The new year has me thinking a lot about my work habits. What should I do more of? What should I drop?

For instance, I feel like I should be reviewing more pull requests. But how do I work this into an already busy schedule? I know I'll never really feel like doing it, so I need to be more tactical about it.

With that in mind, I've found that the most effective way to build a new habit is to pair it with either:

a) something I already do regularly.

b) something that happens every day.

After mulling it over a bit, here's what I came up with:

Every time I submit a new PR, I'll review a PR that's already open. Since I'm submitting multiple small PRs throughout the week, it creates a great trigger around which to build this habit.

Or another idea would be something like this: When my daily scrum ends, I'll review a PR. Since scrum happens every work day, I have a consistent trigger around which I can plan the rest of my day.

Furthermore, given there are roughly 200 work days per year, that simple habit effectively adds an extra 200 reviewed PRs under my belt.

Now that's a hell of a win without too much added ceremony.