No zero days

Hi, hola, merhaba, labas, привет, and hej. It’s your favourite language blog with the (probably) final post of the year. And what a year it was! This is the first year in my life when I can safely tell you that I… brushed my teeth twice a day every single day (there’s going to be a connection to language learning, don’t you worry).

Now, before telling me how gross it is not to brush your teeth, stop. I completely agree. And it is not like I would go for weeks before setting up a hot date for my molars a toothbrush/floss/mouthwash. But there was always that one day of the week when I’d just fall asleep on the couch and zombie-walk to bed after some prodding from my partner. And there were other days when I’d rush to work with bad breath I’d try to tame with a double dose of gum.

And then one day (which wasn’t the beginning of the year, but that only shows that you don’t need to start on January 1st) I asked myself: “What if I were just to make it a sacred duty to myself to brush my teeth twice a day, every day, in perpetuity?” After uttering this mouthful of an incantation, dear reader, I never missed a day. If I had a mega-expensive productivity course, I’d probably plug it right here.

The internet is oversaturated with productivity schlock. And most of the advice out there—from “clean your room” to “wake up early to get more done”—is banal, obvious and frankly uninspiring. So I don’t want you to think that there’s any dubious new philosophy you need to bring to make your language learning process more worthwhile. But if you were to introduce one concept, I do suggest “No Zero Days”.

I read about No Zero Days somewhere online. The apocryphal story tells us that Jerry Seinfeld’s sole advice to up-and-coming comedians is to write jokes every day. According to the legend, Jerry has a calendar on the wall where he marks every day he writes jokes with a red X. The goal is to never break the chain. Pretty simple, huh?

I put it to the test with another outlet of mine — fiction writing. For the past few weeks I’ve been writing at least 250 words. I made it my sacred duty, and it stuck. In the future, I want to up the threshold to 500, and then to 750 words. [Shoutout to my accountability buddy

Vanya Bagaev

whom I send the number of words I wrote every day.]

Why the threshold though? Well, you have to have some definition of what you count as “work”. Especially with language learning. Thirty minutes of comprehensible input? Forty new words? A chapter in a book? It’s up to you to decide, but for it to count, it has to be at least a teeny bit challenging. Otherwise, it’s too easy to start cheating. And, well, there’s nothing that makes less sense than cheating on your own goals.

If you had to No Zero Days your language learning, what would count as a Non-Zero Day? Share with me and the rest of Babel Babble readers!

And we’ll see each other next year. Have a great one.

P.S. If you want to read my fiction, you’ll find it here — https://www.theobservational.net/tag/fiction/