Everyday Systems #41: The "What the Hell" effect and negative qualification

Limit your celebratory eating to the holidays themselves. Adjust your expectations so that your goal is mere maintenance. If you screw up, don't wait till new years to get back on the wagon.

30 Nov 20067min

One thing that every self help guru can agree on is that you have to have an arbitrary number in your system. It is a little weird that the most rational concepts we have available to us -- numbers --...

22 Nov 20066min

Strictness builds habit faster. Dumb down what to be strict about with "fence around the law." Avoid punishment and reparations.

16 Nov 20067min

Use the full habit traffic light for 21 days to build your habit, then switch to more efficient negative tracking.

9 Nov 20066min

Need to keep track of something? Keep track of behavior, not results, with the Habit Traffic Light. Mark each calendar day with green for success,  red for failure, yellow for exempt (S-days). It's ch...

2 Nov 20067min

How to identify behaviors that are easily automated into unconscious habit.

27 Okt 20065min

Want results? Frame your goals in terms of behavior. Results goals are just wishful thinking. Automate conscious behaviors into unconscious habits.

18 Okt 20068min

Smooth out dangerous and humiliating binge drinking into moderate and pleasurable moderate drinking with a 2 drink a day "glass ceiling."

11 Okt 20069min