Having been on and off the meditation bandwagon since 2012, I've recently tried really hard to get back to my usual routine.
Applying the lens of product management and concepts from James Clear's book Atomic Habits, I looked at how to solve this problem:
There are a plethora of apps available on both Android and iOS (Headspace, Calm, Insight Timer, Waking Up, Simple Habit, Balance on iOS). This paradox of choice was making it difficult to choose one.
And those apps have a large catalog of different meditations. The Paradox of Choice hit me hard and formed a hurdle to get started. (This won't apply to you if you're already regular with the habit, or you might not even need the help of guided meditations.)
Often what works best for beginners is simplicity.
Headspace Premium offered an option where you would have a scheduled meditation which other people could "join" together. This social proof made it simple for my brain to say - "Fine, let's just join this."
Something similar I stumbled onto was using Google Assistant to talk to Headspace, which offered only two choices - Today's meditation and Sleep exercise.
This choice was easier to make, and what helps even further is Google Assistant offered to add this to a routine making this habit easier to do.
So I added it to a Good Morning routine that's triggered by a voice command. It tells me about the weather, agenda for the day and then starts this meditation.
The takeaway from this is that good products often simplify rather than complicate.
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