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Finishers love the feeling of bringing a project to completion, and they’re determined to use the last drop in the shampoo bottle;
Openers thrill to the excitement of launching a new project, and find pleasure in opening a fresh tube of toothpaste.
AM I A FAMILIARITY LOVER OR A NOVELTY LOVER?
Familiarity
AM I PROMOTION-FOCUSED OR PREVENTION-FOCUSED?
Prevention focused
Promotion-focused people concentrate on achievement and advancement, on making gains, on getting more love, praise, pleasure. They eagerly and optimistically pursue their goals.
prevention-focused people concentrate on fulfilling their duties, on avoiding losses, and on minimizing danger, pain, or censure. They’re vigilant against possible drawbacks or problems.
Different arguments resonate with different people, and it’s helpful to frame a habit in the way that suits each individual.
DO I LIKE TO TAKE SMALL STEPS OR BIG STEPS?
Big!
Many people have better success adopting a habit when they start with modest, manageable steps. A series of minor but real accomplishments gives people the confidence to continue.
some people do better when they’re very ambitious. Sometimes, counterintuitively, it’s easier to make a major change than a minor change.
If a habit changes very gradually, we may lose interest, give way under stress, or dismiss the change as insignificant.
big transformation generates an energy and excitement that hel...
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I feel energized around ten thirty eleven to 3ish
I drag at three
I hate transition. Unhurried.
My phone. So much.
I like alone time, but I find too much makes me socially awkward.
Yes!
Many strategies help us change our habits, and four strategies tower above the others: Monitoring, Foundation, Scheduling, and Accountability.
keeping close track of our actions means we do better in categories such as eating, drinking, exercising, working, TV and Internet use, spending—and just about anything else. Self-measurement brings self-awareness, and self-awareness strengthens our self-control.
A key step for the Strategy of Monitoring is to identify precisely what action is monitored.
“When you cannot express it in number, your knowledge is of a meager and unsatisfactory kind.” If we want something to count in our lives, we should figure out a way to count it.
people find it easy to notice what their partners do wrong, but not what they do right, so he suggests keeping “marriage diaries” to track partners’ considerate behavior;
Lack of sleep also leads to dithering. Procrastination expert Piers Steel reports that being “too tired” is the most common reason people give for procrastination.
a daily time log—a simple grid with the days of the week mapped against the hours of the day in thirty-minute increments. The log could be used to track any activity, but I planned to record my reading time.
“Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.”
should monitor whatever is essential to me. In that way, I ensure that my life reflects my values.
Self-command breeds self-command, and change fosters change. The reverse is true, too: undesirable habits often cluster together and reinforce each other.
It’s helpful to begin with habits that most directly strengthen self-control; these habits serve as the Foundation for forming other good habits.
We do well to begin by tackling the habits that help us to: 1. sleep 2. move 3. eat and drink right 4. unclutter
Foundation habits tend to reinforce each other—for instance, exercise helps people sleep, and sleep helps people do everything better—so they’re a good place to start for any kind of habit change.
Foundation habits sometimes make profound c...
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“Act the way I want to feel.” It’s easy to assume that we act because of the way we feel, but to a very great degree, we feel because of the way we act.
If I act with more energy, I’ll feel more energetic.
There’s a paradox: because the brain needs food to manage impulses, one of the best ways to avoid impulsive overeating is to eat.
Fostering good habits takes energy, and that energy is in short supply; we’re better off exploiting that energy to create the habits that will do the most good. First things first.
outer order contributes to inner calm.
a clean, well-maintained environment helps to foster a sense of self-command, which in turn makes it easier to maintain good habits.
accomplishing small tasks boosts our sense of “self-efficacy.”
putting away my clothes nightly meant that the task stayed small. Secret of Adulthood: Keeping up is easier than catching up.
people tell me that getting control of their stuff makes them feel more in control of their lives.
visual clutter reduces your ability to focus and process information.”
People raise the bar
challenging. A person decides to start exercising, and instead of aiming to walk for twenty minutes a day, he decides to start a routine that rotates between cardio, weights, and balance, four times a week for an hour. The bar is so high that it’s impossible to clear.
things look messier before they look tidier.
First things first—but we must all decide what comes first, for us.
The Strategy of Scheduling, of setting a specific, regular time for an activity to recur, is one of the most familiar and powerful strategies of habit formation—
Scheduling makes us far more likely to convert an activity into a habit
It’s tempting to pretend that I can do everything if only I get the “balance” right, but scheduling requires choices. Scheduling one activity makes that time unavailable for anything else. Which is good—especially for people who have trouble saying no.
Scheduling makes activities automatic, which builds habits.
useful way to predict whether an experience will make us happy is to ask other people currently undergoing the experience we’re contemplating how they feel.
