
Ask HN: What is your experience with 'doing something' daily challenges? - plankton_sb
I&#x27;m curious what are results, your experiences with daily blogging, taking photos, drawing etc. challanges. How long have you tried it, any suprising results, did the end results of this process met your expectations?
======
eterpstra
I've been having a good experience with duolingo so far. The lessons are short
enough to not impose, and the difficulty curve is very low, so I don't dread
getting everything wrong. I've been at it for two months, and have never
missed more than one day at a time. I doubt I'll ever achieve fluency with the
app alone, but I'd feel comfortable as a tourist.

This is somewhat surprising to me, as I've tried (and failed) to build a daily
habit of journaling and mindful meditation, but they never stuck for more than
a couple weeks, despite only being 10 minutes a day.

~~~
bonniemuffin
I was also thinking of Duolingo as a really successful example of this. My
daily commitment is less than 5 minutes, but I often end up doing some extra
once I get started.

Language learning is particularly good for the "little bit every day" method,
because I find that I can only retain a little bit of new information in a
single session (so there's no point in studying for an hour straight), but
daily repetition really helps it sink into my long-term memory.

------
ianamartin
I get up every day. I go to work every day. I listen to music that I like
every day. I make music. I make things every day. I write code every day. I
manage people every day. I care about my family every day.

The hardest thing for me every day is actually caring about anything. Because
I don't really care. I pretend to care. But I don't really.

Because I don't want to be here. I'm just stuck.

~~~
kjax
This really resonated. I wish I knew a term for "everything is just fine
(objectively great, even), but I couldn't care less."

~~~
ianamartin
Hi kjax,

Listen, if you want to talk, I'm all ears. You can email me or you can even
call me. I don't have answers. I really don't. But I'm more than happy to talk
about questions. Or anything, really.

------
josscrowcroft
I've been writing Morning Pages (3 x A4 pages, hand-written) every day for
almost three years. Sometimes I do them in the afternoon or evening, or right
before bed.

Sometimes I'll only do one page, sometimes ten... A month or two ago I spent a
month writing about 20 pages a day of "morning pages" after a few intense
experiences.

After a month or so I didn't need to think about it any more, and now I can't
imagine not doing it. Every morning, wake up, make coffee, write, then start
the day. I find my life is richer and deeper as a result.

~~~
Broken_Hippo
I've a question: Do you limit your topics or simply write whatever you are
thinking about? Do you set a timer?

~~~
josscrowcroft
Good question! Neither. I write whatever is on my mind, it changes day-to-day.
It's sometimes logical, rational things, plans for the day or week or a
project, and sometimes it's dream recall from the night before, or pennies
that have dropped, sometimes it's stream-of-consciousness, nonsense, or just
fiction. I'll usually shift between these and page 2-3 tend to be more 'out
there' and get to the deeper stuff going on in my life. I don't set a timer,
but the process generally takes 25-30 minutes on an average day.

The key is to write without editing and as much as possible, without stopping
to think or read.

I learnt about the practice in The Artist's Way about 3 years ago. I think
this is the most up-to-date website about it:
[http://juliacameronlive.com/basic-tools/morning-
pages/](http://juliacameronlive.com/basic-tools/morning-pages/)

~~~
Broken_Hippo
Thanks! I might have to give this a try. I've been considering writing more,
and this seems like it would be fitting for me.

------
tgb
I was doing the 750 words writing challenge for several months.
([http://750words.com/](http://750words.com/) for example.) It was pleasant,
and I used it as a good time to write explicitly about things I was thinking
about. I used it to make a lot of self-evaluations (eg: which purchases have I
made recently were worthwhile and which were not? What does that tell me about
what I should buy in the future? The answer for me was that upgrades weren't
worth it unless there was significant frustration caused by the item it was
upgraded. Going from an OK mouse to a nice one doesn't change anything even
though it feels like it will. But going from a mouse where the right button
doesn't register half the time to an OK mouse is worth it.)

I worry that it might have reinforced some thoughts I was having at the time
that were counter-productive, and in the end opening up to a friend was more
beneficial than writing about it. YMMV

------
armenarmen
I wrote 1000 words a day for three months and had the rough draft of a novel
to show for it. Felt pretty good, it was the combo of "get 1000 on the paper"
and "it's ok if it's dog shit" that really helped me get it

------
chubot
I decided to blog every day about my open source shell project, and I did it
for 10 days straight at first, and was doing it multiple times a week for over
a month.

