Anyone who has known me for long knows that I have an ongoing battle with self-discipline. This battle usually relates to my desire to be an early riser, but my natural tendency to stay up late and not get up. I recently read a great article about How Self-Control Works on Lifehacker and some parts of it really struck me, one part in particular:

The simplest way to get better at anything is to practice. As a weekly exercise, pick something you do in excess and stop for a week. Stop watching television, don’t eat out, or keep technology out of the bedroom so you can sleep better. While a week isn’t going to kick any particular habit, it’s pretty easy to stop anything for such a short period of time and making it through the week will give you the confidence that you can control yourself.

As I have been thinking about this I have been wondering, rather than cutting out something (or in addition to cutting out something) why not add something good. For example, for me, why not choose a new coding language and determine to go through one thirty minute tutorial every day for thirty days? That way I can accomplish two goals; building self-discipline and growing as a web developer. Seems more productive, right?