I've identified "do X regularly" as a useful behavior. That can get bucketed into two things.
Habits
By "habit" I mean a subconscious or automatic response to stimuli, built by just doing the thing over and over.
Every Sunday evening I take a B12 supplement. It's just something I remember to do; it may be part of my bedtime ritual that's consciously modulated depending on the day. I have the usual strong habits that I don't even think about: brush teeth before bed, look both ways before crossing the street, etc. They don't require any effort to maintain, they get done even when I'm drunk, etc.
Routines
When I used Habitica, one of my weekly and then monthly tasks was to practice the NATO alphabet. Now I have it memorized and occasional real-life use is enough to maintain it. Did the same for my old credit card number. These weren't habits; I needed the app to remind me and didn't do it on my own. But I did actually follow through enough to succeed.
I'm going to use "routine" for a conscious, regular action. My body doesn't know the 29th of the month from any other day, but that's when I'm supposed to pay rent.
Looking back at the regular actions I've tried to take, most of the failures have been routines. The "failed" habits in my list are both things I kept up for a year or so, and then quit doing because I just didn't really want to do them anymore. Furthermore, it seems like the way that habits work is pretty well understood. So to be regularly doing things, I want to turn them into habits.
I would like to follow a better schedule: eat meals at a certain time, do certain things before and after work, etc. If I can express these as stimulus-response habits I think they're doable. But some of them are abstract. There's two groups of these in my list:
- the "memorization task" type. These don't have any obvious stimulus, and they have expected end dates before habit formation will set in. I've used Mnemosyne and a reminder but kept adding too much shit to it and making practice sessions unpleasantly hard. Ex:
- Practice the Major System weekly/monthly until memorized
- Practice street names/address numbers weekly/monthly until memorized
- Practice interval ear training until I get good
- the "abstract task" type. I have a biweekly to-do list (pulling from about a hundred to-dos in the backlog) and I'd like to tackle one every day. The actual tasks vary from sitting at my computer to running errands. They also don't have any obvious stimulus. In general they're more important than the memorization tasks.
I think the way to routine formation could be making them into habits by
- coming up with cues for the abstract triggers, like an alarm or smart light
- coming up with shared actions to begin the abstract tasks, like getting up to start a timer or something
I still have some learning to do, like whether positive reinforcement helps speed habit formation (can I psych myself into not hitting snooze via ice cream treat?), and then to apply this framework to a specific desired routine. I think tomorrow I'll come up with a trial candidate.
I'm interested to hear what you folks use for habit and routine formation, and any suggested readings you might have.
Have you read Atomic Habits? It's a good ass book with a lot of useful and actionable advice. I definitely recommend it. I also recommend Getting Things Done by David Allen.
If you want to develop a habit or routine, I think it's beneficial to do it at the same time every day. For example, you can make a daily schedule in Google Calendar and then you will get a reminder on your phone every time a new time slot begins in the schedule.
I second atomic habits. It's been the best book ive read at organizing, connecting and articulating a lot of the different ideas/lessons I've learned and picked up over the years.
I find his writing style pretty boring though XD
Hi I use a practice journal on my phone of things I need to hit daily.
I use it religiously and developed it to suit my needs. I want to go back to a paper notebook but the phone has an edge with convenience.
Only thing I'd add is separating them into mental/physiological things and those which require a location.
"Habits" like "always hit up the cheap gas station to save over a dollar so you don't starve" are better understood as a routine that regularly visits them
There's a mental schedule and a physical schedule, idk if that represents a dissociated mindset on my part. (It does, I do it on purpose muahahah)
"Habits" like "always hit up the cheap gas station to save over a dollar so you don't starve" are better understood as a routine that regularly visits them
yeah I would not call this a "habit" since it's not a direct response to a specific trigger. At least for me. When I notice that I'm low on gas it results in a conscious decision (am I going to the suburbs, where I can fill up on cheap gas, anytime soon?) and a deferred action (I add getting gas to my planned burbs trip or errand run, and I actually get gas at some later date). People who fill up regularly might make it genuinely a habit, like how sometimes people sometimes unthinkingly drive home/work at inappropriate times, but I've never done that.
I appreciate you bringing up this topic since separating stuff into 4 mental/physical and reactive/scheduled lists made me able to remember to use all the lists. Whereas the one jumbled list was fucked for years.
Who knows what we will come up with next. Octagon genius brain
You can absolutely use positive reinforcement to bribe yourself into doing something.
If something feels abstract, it's because you haven't broken it down into small enough steps, and/or you haven't identified properly what that concept actually means in practice.
Practice the Major System weekly/monthly until memorized. Ok what does that look like? What does that entail?
I'm not sure what that is but you have three memorization tasks. You don't have to think about them all separately. You can think about it like this.
Ok I want to be a memorizer. I'll do that by practicing weekly. Practicing weekly means practicing twice a week. Practicing twice a week means once on Monday and once on Thursday. I will practice those days after dinner After dinner means, as soon as I eat dinner, I will put away my dishes, and immediately start practicing. I will practice for 20 minutes each day.
Things to consider to set yourself up for success. Have a space where you always practice. Set up the things you need to practice before you eat dinner, or while it's cooking. So that could look like: If I am cooking dinner, before its cooking I will identify a time before I start where I'll have a few minutes to set up my space. Examples: While the water is boiling Right after the food goes in the oven Or whatever. If you can't think of a time, do it between the prep work and before anything hot happens.
If youre just reheating something. While I wait for this to heat up, I will set up my practice space. If youre ordering food. Right after I order food I'll set up my practice space.
You get the picture right? What does setting up the practice space entail? Idk. Clear it. Set out your book. Or go to the website idk, but you do.
Then once you memorize one thing you just adjust that routine to the next memorization task as needed.
