Maybe he didn't give me the thought, but he showed how real and tangible the thought could be. So I've spent the last 21 years trying to match my old friend and pick up his habit of working consistently on my own project, on my own steam. For many years it seemed impossible. About eleven years ago, I made this daily habits business my top priority, and I've put enormous amounts of effort into trying and failing countless approaches that seemed to streak off like rain off oilskin. Time-based consistency is the last thing in the world I'm good at. (If it's a cliché to attribute some of that to ADHD, ain't nothin' like a cliché you can't shake.)
Yet... I'm coding every day. The secret is the same as with writing. Every day. Not most days. Not absolutely perfectionistic streaks. Keep it simple: every day. Code every day. Mark on your wall calendar how much you got to: however much or little, or zero, mark it without fail. I started by crossing days off just as a reward for noticing them, a moment of mindfulness wrapped in a big yellow highlighter X, and expanded my calendar annotations from there, once that hook was in place for a few months. Now I count 30-minute timers and put the tally on the calendar. A dot is half an hour, a slash an hour. So 2.5 hours would be: "II." (dot included). If I then code another half hour, I amend my tally to: "III". Do it.
