Repositories are awesome, and we should have more of them.
I recently completed BJ Fogg's Tiny Habits, and it's a pretty lightweight way to install new habits (recommended). However, I realized I could use a better repository of useful habits.
So, please use this thread to suggest habits that you've found useful. Bonus points for evidence/anecdata of usefulness.
Obviously, 1 habit per comment makes upvotes a clearer signal of collective approval.
Always have a hand physically in contact with your key whenever you close the door to your house/apartment from the outside. I have never been locked out since I started doing this.
I've trained the habit of quickly tapping my front and back pockets whenever I go through an entrance/exit to a building or apartment. I always have the exact same things in my pockets, so I immediately notice if I'm missing something. Phone in front left, keys in right front, earbuds in back left, wallet in back right. Works very well for me.
If you want to cut down on an activity without eliminating it completely, consider delegating the decision to a random mechanism.
As a concrete example, I've tried for the last year or so to cut down on the amount of sugared snacks I eat, which used to happen essentially daily. I tried only doing it on set days of the week, but on other days it felt unfair that Monday!Lachlan got to eat a custard tart and Tuesday!Lachlan had to miss out. I tried giving myself a budget for the week, but I tended to blow through it early, feel guilty, and then usually break it later in the week anyway. I switched recently to using a dice app on my smartphone. If I have the urge to eat a sugared snack, I roll a 4 sided die. If it comes up 4, I can eat it. This has been working successfully for me for 3 weeks now, with no sign of it breaking.
It makes me feel not guilty when I do come up 4, since it was the dice that let me eat something, and I know over the long term it will average out to the amount of eating I want. If I miss out, I don't have myself to blame or get annoyed at, because it's just the vagaries of an RNG.
Here's something that my friend suggested, and which I've been finding useful:
One thing that helped me, when I was learning to keep the place clean, was the following suggestion: learn to take stuff to its place whenever you are moving around the apartment. For example, if you get off the couch to go to the toilet and kitchen is on the way, pick up a few dishes and drop then in the kitchen sink/washing machine.
Or if the bookshelf is on your path, pick up a book you are not actively reading and put it on the shelf.
It takes a few weeks to learn this, but once it starts flowing, it really reduces the amount of work you need to do to keep the place tidy.
Lots of people seem to have a hard time getting started with meditation due to not knowing what to do and not having specific goals. One useful thing is to start with the tinyest habit possible, and not worry about optimality for the habit forming period. There will be plenty of time to optimize once the habit is formed. So just pick a time, set an alarm, and do 2 minutes of guided meditation. Type 2 minute meditation into youtube and try whatever seems good. In 2-4 weeks you can get more ambitious.
This advice goes for any habit: Start small. Doing anything is usually better than doing nothing. And when you have tasted blood, maybe it will increase your appetite by itself.
There is a name for this strategy: success spirals. It is discussed in Piers Steel's book, The Procrastination Equation, as well as in Luke's article How to Beat Procrastination and in Nick Winter's ebook, The Motivation Hacker (both of which are heavily based on Steel's research). In my opinion, it is one of the most powerful productivity techniques out there.
I see people rummaging through their purse/bag/backpack in search of keys/money/id/lipstick/phone all the time. I have long ago switched to using pants with enough pockets to keep at least the basics on me: keys, wallet, cell phone, a dedicated pocket for each, so I know where every item is and can feel the weight change/imbalance if something is missing. I have learned to always put each item back in its own pocket after use. This is harder for ladies but not impossible: a couple of keys, a cell phone and a tiny wallet with just enough room for an id, a credit/debit card and a few bills can fit, for example, in almost any jeans' pockets without visible bulging. The rest can go in the purse or backpack. Does not work for formal wear, of course, but there are usually plenty of suitable casual choices.
A common complaint is that women's clothing is very bad for pockets. Over the past couple of months I've attended two parties in drag, and this is by far the strongest sympathy I've developed from the experience.
Amen. Oh, thank goodness, this garment has a handy pocket --- gotcha! it's a fake, decorative pocket, sewn shut!
Sometimes pockets are sewn shut for display, with loose stitches that are meant to be removed after purchase. This is worth checking before giving up. "Decorative" pockets are normally either nonexistent (just some trim that looks like the opening of a pocket) or very shallow.
I like this scheme, which in my mind is an instance of a meta-rule that's something like "have a definite, small place for things you will need to retrieve quickly".
You can implement this useful system even if you only have a large container (e.g. large purse/bag/backpack) by putting things in subcontainers. Obvious if the large bag is subdivided, but you can subdivide it yourself by using smaller bags.
I recommend using pencil cases (the flexible plastic ones with zips on the top) in larger purses/bags/backpacks. This can make it much faster to find things in your bag.
