I've started a 'don't break the chain' style of habit formation for 3 habits I'm trying to work on - taking various supplerments every morning rather than haphazardly whenever I remember, exercising, and going outside every day. A tick in the relevant box indicates that I did the task, a blank indicates not doing the task, a line indicates I did the bare minimum that could technically qualify as doing the task (eg. if I forgot to exercise and so spent 5 minutes in bed doing ankle strengthening exercises before going to sleep, I haven't really exercised in the meaning I originally intended but it's better than nothing). So far I've noticed that it makes me a lot more conscious both of whether I've done the tasks but also how I feel about the task. For example, I'm considering removing or modifying 'go outside' because it turns out that I don't really care very much about whether I get it done or not, whereas with the other two I get warm fuzzies from ticking the boxes.
I started doing the same thing a few days ago, in an attempt to get back my habit of waking early (polyphasic experimenting got my sleep schedule out of whack). Something I did differently was, I write in the same box twice - once before I go to bed, something like committing to waking up early, and once after I get up. This solved my problem of getting up, making up some reason to postpone the habit-formation process (or even cancel it to start anew later), and going back to bed. My symbols are a bit more complex, so that I can mark a failure on top of th...
This is the public group instrumental rationality diary for Christmas week. It's a place to record and chat about it if you have done, or are actively doing, things like:
Or anything else interesting which you want to share, so that other people can think about it, and perhaps be inspired to take action themselves. Try to include enough details so that everyone can use each other's experiences to learn about what tends to work out, and what doesn't tend to work out.
Thanks to everyone who contributes, and I hope everyone is having a nice holiday!
Previous diary; archive of prior diaries.