I’ve been taking walks lately, trying to make sure I get enough exercise to keep my hypertension at bay. I hate walking for its own sake, but I’ve found I can stimulate the “getting things done” part of my brain if I can turn the walk into an errand. There’s a store about a fifteen minute walk from here, so every day I look around the house, find some random household item we’re low on, and then hike to the store and buy it.
Technically the errand is pointless. If we’re low on obscure and rarely-used item, then I don’t really need to hike to the store to buy more. I could simply add it to the shopping list and we’d get it with the weekly groceries. Walking to the store for a single item is a silly ritual, but it really does help motivate me. My overall goal is “keep my heart in shape so I don’t die”. That’s a very long-term goal where progress is measured over the course of months or even years. It’s a bit demoralizing to get home from a walk all tired and out of breath, flop down in my chair, and realize I just made 0.001% progress towards my goal. Being able to come home and say, “Hey, we were out of cumin but I took care of it,” is far more rewarding. I wonder what the cashier thinks of the odd man that comes in every morning to do his grocery shopping one item at a time.
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Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.
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