Rapid Micro-Habit Matrix

Keep your most treasured skillsets warm by Practicing the smallest version of it as a habit

Intro

How many times have you found yourself in the following scenario:
you put in the hours and learned a new skill (photography, after effects, figma, webflow).

You did the tutorials. Maybe you shipped a project.

But naturally, work got in the way. 

You tell yourself that you’ll come back to the project one day… someday. But first it’s work, then it’s a family thing, and then you find something totally novel, and so on. 

So you don’t use your new skill and even though you invested so much time to develop it, it atrophies. 

One day, you find the time, energy, or inspiration to jump back in, but as you open up your tool you find you forgot the work flow, the hot keys, the interface in general. 

It all feels distantly familiar, but you forgot how to do things, so you waste time Googling and YouTubing and looking for those tutorials you had already powered through. 

This happened to me way too many times. 

Then I discovered micro habits. 

Associated Professional Skills

Process planning

Suggested time

30 minutes

Materials needed

Varies, you need all the tools you want to stay sharp with could be digital or otherwise 

Steps

01

Make a list of the skills you love about yourself, but don’t get to use a lot. For me, it’s poetry, creative writing, Ableton (for music production), mind mapping, and drawing. 

02

Take each skill or tool and reduce it to its most atomic output. For example, if my desired skill is music production, my micro-habit would be making a 4-measure music loop on Ableton. If it's photography, it would be 1 or 2 photos. Decide the atomic version of all your skills. 

03

Once you have atomized all of your skills it's time to prepare your matrix. Start with your most expansive skill and structure a flow that will let it inform all the others. For me, I'll start with a mind mapping exercise. This will render all kinds of ideas and themes and connections. They will in turn inspire any theme as I practice the other habits.

04

Set up your workspace to minimize the cost of task switching. If you know that one of your micro-habits involves photoshop, open photoshop ahead of time and have it ready with your document.

05

Execute your matrix. If done properly, each of these micro-habits should render a complete artifact.

Conclusion

The point of this matrix is not to make amazing work—it’s to keep your mind-muscle connections warm. It’s to ensure that you never lose familiarity with your skills. 

"It takes about 2 weeks to establish a new neueral-muscle connection, then about 3 months to build the muscle itself" - my physical therapist, 2023


References

Check back later for examples! - JJ 3/7/23

Resources