus far extends to watching 73 episodes of Diagnosis Murder and pretending to listen when my wife’s talking about Grey’s Anatomy.
I dunno what all that equates to. Probably a BTEC in Thoracic Surgery or something.
Anywho… deciding I’m not a big fan of pain, I Googled ouchiness prevention techniques.
Weird wrist stretches seem to be the order of the day.
Good news – I can do them anytime… anywhere. All I have to do is tug my fingers back until tears run down my face… and then dial it back a smidge.
Bad news – even though they’re simple to do, require zero equipment, and don’t need me to time block three hours out of my day…
I’m not going to do them.
I just know I won’t. There’s almost ZERO chance of me remembering.
If I’ve learned one thing about me (and that’s pushing it) it’s – if I’m going to do something – I need to give that something a time and place.
“When I do ____, then I’ll do [THE THING I SHOULD DO]”
I need a cue… something to tell my brain “Wait a second… this reminds me…”.
So when starting a habit, my first task is deciding when and where it’s going to fit in my day.
Dr Google says I need to do these exercises at least once a day, so…
Where’s someplace I go – at LEAST once a day – where I could safely pull back my fingers and squirm without anyone calling the Police?
Like most of life’s problems, the answer was staring me in the arse.
The bog.
Every time I sit on the toilet, I’ll do my wrist exercises.
Now… I really want to burn the imagery of me tugging at my wrist while sitting on the toilet into your brain, so I’m going to type it again…
Every single time I sit on the toilet, I’m grunting and tugging at my fingers.
The great thing is, because the wrist exercises only take a few minutes, it leaves the other 43 minutes for me wide open for me to do other things, like work on my musical.
(a “riches to rags” story of a bookish American president who becomes a Scottish Football sensation for a South Lanarkshire club. Working title: “Academical Hamilton of Hamilton Academical”)
If you’ve got a marketing habit you want to start habituating, the lavatory might not hold the key for you (especially if it’s networking-based, even roomy ensuites get crowded fast and you can guarantee at least half your stash of Charmin double velvet 3-ply will be gone afterwards)…
… but some other bog-standard activity probably does.
“When I’m driving back from the school run, I’m going to plot out today’s email…”
“Every time I boil a kettle, I’ll grab my phone and reach out and warm up one of my weaker connections say “hi” to another human being…”
“While I’m out on the dog walk, I’m going to try and remove the horrific imagery of John sitting on the toilet from my memory…”
I’ve just laid up the perfect transition to talk about something in “Sent.” – my email writing course for business owners who want to write an email that sounds like them… without wanting to get bogged down in all the copywriting bollocks…
… but, as you can see by the lack of a blue, underlined fragment of text…
I despise perfect transitions. Far too easy.
Besides, I’ve just had my morning coffee and can feel a wrist exercise coming on…
John Holt