It helped me break up a lot of longer articles I wanted to write into daily
"deadlines". In that sense it was a success; it took significant work but I
got in the rhythm.

I've only blogged once in the last week, but that's because I mostly wrote
about what I wanted to. Now I have to do some more coding in order to have
things to write about.

I just checked the logs and people seem to be still reading it despite the
fact that I haven't promoted it lately. And I've gotten some e-mails and
feedback about it, so I think it went well. Next step is to set up a comments
section.

[http://www.oilshell.org/blog/](http://www.oilshell.org/blog/)

------
Raed667
I have started this yesterday : 30 Day Vanilla JS Coding Challenge [0].
Learning vanilla JS with some pretty cool projects.

I have also had a lot of free time lately so I have tried to build a few small
things: simple web applications, IoT, crytpo experiments, hybrid mobile
apps...

It is useful to keep busy...

[0] [https://javascript30.com/](https://javascript30.com/)

------
Broken_Hippo
Some years ago I started drawing or painting every day. 15 minutes some days,
hours on others. I've always done artwork, but never quite been this prolific.
It wasn't really a formal thing to begin with, just something I started doing
one day.

And am quite happy with the results.

My art improved and is probably more creative. Not only that, but I started
taking more risks and moving out of my comfort zone. Some days, I just don't
know what to draw when I'm staring at the paper - like writers block. But I
make a few lines anyway and see what I can build from there.

I don't know if I'm surprised at results or not, just pleased.

~~~
ai_ia
As someone with no artistic talent, I would love to see the improvements. I
myself would like to do something similar. Can you upload your before and
after arts that you have made?

~~~
Broken_Hippo
Somewhat - I don't keep dated picture files. And keep in mind, I started oil
painting at 8 years old, taken as much instruction as I could, and sold and
stuff, so what you and I would see as improvement might differ quite a bit.
Plus as a beginner, you wind up with different sorts of improvement goals.

But nevertheless, three links. I've only started with watercolors a few years
ago, about the same time I started doing daily art, so some of this is
learning to control it properly. The first link was near the beginning, the
second quite a bit later, and the third being one of my most recent pictures.

[1][http://disgruntled-
peon.deviantart.com/art/Untitled-60354744...](http://disgruntled-
peon.deviantart.com/art/Untitled-603547440?q=Disgruntled-
Peon%2F58548521&qo=54) [2] [http://disgruntled-
peon.deviantart.com/art/Eyes-619929715?q=...](http://disgruntled-
peon.deviantart.com/art/Eyes-619929715?q=Disgruntled-Peon%2F58548521&qo=16)
[3][http://disgruntled-peon.deviantart.com/art/Fortunate-
Sight-6...](http://disgruntled-peon.deviantart.com/art/Fortunate-
Sight-632911986?q=Disgruntled-Peon%2F58548521&qo=8)

~~~
ai_ia
These are good. Nice job Man.

~~~
Broken_Hippo
Thank you.

------
selmat
From my experience .... for example daily writing improved my thinking and
articulating ideas and thoughts.

Also design and making hardware staff with wood and steel improved my
imagination and thinking about how things works.

You don't see overnight success...but if you compare your outcome from three
of eight years ago you will see amazing difference in quality.

How long it take? It depends on area. Something can be mastered within hours,
something within years. Do you know 10,000 hour rule? It is exactly what you
are looking for.

So, answer is yes...practice makes perfect.

------
spodek
My daily habits are one of the best parts of my life. Without them, I feel
like I'm running in sand in life. With them, I feel like I have solid
foundation to build on. With a few challenging ones, I feel like I'm building
on bedrock.

