In a recent Blog, I argued that most people are trying doing too much. In the attempt to do everything that interests them, they end up making little progress on anything.
Does the view of having a few serial projects contradict the idea of building good habits?

Isn’t it the idea to make slow and steady progress on all your goals rather than work in intensive bursts?
This tension has come up before.

So which is it: slow and steady habits or intensive projects?
The way I see it, habits and projects are both useful instruments. They tackle different kinds of problems and have different limitations. Whether a habit or project is the right tool depends on the nature of the goal you are aiming for.

Habits vs projects
There are a few ingredients needed to make habits work well:

The behavior can become routine. If it requires complex thinking or planning, it is not a habit, by definition. Sitting down to write each morning can become a habit; the act of writing itself cannot.

1. The behavior must be rewarding and enjoyable. This means that while they can become easier and more automatic, they will never entirely transform into mindless routines.
2. The goal requires patience more than intensity. Many goals face diminishing returns—the first hour of weekly exercise matters more than the tenth. Not all goals are like this. Getting a new job, launching a start-up or passing an exam have thresholds. Under a certain limit, the return on effort is zero.

None of these mean that complicated, difficult or intense goals can’t benefit from habits. If I’m writing a book, I might benefit from a routine of sitting down to write every day. The habit-based tools can make writing more automatic, even though the goal itself isn’t utmost ‘habit-friendly’.

However, having a habit won’t be enough. Book-writing is not as simple as churning out a page a day. There is much more to it—as hitting a daily word count is the hardest part of writing.

Writing a book, then, is a project. It requires mental overhead to manage the complexity, as well as focus to push through frustration. It requires thoughtful, planned action that can never be made fully automatic.

Projects, particularly the philosophy of having a few, serial efforts, can be used to handle these difficulties.

Habits and projects
As tools, habits and projects coexist nicely. If you have a goal to write a book, the daily rituals involved in writing can be routinized. But you must recognize that the deep thinking and planning needed to write well can’t be automated.

Habits are plenty for some goals, but others will need projects. I might set a goal of exercising daily—if I stick to it for long enough, it can eventually become an automatic behavior. But how about if you decide to run a marathon for the first time? This will likely require more than just your daily jog. If you want to win the marathon, you will need a lot more than just a habit.
The aim should be, with every pursuit, to try to make the regular investments of effort required more habitual.

My experience with projects and habits
I’ve spent quite some time of my adult life pursuing a combination of projects and clever habits. As such blending of habits and projects has been a theme throughout my life. This makes me get perplexed when I see the two approaches contrasted—as if it were one or the other.
But if you understand how each works, and their respective limitations, you can make more progress than dogmatically sticking to either.