So, for instance, in my work rucksack I have the following pencil cases:
Before I adopted this system, getting something out of my bag was a nightmare of jumbled wires and fishing around. Now it's speedy and convenient....
Always put headphones on when focussing on some work (in a team environment). Even if you don't play any music to block out distractions, having them on signals that you're busy and makes people less likely to interrupt you. You'll find those interruptions that remain are a higher quality of interruption where your help is actually needed instead of just slightly easier than figuring it out for themself.
At the end of the day, go through the things you did. What did you do and why? How did you feel while you did it? Doing it in writing can be helpful (this is what journaling is). Or even get scientific and quantify things so you can analyze your data later!
cough this software I write for that last thing cough
This is all reminding me of a long article (that I can't find) about children left in cars-- a potentially deadly situation. The article concluded that the major risk wasn't so much neglectful parents as overwhelmed parents-- they were using all their mental resources for normal life, and if their schedules were changed or their stress level was increased, the risk of forgetting a child in a car was increased.
I saw some suggestions for improving the odds of not making that mistake. One was to have a habit of clipping a string from the child to the parent when the child is put into the car seat. Another was before the child was born making a habit of circling the car and looking into it immediately after getting out.
Meta-habit: When trying to begin a new habit, ask yourself if it can be meaningfully beeminded. If you only want to do it on certain days of the week, ensure beeminder's reminders for the goal are set to notify you on that day or those days only. Never delete or read a beeminder reminder email until you have dealt with the habit for the day (eg, done the 20 minutes work on the website, perused the 30 anki flashcards, made the phone call to your loved ones, written a gratitude note), then immediately clear it out. Now you don't have to worry about remembering to establish the habit. If you have a beeminder email, you still have something you need to do for the day.
Meta habit: Every time you want to install a new habit, make an Anki flashcard for it.
In the beginning phase, while you install the habit, the card will be asked frequently. Later on, when you are less likely to forget the habit, it will be asked for less frequently. If you recently failed to follow the habit you can click "again" when the flash card is asked.
Load up tasks that can't be interrupted, or must be finished, as early in the day as reasonable. By the end of the day you want to only have things left to do that you can easily stop and leave when you should be heading to bed, to ensure you go to bed on time. Also try to avoid starting anything that will be exciting or stimulating too late in the day. For example, reading the latest HPMoR can be stopped at any time, but if you know you'll get into it and not want to stop reading, then don't start it until you have a sufficient block of time earlier in the day free.
Adopt simple diet prohibitions & daily minimum "must-eat" commitments.
Examples:
For 365 days...
I will consume no candy or fast food. Ever. (*Fast food defined as X, Y, Z restaurants...)
Daily, I must eat 2 raw vegetables and drink 1 liter of water. No matter what. Even If I have to stand over the sink at 2am eating a carrot & a green pepper and washing it down with my daily liter of water...
I used this strategy (with similar, expanded prohibitions/must-eats) for a year (2012).
I found it to be useful and effective because (1) the si...
Anti-habit: for quitting something, I've found that telling myself "wait 5 more minutes" each time I think about it can help reduce and break the habit. If your habit is linked to something else (for example, you always have a cigarette when you have a cup of coffee), this is extra useful. This helps me with not eating junk foods and overcoming a craving - often I forget about it.
Paper (especially ink-jet printed paper) doesn't like water, so always make sure your desk isn't wet before putting paper on it, always make sure your water bottle is properly closed before putting it back into your handbag, always make sure the pockets are empty when throwing clothes into the laundry bag, etc.
Always carry a pen, a USB memory stick, a pocket umbrella, a bottle opener, a condom (some of these examples may not apply to you) etc., as you may find yourself needing one without knowing beforehand.
Carry a micro-USB cable - then you can charge your phone from any computer, and use your phone as storage. A penknife will include a bottle opener, a corkscrew and other useful stuff - I'm glad mine has scissors. Carry more than one condom - having only one creates pressure to perform. Pen and paper are useful. I also carry tissues and painkillers.
Keep a checklist of maintenance items to do before work/school, including things you should bring with you. Print this out and tape to a wall, using font large enough that you can read it from some distance away.
I'm not sure if this is the correct channel, but I've found www.daily-seven.com to be a helpful channel in getting myself to follow through with my habits or goals (or even getting myself to write goals/habits to begin with). Basically, it's an upgraded alarm clock: you tell somebody what you want to accomplish, and then have them call to remind you to do it. There's something about the added social pressure that makes a tremendous difference, even if it seems silly and self-manufactured.
This is how I would train a pigeon to compulsively throw dice like crazy - Burrus F Skinner.
I don't think this will be good to you in the long run.
I forgot to mention in the post itself. I only allow myself one roll a day, so I have to decide if I want to take the chance on something for a snack in the morning, or with lunch, or later on in the evening. I can't train myself to throw dice like crazy because only the first one for a day counts.