The above is from Gretchen Rubin and tweaked by me. I’ve made this point many times, most recently in the area of healthy eating: What counts are the consistent, day-to-day choices that we make, not the big, dramatic flourishes that we perform periodically. Remember my theory of inverse drama:

There’s an inverse relationship between the drama of a process and the magnitude of its results. (from the post “Lessons from the Dentist’s Chair”)

Well, this lesson has been brought home to me once again, as I’ve just spent the better part of this week laid low by some type of sinus infection, with a fever, near-constant coughing, and a general tendency to lie in bed half-sleeping while “listening” to podcasts. No work was done until yesterday; Monday-Wednesday were a total loss. And the most frustrating thing about this whole schemozzle is:

I know exactly what to do to head off this problem. I just don’t want to do it.

Every day, every, every day, I need to do the Sinus Irrigation thing and then use some type of OTC Nasal steroid spray, either Nasacort or Flonase. The sinus irrigation washes out potential irritants and infectious agents, and the spray calms down the nasal passages. I know this is true. I just looked it up on Healthline. I’m completely correct about what to do. But, and here’s another completely obvious observation (COO):

Just because I know what to do doesn’t make any difference unless I do it.

You may recall that our trip to France back in the summer of 2018 was almost derailed by my failure to use the nasal spray. There I was, sitting in the middle of the Normandy D-Day celebrations, waiting and waiting for the parachute jump re-enactors to finally, like, jump, and I felt what I call “the horrible tickle” start up. ‘Oh no!’ I thought. For the next five days, as we tromped all over the place, I subjected my poor husband to explosive coughing fits, sometimes in the middle of meals. I am so very thankful that I didn’t actually get sick the way I did this time. (Have you bought my book Intentional Traveling? I give lots of advice that you won’t find anywhere else, including my take on warding off sickness. As you start making your travel plans for the summer, what better preparation than a book packed with COOs?)

To reference Gretchen Rubin again, she lays out a number of strategies for instituting good habits, making the point that people can pick and choose to find what works best for them. The one that seems to work best for me is the strategy of pairing. In other words, you take an action that you have already established as a solid habit and then attach another action to it. (Sorry, Gretchen! I’m sure you word it much more elegantly.) Here are a couple of my pairings:

Drink a big mug of water first thing in the morning. While doing so, take my blood-pressure medicine.

Feed the cat in the morning. While she’s eating and therefore distracted, apply thyroid medication to her ears.

Go on my walk 4-5x a week. (This hasn’t happened for awhile because of my illness.) While on said walk, listen to my choir music selections for the next concert.

Now I want to add:

Brush my teeth after breakfast. Right afterwards, do the Nasal Rinse thing, using the water that I heated the day before. Right after that, refill the bottle and microwave it for 1:45 to be sure that the water is sterile. Leave it to cool. It’s now ready to use the next morning, requiring only a 20-second warmup so I’m not using cold water (which is unpleasant). I guess this would qualify as more of a tripling than a pairing, but it works just the same.

As I’ve looked back over my adult health history I’ve become convinced that my yearly bouts with sore throats and colds, spending great stretches of my teaching life doped up to the gills with Dayquil and keeping a cough drop in my mouth at all times, sometimes getting over my symptoms on my own and sometimes finally having to cave in and go to the doctor, might have been avoided had I started this nasal rinse habit. Or something like it—nasal rinsing back then wasn’t a thing. The Neti pot wasn’t cool, if it even existed.

Well, perhaps that’s enough for today. I’m looking forward to a good lunch, finally feeling up to putting together and eating a lovely salad of lettuce, apple slices, walnuts, blue cheese, and my homemade salad dressing. I just haven’t had the energy to consume much of anything up until today. And it’s Valentine’s Day today! Jim and I will not be going out tonight, but we’ll get takeout. And he’s promised me a breakfast Monday at our beloved Terracotta Café. So we’re all set on that front.

What pairings could you institute in your own life that would help cement good habits?

Once Again, with Feeling: The Small Things You Do Every Day Matter More than the Big Things You Do Once In Awhile