I've coined the term _sidcha_ for Self-Imposed Daily Challenging Healthy
Activity and written about the concept:
[http://joshuaspodek.com/js_blogseries/self-imposed-daily-
cha...](http://joshuaspodek.com/js_blogseries/self-imposed-daily-challenging-
healthy-activity-sidcha-series)

My main challenging habits are

\- Burpees, daily

\- Blog posts, daily

\- Cold showers, every fourth day

I did my first set of daily burpees December 22, 2011 and haven’t missed one
since, so I’m about to enter my 6th year of that habit, nearing 80,000
cumulative burpees. I've written about it:
[http://joshuaspodek.com/js_blogseries/burpees](http://joshuaspodek.com/js_blogseries/burpees)

I started posting daily on my blog,
[http://joshuaspodek.com](http://joshuaspodek.com), in January 2011 and
haven’t missed a day since, so I’m about to enter my 7th year of that habit,
nearing 2,500 cumulative posts. Here's an archive of all the posts:
[http://joshuaspodek.com/archives](http://joshuaspodek.com/archives)

I took my first cold shower in December 2013. I did them daily for a month and
every fourth day since, so I just started my 4th year of doing them regularly,
nearing 300 of them cumulatively. My posts about it:
[http://joshuaspodek.com/js_blogseries/cold-showers-
rock#30-d...](http://joshuaspodek.com/js_blogseries/cold-showers-rock#30-days-
cold-showers-review-lessons-discipline-pleasure)

Less challenging habits include things like brushing and flossing daily,
cooking healthy meals daily, and others that aren’t as remarkable, though I’ve
done them longer. The last time I went to sleep without brushing my teeth
would have been in college, which would be around 1990.

Come to think of it, if you count not eating meat as a habit, I’ve eaten no
meat since 1990.

~~~
kjax
I was interested in reading more about your Burpee habit, but the email signup
form was getting a bit obnoxious. When I scrolled down, the sticky header for
the subscription box had the "X" offset under the scrollbar, making it tough
to hide (Nexus 6P), and successive pages repeated the experience.

------
will_brown
I ran every single day from August 27 - November 27.

First month 3 miles every day, then 5, then 7, then mix 5/7, then 10 everyday
for over 10 days.

There are a lot of other "daily rituals" I have added in the past 6-9 months
including vitamin supplements daily (fish oil, B (12 or energy complex); C;
D). But what triggered the daily running was my discovery of raw, green
vegetable juice and followed thereafter by daily eating of daily salad(s).
Basically I attributed the ability to do the daily running with the daily
juicing. I never felt so good so I just tried short runs everyday to start and
kept adding miles, by the time I was doing 10 mile bridge runs back to back to
back and not experiencing and aches/pains/soreness even I was curious how far
I could take it (maybe train for my first ultra).

The only reason I stopped running daily was because of a stye that got badly
infected, and I took about 10 days off. I am back running everyday so wish me
luck.

~~~
borplk
If you feel like elaborating on the juice stuff you mentioned I'd like to know
more (I'm hopeless with these things, trying to learn).

~~~
will_brown
So I have been running and experimenting with different nutrition concepts to
fuel, hydrate and recover from runs for 3 years.

Even though I settled on "caveman" for the most effective for me, I always
felt I neglected vegetables (always opting for some version of cooked
broccoli). Always trying to keep an open mind I watched 2 documentaries on
netflix that encouraged me to broaden my horizons with vegetables. The one
about juicing I will point to is "Fat, Sick and Dying". I'll admit I am about
as skeptical about these things as anyone, and sure enough the documentary is
kind of a PR piece, but there is also some good basic concepts and
introduction to the possibilities. However, keep in mind there is a difference
from drinking juice (what I do) and a juice cleanse (only drinking juice,
which is what the documentary is about).

I could go on for hours about this stuff now, but the most important thing to
note is I am still experimenting.

Edit:

My current juice routine: morning -water w/table spoon of chia seeds + black
coffee + 4 oz almond/coconut milk blend + 4 oz Suja Uber Greens (the
commercial coldpressed, raw, green juice I get). Before my run - 4 oz
almond/coconut milk blend + 4 oz Suja Uber Greens and then the same again
after my run. With that I routine I have eliminated all sports drinks,
electrolyte water and pain/soreness from my life. I don't even need to hydrate
on 10 mile runs anymore (though for 10+ miles I will drink a coconut water
before the run). Obviously I eat and drink a lot more water throughout the
day.

------
pryelluw
Im vlogging everyday. Every. Day. Its hard. Not all content is great. But Im
learning a lot and making progress. Results so far have been better than I
thought. People are starting to engage my content. Ive also motivated others
to vlog as well. You should try it.

------
osoba
I've been learning french on Duolingo for a about a year now. Usually I take
one or two 5 minute lessons per day for a week and then spend a week
"strengthening skills" (reviewing old material). It says I am on 54% fluency
atm.

A few weeks ago I tried going though a math course in french (Initiation à la
théorie des distributions on Coursera) and was surprised that I actually
managed to understand it. (although I have to listen to it at 1x speed and
with french subtitles so it is much slower than leaning in english)

