We face one big dilemma in nearly all aspects of our lives: the easy and fun stuff is bad for us, while the difficult and boring things are good for us. If we manage to do at least some of the latter, the quality of our lives will improve. But the question is, how?
A hopeless fight
I’ve tried it a hundred times in a dozen of different fields through sheer willpower and discipline. And I’ve failed every single time. Sometimes after an hour; other times, I lasted a month. Finally, I realized I fought a hopeless fight. Discipline and willpower are finite resources. In the mornings, I might do fine, but as my energy levels go down, it becomes harder and harder to resist the easy temptations. For example, I managed to get my digital consumption under control. Reducing my non-work digital time from 5+ hours/day to 45-60 minutes. Amazing!
But then I got sick. And as I lacked energy, I took the easy path: Netflix, YouTube, Twitter, games… Basically, the whole day. And as the bad habits were in place again, I got back to step 1, even once I recovered from my illness. Oops.
I did the same with procrastination, food, fitness, reading… you name it, any area where you know you should do something but it isn’t the easiest thing to do.
Systems – Not Willpower
James Clear, the author of the mega best seller Atomic Habits (highly recommended!), himself does not rely much on willpower. He relies on systems instead.
In an interview with Tim Ferriss, he shared how some of his readers are using a Kitchen Safe to lock chips from 7 pm to 7 am. That’s not because they are weak or lazy. It is just a protective mechanism that helps them do what is good for them – even later in the day.
Make the good thing easy and the bad thing hard
The essence of systems is that they are designed to make the things that are good for us easier – and the things that are tempting but bad harder. What does that mean for your chess training?
- Prepare your tactic book the night before so it is easy to solve some puzzles
- Uninstall chess-playing apps on your phone – this way you don’t play when you can’t focus properly
- Put your phone in a different room when you study
- Log out of your chess.com or Lichess account if you compulsively play instead of studying.
Those are just some ideas. Optimally, you come up with your own systems to your biggest personal challenges when it comes to chess training. Here is how:
- Write down the easy thing that doesn’t serve you, but you have a hard time saying no to. —> for example, Bullet/Blitz games without focus
- Write down what you would want to do instead. —> Solving tactical puzzles
- Find a way to make the easy thing harder. —> Log out of your account. Maybe get a password you can’t remember and have to look up on a paper far away from where you usually study.
- Now, make the hard thing easier. —> Buy a chess puzzle book you have on you most of the time. Open it up on the page you finished last time, and put a pen and paper to write down the solution next to the book.
If you want to build better habits and systems in 2026, be on the lookout for my emails next week. I’ll have a special offer for you to start 2026 the right way.
Keep improving,
GM Noël Studer
PS: This article was initially sent out to my Newsletter list. If you want to get chess improvement advice for free in your inbox, join 17,000+ chess improvers by signing up for Friday Grandmaster Insights here.
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