What is the Streak: How to Form a Habit That Sticks

It’s a popular piece of productivity urban legend shared by Brad Isaacs, popularized by LifeHacker, and now found in every habit-formation book known to man. (I’ve read some version of the story in three books in the last year alone.) Isaacs, a young comedian working the open-mic scene, bumped into Jerry Seinfeld and asked him for the recipe to his secret sauce. How’d he become a better comedian? “Write jokes every day,” Seinfeld said, but he didn’t stop there. He offered Isaacs some...