~~~
pimlottc
The issue I had with Duolingo is that after a while I had advanced to a point
where the bulk of my time was spent reviewing past lessons which didn't leave
much time for new lessons (which added to the burden of lessons to review).
Perhaps I shouldn't have been worried about it but the gamification is quite
effective at making me feel bad for not having all my lessons at 100%.

------
adictator
For the last two years I have been doing well formed pull-ups almost everyday.
I could not do a single pull-up on Dec 31, 2014. Today I can do 5 perfect
formed pull-ups.

~~~
jspash
I don't mean to judge, because I don't know anything about your background or
situation, but do you mean to say that it has taken 2 years to get to 5 pull-
ups, and you've been doing them almost daily?

On the surface (again, without knowing you) that seems like slow progress.

Would you mind elaborating?

The reason I ask is that I too have just reached 5 and would like to hear
about your journey.

~~~
Broken_Hippo
I imagine it'd take me some time to do even one pull-up, as the first months
would mostly be me hanging from a bar while I spent some time developing
enough muscle to get myself up. Arm, shoulders, core muscles, good joints, and
some coordination go into that one exercise.

Pull-ups are one of those 'difficult' exercises, and males have an easier go
at it, actually.

Some further reading: [http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/25/why-women-
cant-do-p...](http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/25/why-women-cant-do-pull-
ups/)

------
lowglow
I make it a habit to program everyday. At least one git commit. Jerry Seinfeld
was famous for using his Calendaring system of marking an X for everyday he
committed to his challenge. "Don't break the chain!"

~~~
sigi45
That's actually not true. You can google it for yourself about it but it is a
'myth'

~~~
chubot
How is it a myth? I'm pretty sure I read it in Seinfeld's actual biography.

[https://www.amazon.com/Seinlanguage-Jerry-
Seinfeld/dp/055356...](https://www.amazon.com/Seinlanguage-Jerry-
Seinfeld/dp/0553569155/ref=la_B000AP7J18_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1481394055&sr=1-1)

------
ludicast
For the past year, I have done a little bit of arithmetic with my son every
day. Mostly from the Kumon series of books.

It's been a great activity to both spend time together and give him a handle
on something most kids fear. I don't push him too hard but I am absolutely
consistent here. We do a few add/sub/mul questions every day, and even though
he gets to pick the number of questions, I pick that they are asked and
eventually answered.

I don't want to humblebrag about how he's doing, but this was the best choice
I could have made as a parent.

~~~
jonahrd
My dad used to play a game with me where he'd start listing out a long series
of operations ("two.....times three.....plus four......" etc) and I'd try to
keep up in my head and then shout out the answer. Try that, it's fun!

~~~
ludicast
I like that! I think keeping things in the head is very important and a good
way to build on stuff without increasing the scope of needed knowledge.

How did you guys handle parenthesis/precedence? Or more like a calculator I
guess...

------
gpayal
Had left my job over 4 years back and since then have been doing different
things time to time. Freelancing, practicing different hobbies. But during
this whole time despite achieving moderate success I lost my daily habits and
routine. Realizing what was happening to me I have started to be very
conscious of what I plan to do everyday and what I achieve. Something as small
as cleaning my house to finishing up a trello task for my projects is
absolutely worth it. It has not been very long yet but its motivating enough
to take it far.

------
arrmn
I've meditated for the last 3 months. I've realized I'm much calmer around
generally and can concentrate better on just one thing. I have a calendar on
an A4 paper printed out and cross out each day when I meditate.

