Small daily habits are better than big habits that happen less frequently.
Dr. Steve Zegree always used the idea of “five minutes a day” as the benchmark for practicing a new skill. And it’s really true – a half mile run every day for a month is easy to repeat and better at sticking to a new habit than a three mile run every week or even a one miler every other day.
In the same way, I maintain my writing streak here because I’m writing daily. If I wrote a longer essay every week rather than a daily short piece, I would have stopped long ago. It’s just harder to maintain the practice.
Our brains prioritize size of practice over consistency of practice, but the truth is that consistency is way more important. Five minutes of singing practice every day will do more for you than an hour every Saturday. Ten minutes of yoga every day will do more than a long yoga class once a week. Writing 4 bars every day will finish a piece way faster than trying to write in larger but less regular blocks of time.
Find the smallest viable amount of practice, and then commit to doing it daily for a month. See what happens.