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Why You Should Be Tracking Your Habits (and How to Do It Well)
How To Keep Track
- Paper: if you use a diary or daily planner, make notes each day if you completed your habit or not. If you do a regular weekly or monthly review, this is a great time to check back through your notes to see how you’re progressing over time.
- Spreadsheet: you can set up a simple sheet to track if you complete your habit each day. This is a good way to make your tracking more visual so you can get an idea of a glance about how you’re going.
- Mobile Apps: these are convenient and you can access them anywhere.
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SIMILAR ARTICLES & IDEAS:
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Key Ideas
Willpower is like a muscle
Just like going to the gym and building up strength, the more you train your willpower by accomplishing tasks on a consistent basis, the more you’ll have of it.
Habits = “automatic” responses...
...to familiar environmental cues.
They form when you engage in a behavior repeatedly in the presence of consistent stimuli.
Self-Discipline - a series of healthy habits
Long term change is better served by building better habits, than by forcing your willpower.
You will choose the apple over the cake for a number of times ... and then give up. Building a habit to start the day by going to the gym will work better.
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Key Ideas
Habit-formation apps are aspirational tools
They're less about distilling your life into a series of data points and more about becoming your ideal self: If you use their app, you too can become a person who practices good habits. You can become someone who exercises and meditates every day and always drinks eight glasses of water.
The 4 tendencies when it comes to habit formation:
- upholders: disciplined and respond to both internal and external expectations;
- obligers :can’t keep commitments to themselves but respond to expectations from others;
- questioners: ask why and can keep a habit if they understand the logic reasoning;
- rebels: hate being told what to do by others, so it has to be something they want to do.
Habit apps use the psychology of habit formation
- Many rely on a “streak” feature: they track how many consecutive days you’ve completed the habit;
- Other apps offer accountability features to pressure you into completing your goal;
- Some apps turn habit formation into a game: The app rewards users who complete their habits with badges and other virtual incentives.
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Key Ideas
How to Build a New Habit
- Start with an incredibly small habit, one that is easy enough that you don't need motivation to do it
- Increase your habit in very small ways - start small and gradually improve
- As you build up, break habits into chunks
- When you slip, get back on track quickly.
Jim Rohn
"Success is a few simple disciplines, practiced every day; while failure is simply a few errors in judgment, repeated every day."