Since a new year is starting and I need a new calendar I've made a page that
generates a calendar that you can print out. Maybe it's usefull for somebody
[http://printchaincalendar.com/](http://printchaincalendar.com/)

------
sitkack
Rewarding, can be a little draining, easy to fall of the wagon. I did a
processing sketch a day for 30 days. I time boxed it at 20 minutes, which
always went over, but that was the target. It was invigorating to have a
creative _task_ to do everyday. If I didn't do it in the morning, I'd think
about it all day.

------
charlieegan3
I've been running 4km+ every day in December; planning to get over 1000km this
year. Really looking forward to a day off now though.

All the treadmill sessions merge into one, sometimes I've mixed up the morning
with the night before.

I thought it'd be easier - finding the time is the hard part.

------
fabiandesimone
I've recently started following the routine described in the 'Miracle Morning'
book (hate the name) and it's been pretty great.

I was adamant at first but turns out the benefits are there. Never before I've
looked forward in waking up at 5am everyday.

~~~
sitkack
This should be part of Jack Handy's book club!
[http://www.deepthoughtsbyjackhandey.com/category/deepthought...](http://www.deepthoughtsbyjackhandey.com/category/deepthoughts/)

Joking aside, it is excellent to start the day with mindfulness and purpose.

------
orasis
The most positively life changing one for me was the Whole 30:
[http://whole30.com/](http://whole30.com/)

~~~
20161112
This sounds pretty good. But I do love my grains and legumes.

~~~
0xcde4c3db
Some of the restrictions in Whole 30 are silly, but for most programs like
this, the main point is that the restrictions force you to change your habits.
The details of the allowed and forbidden foods are almost irrelevant as long
as the resulting diet is complete and balanced. I bet you could run this
program with whole wheat (actually eating the wheat berries, not bread/pasta)
and lower-starch legumes (again, eaten whole and not as stuff like refried
beans) and get similar benefits.

~~~
Broken_Hippo
"The main point is that the restrictions force you to change your habits."

And this is really the main key with diets and healthy eating. You gotta
change your habits.

But in that respect, you could do similar things without the restrictions:
Simply work on changing the habits without eating more. Take a while to focus
on cutting out most sweetened beverages: Some time to eat more veggies, more
grains, adjust your eating to reflect when you are hungry, and so on.

------
dantle
I try these challenges often! As a corporate worker, I can usually fit self-
directed routines into my life without much trouble. "Don't break the chain"
psychology also works well on me.

When I was a scrawny 25 year old, I started doing a 7-minutes-per-day fitness
challenge with help from an app.[0] This was easy enough to do before jumping
into the shower in the morning, and the privacy was nice since the amount of
push-ups I could do without visibly struggling was truly shameful. After a few
months I felt I was able to do these basic bodyweight exercises very easily,
and I was ready to join a strength training group at the gym. I finished the 7
months anyway, even though I outpaced it when I started using weights.
Nowadays I just hit the gym two or three times a week, and have been doing
this for a couple years.

I also use Duolingo[1] and have streaked into the hundreds of days a few
times. It's fun and easy to do, but unfortunately requires an Internet
connection. No, I didn't become fluent from Duolingo. I also don't think it
helped me learn new words. The examples just aren't that memorable! However,
it does provide a place to practice and corrects your errors.

I tried another system of language learning[2], also involving daily practice,
which has gotten me to the conversational level in the past 8 months. This has
exceeded my expectations! I was never conversational even after 3 years of
Spanish classes in high school. This takes far less time, and I think my
memory for Spanish words is quite good nowadays! Some flash cards I've made to
remember idioms have been useful in conversation, and certainly surprised
folks I speak to in Spanish!

Many years ago I did a special diet called Bulletproof[3] on a whim after
reading about it while surfing HN. I ended up sticking with it for almost a
year. It's tough because you basically can't eat any sugar. I got really lean,
which was interesting, but not a good look for me. The coffee recipe is
excellent. It's a very interesting experience. It's obvious that but by far
the most challenging. My body was very different by the end of it; drinking
half of a PBR would make me very drunk and very sick.

[0] [http://perigee.se/apps/seven/](http://perigee.se/apps/seven/)

[1] [https://www.duolingo.com/](https://www.duolingo.com/)

[2] [https://fluent-forever.com/](https://fluent-forever.com/)

[3] [https://blog.bulletproof.com/start-the-bulletproof-
diet/](https://blog.bulletproof.com/start-the-bulletproof-diet/)

