What is Consistency
To understand how to be consistent, we must first understand what consistency means. In my view, consistency involves putting effort into a task to reach a specific objective over a long period, regardless of how you feel.
You can work towards your goal for as little as 30 minutes on a busy day or as much as 4 to 5 hours on a weekend. To remain consistent, you must put in the maximum effort every day, whether it is raining or shining.
You might need some discipline to develop consistency, but having that discipline will ultimately lead you to live a more fulfilling lifestyle. Being consistent doesn’t always mean dedicating a large portion of your day to a specific task; it means continuously working on it every day.
A great example of this is studying for an exam at university. One student might study for 10 hours straight on the last day and not retain much knowledge. However, another student might spend 20 minutes a day for 30 days quickly reviewing the day’s lecture.
Although the total time spent is the same, the second student demonstrates consistent effort and discipline throughout their workflow and can retain their knowledge much better while experiencing much less stress.
Unfortunately, many people don’t know how to be consistent. I will provide you with some tips and tricks on how I learned to master my consistency, which helped me graduate with a degree in mechanical engineering and later switch to a career in software engineering.
Even after, I was able to maintain my blog, stop eating junk food, and focus on building new habits, health, and relationships, which is all due to consistency.
How to Apply Consistent Effort and Stay Consistent
Getting an Accountability Partner
If you want to master consistency, you can’t do it alone. I’m not saying it’s impossible, but it will be ten times harder. Why go through that route if there’s a much easier way? Having an accountability partner is the most effective way to achieve consistency—so much so that every employer in the world does it. It’s called having a manager or a boss.
Think about it: when you go to work, everyone might feel lazy or want to sleep, but the one thing stopping you from doing that is knowing you have a one-on-one meeting with your manager.
In software engineering, or perhaps other fields, we have a concept called the daily stand-up. It’s a quick 15-minute chat to discuss what we did the day prior, any issues we faced, and what we plan to do for the rest of the day. This format is crucial for three reasons:
- Ensuring the work you committed to the day prior has been done.
- You were learning about some of the issues you faced and how you can improve next time (continuous improvement).
- Having a plan for the current day to create a positive workflow.
Having a manager hovering over you can be stressful, but an accountability partner doesn’t have to be like that. It’s up to you. You can tell your partner the deadlines and how many hours you want to dedicate to achieving your goal. By doing so, you become the boss of your own life.
So, how do you find these accountability partners? They are everywhere. They could be your friends or your significant other. Maybe your friend group doesn’t share the same interests as you, so you can try looking for online groups on Discord or Reddit. I found mine through Discord.
I knew I wanted someone who loved software engineering, so I joined a forum, and everyone there also wanted the same thing—to become a software engineer. It was honestly very easy to privately DM ten people, have four respond, and finally choose one accountability partner.
Set Your Goals
If you want to be consistent, you need to set clear goals. Having both long-term and short-term goals is crucial for becoming consistent. The feeling of making progress by accomplishing your short-term goals brings you one step closer to achieving your long-term vision.
Many people think setting personal growth goals is as simple as saying, “Hey, I want a six-pack for the summer.” However, that is not effective and you will not stay consistent. If you want to create realistic goals, you have to be specific.
You have to talk about the goal, how you’re going to get there, when you’re going to get there, why you want to get there, the obstacles you might face, and the sacrifices you’re willing to make. Having these sorted out before you start your journey gives you a realistic sense of accomplishment.
Learn How to Prioritize
To be consistent, you have to know the importance of prioritizing. That’s why goals are set for a reason. I used to spend hours a day devising systems to learn how to blog faster, eat healthy, exercise regularly, or study better. Instead of doing these things, I read books, watched videos, and took courses about them. While learning about these topics was beneficial, it was not the most effective way to accomplish what I wanted: starting a blog.
Instead, I should have focused on prioritizing by working on my blog for the first several hours of the day and then learning about tips and tricks for creating systems at the end of the day.
Although learning about my goals seemed like an essential task at the time, successful people know when to stop learning and start doing it. By prioritizing, I can move forward and make incremental progress towards my goals.
