@kinlyd glad that helps.<p>In my experience, the feelings that arise leading up to the practice time were <i>exactly</i> the feelings that arise leading to procrastination. One day, I found myself putzing around, avoiding the cushion, and knew that the practice has already started.<p>What worked for me were a number of small things:<p>(1) Dedicating a space for practice. When I first started, I dropped a cushion right next to my bed so I would trip over it when I woke up and trip over it when I slept. Formally dedicating a space, even if it is a small corner, helps a lot when you are first trying to establish a discipline.<p>(2) Dedicating a time. When I first started out, I was a night owl. I still am; but a lot of the night owl thing comes from -- you guessed it -- procrastinating on sleep. So I formally dedicated the time right before bed for practice; that, no matter how late, how tired, how fuzzy I was, I was going to sit before I crawled into bed. (A year or two in, I naturally shifted to a morning practice; by then, I feel off if I didn&#x27;t practice something each day).<p>(3) Gamification worked well for me, though beware going to the extreme. Eventually, one of the things you start stripping away from your mind is responding to the reward&#x2F;punishment triggers. I used a streak calendar. I took page from Kickstarter. I knew that I have a tendency to go overboard in excitement and then try to do as much the next day, fail, feel ashamed&#x2F;guilty about failing, and the dropping off from the practice. So I would have three levels of practice:<p>The nominal practice time. In the beginning that was 5 minutes. I might not be able to do 10, or 20, but how hard it is to do &quot;just&quot; 5 minutes right before bed?<p>Stretch goals: if I went further, I&#x27;d consider it a stretch goal. Completely optional. In other words, the next day, the practice goal still resets to my nominal goal. If it happens I reach that stretch goal, then that&#x27;s ok, but it&#x27;s ok if I didn&#x27;t. (If you practice correctly, you would know that there are a lot of things that arises from waiting to achieve stretch goals -- anxiety, shame, guilt, etc. the usual suspects).<p>Token effort: over time (months), I started ratcheting up my nominal practice to longer and longer lengths of time. I tend to do it when I&#x27;m regularly hitting stretch goals effortlessly. However, I left room to be lazy. I allowed myself a &quot;token effort&quot;, the absolute minimum I can do. It&#x27;s set around 5 minutes. (These days, &quot;token effort&quot; has more to do with the quality of my mindfulness rather than length of time). I knew early on that, just like stretch goals, some days ... my mind is tricking me into persuading me into skipping for the day, and I counter with &quot;well, why not just do a token effort&quot;. Then when I do it, end up going past the token effort and it turns into a regular sit length.<p>(4) Other side of gamification -- social cues. (Ever read a book called &quot;The Talent Code&quot;? If Malcolm Gladwell popularized the notion of &quot;10,000&quot; hours of practice, &quot;The Talent Code&quot; speaks about how to get there). In the Buddhist tradition, this would be the sangha, that is, fellow like-minded people also on this journey, although they might not be traveling the same path. Opensit.com is a great example. You log your time there and people help each other stay with the sit, as well as comment on when difficulties start arising.<p>If you seriously want to establish a practice, my suggestion is to start at the basic: just getting yourself on the cushion consistently every day. Focus on the process, not the results. No one will ever give you a gold star for attaining enlightenment (seriously, no one will give you a gold star for attaining enlightenment). There are interesting states you can reach in meditation, but if you cling to those states and you&#x27;re not aware that you are clinging to those states, you&#x27;re not really practicing impeccably, are you? (You could also cling to the process, turn it into an empty ritual, but for most people, the issue usually lies in getting started).<p>Hope that helps.