Better Than Before: What I Learned About Making and Breaking Habits--to Sleep More, Quit Sugar, Procrastinate Less, and Generally Build a Happier Life

by Gretchen Rubin

Arranging to Fail Loophole: It’s odd. Instead of fleeing temptation, we often plan to succumb. In what Professors Lee Beach and G. Alan Marlatt dubbed “apparently irrelevant decisions,” we make a chain of seemingly harmless decisions that allow us covertly to engineer the very circumstances that we’ll find irresistible. I’ve long been obsessed by author J. M. Barrie’s strange, brilliant skeleton of a book, The Boy Castaways of Black Lake Island, about three boys who set sail to seek the adventure of being capsized. I’m particularly haunted by its first line, “We set out to be wrecked”; to fail was the very purpose of their undertaking. I’ll just check my email quickly before I go to the meeting, and then make this one call … oh no, it’s so late, there’s no point in going to the meeting now. I drove across town to that gourmet grocery store to buy broccoli, and I ended up buying their special cheesecake. Who could resist? I’ll buy some scotch to have in the house in case someone stops by. My husband and I love to go on “all-inclusive” cruise vacations, and I can’t resist the all-you-can-eat food. I’ll play a video game for fifteen minutes before I start working. Okay, another fifteen minutes. I’m going to lie on the sofa so I can brainstorm ideas in comfort.