Make the Choice
Another way to stay consistent is to make a deliberate choice. This might sound plain and simple, but many people do it wrong. Most people say they want to lose weight, but they don’t take action. You have to choose to lose weight, which means choosing the gym over fast food.
Now the question becomes: how do you make that choice? The simplest way is through reminder apps. Choosing to do something means breaking and forming a new habit. However, sometimes a habit is a habit because it’s second nature, so you need a constant reminder about what you want to change.
One of my goals was to work on coding problems daily to become a software engineer. I’ve tried tons of motivational tools and sites, but the one thing that allowed me to take consistent action was using a reminder app, which allowed me to stay consistent.
If I watch TV for too long, the app brings me back to reality, thus enabling me to choose to get rid of my bad habits and focus on my important tasks.
Choose to better your life, and your life will follow.
Make Room for Planned Breaks
Staying consistent doesn’t mean working every single second you’re awake; that’s counterproductive and can quickly lead to burnout. Instead, it’s about enjoying your small wins throughout the day. Take short 30-minute breaks throughout the day to call friends, watch YouTube, or rejuvenate.
However, be mindful of falling into the trap of extending these breaks unintentionally. A 30-minute YouTube break can quickly turn into 2 1/2 hours or a power nap into a full sleep.
To stay accountable, plan breaks and set alarms to ensure you return to your tasks promptly after the break ends. This helps you refresh without losing focus for too long.
Creating a Productive & Organized Workplace
Having an organized workspace is another crucial factor in being more consistent. Friction impedes your ability to do what needs to be done. Picture this: you come home from a long day at work, sit down at your workstation, and it’s piled with empty chip bags, mail, and dirty clothes.
As you begin to work, your mind constantly loses focus because you’re trying to find a pen or notebook under all that clutter. By having an organized workspace, you create a highly productive environment with all your necessary tools right in front of you rather than buried in piles of clutter.
If you want to be consistent, you need extra motivation in your daily life, and having an organized workspace allows you to feel inspired throughout the process.
Another example of reducing friction between tasks is going to the gym. Preparing all your clothes the night before, along with your water bottle, protein shake, and gym shoes, makes it much easier to be consistent and actually go to the gym.
When the time comes, you don’t have to be overwhelmed when searching for these things; they’re already prepared from the night before, making it a simple grab-and-go process.
Tips for Maintaining Consistency
Always Record Your Progress
Recording your progress is crucial for maintaining consistency. This can be as simple as using a Habit tracker app and seeing that you’ve completed what you intended to do. Recording your progress allows you to track your growth over time visually.
Sometimes, when you feel burnt out or overwhelmed, having a progress tracker is a great reminder of how far you’ve come and brings back your motivation.
Limit Distractions
Every day, try to limit one distraction that pulls your mind away from crucial tasks, even if it’s just for a brief moment. For instance, you could spend 5 minutes a day muting notifications during specific times.
Setting up email automation can also help prevent being bombarded with unnecessary messages throughout the day. By gradually reducing these minor distractions, step by step, by the end of the year, you’ll find yourself much more focused and consistent.
Track Time
To develop consistent habits, try using time-tracking tools. Consistency requires you to have some routine or schedule so that you can view your incremental progress.
Tracking time differs from tracking progress because it visually shows where your time is spent. I use an app called Toggl Track, which allows me to track time in 30-minute intervals. Analyzing my data provides insights into how I can improve consistency.
Sticking to 30-minute intervals strikes a balance between recording time and maintaining productivity. Smaller time intervals might lead to spending too much time tracking rather than actively engaging in tasks.
Be Patient and Forgive Failures
Slip-ups are inevitable and may happen more often than you expect. There will be days when you binge-watch shows for hours or feel completely unmotivated. Perhaps you skip the gym for a whole week, or external factors disrupt your routine. It’s crucial to acknowledge that these setbacks will occur and adjust your schedule accordingly. Most importantly, don’t get upset or frustrated with slow progress. Patience is key to achieving consistency because consistency ultimately requires persistence over time.