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Ask HN: Are there any systematic and scientific ways to develop a habit?

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Re: Ask HN: Are there any systematic and scientific ways to develop a habit?

#51

Post by dmfdmf »

figjamjam wrote: post #12

How do you design a fast car? You avoid designing a slow one. Make room for good habits by stopping bad ones. I wouldn't take outliers as examples unless you are also such an outlier. At which point any advice based on averages is moot.

I'm not sure why someone downvoted you but I read a book, on psychology I think, and the author argued that one mistake people make is trying to stop a bad habit by shear force of will. Just applying "don't do X" never works. You have to consciously and intentionally replace bad habits with good ones (e.g. "don't do X, do Y instead") or the mind will just fall back into its old programming. With repetition it soon becomes "do Y" and X is gone.

Re: Ask HN: Are there any systematic and scientific ways to develop a habit?

#52

Post by RoboTeddy »

What's worked for me for running (2x/week), pushups (2x/week), pullups (2x/week), stretching (daily), going to bed by a certain time (daily), and other things:

* focusing on consistency: if you do any tiny amount of the thing (even if it's just one pushup), that totally counts. once you have the habit, you can build intensity as you please.

* specific deadlines: (e.g. run Tues/Fri by 1pm), since then I don't have a series of "I'm in the middle of something, I'll do it in a bit"'s that are kind of unpleasant and attention-consuming.

* It's kind of stupid, but I wrote a little app where I can press a button after I've done a habit -- if I don't press the button before the deadline, it sends a text to my brother. I don't wanna bug him, so for me, this helps make the deadline more "real". If I'm super busy or really don't feel like it, it's totally fine if I just do a tiny bit of the habit and then press the button-- but that rarely happens.

It's kinda nice to have all this running on autopilot; it's been working well for about a year, and it doesn't take any sort of willpower at this point. I find it especially useful for keeping my routine after something that would normally disrupt it, like travel.

Re: Ask HN: Are there any systematic and scientific ways to develop a habit?

#53

Post by ryanmarsh »

Yes and it's explained in awesome book The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg

You need a cue/craving -> response -> reward cycle

The reward should be slightly unpredictable to make the habit really addicting.

So best way to build (or deprogram) a habit: keep a log of how you feel before you do (or don't do) something you want to change. Become aware of your "cue" or craving. Begin to introduce a different response that comes with a reward.

For instance, if you don't feel great after leaving the gym you'll never make it an unconscious habit.

Re: Ask HN: Are there any systematic and scientific ways to develop a habit?

#55

Post by mrleinad »

d23 wrote: post #49
kstenerud wrote: post #26

1. Build a routine. Set a specific, repeating time when you will do the thing in your calendar. Keep that slot clear, ALWAYS. Never let something interrupt this task. 2. Learn to say no. If someone wants you to do something else during this time slot, say no, and tell them why. 3. Never break the routine. Breaking it once makes it MUCH easier to break the next scheduled time. If you do break it, feel bad about it and…

As someone who got into a regular exercise habit a year ago that has progressively gotten more intense, I disagree with a few of your points. Actually, I guess it's mostly the first 3: > 1. Build a routine. Set a specific, repeating time when you will do the thing in your calendar. Keep that slot clear, ALWAYS. Never let something interrupt this task. > 2. Learn to say no. If someone wants you to do something else du…

> It's this "do it now or feel guilty" stuff that keeps most people procrastinating or avoiding doing the task

Couldn't agree more with this.

I've tried many times to build habits into my routine, only to abandon them and feel bad about it because I couldn't maintain them for a few days.

No more. Now I have them in my list, I keep them consciously present, but I won't punish myself if I don't get them done one day. Allow some leeway. If you really want it, build it paciently into your routine and if it doesn't feel right, try another way.

One example: I've been trying to stick to a healthy diet to lose some weight. I don't enjoy cooking, and much less enjoy preparing or eating salads. Tried lots of apps, lots of ways of grocery shopping, and hated it all the way. Now I switched to calorie counting and drinking lots of water. Walking away from the desk to fill a bottle 3 or 4 times a day feels like I'm moving forward without any hassle, and I just try to eat slowly when I sit down for lunch or dinner. Water diminishes my appetite and cravings for eating out of just feeling anxiety. And if I feel like chomping down on a pizza with beer, it's ok, no big deal.

Just take it easy. Hakuna matata.

Re: Ask HN: Are there any systematic and scientific ways to develop a habit?

#56

Post by lexpar »

There is an excellent app for android called 'Loop - Habit Tracker' (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.isoron.uha...) which has a really great interface for keeping track of habits. It's very well designed. The interface is simple and snappy. Best app I've found anywhere for keeping track of even small daily habits (like flossing). It takes about 3 seconds to check off a habit, it can remind you every day, and you can consult graphs to see how you've been doing. It's also free and has no ads.

I didn't make this project. But it's great. I've picked up quite a few habits using it.

Re: Ask HN: Are there any systematic and scientific ways to develop a habit?

#58

Post by 0xcde4c3db »

I don't know of any "how to" type material, but the scientific topic here is operant conditioning. The basic idea is that you reward behaviors that are desired and/or punish behaviors that aren't desired. There's an interesting dichotomy, though: the fastest way to learn a behavior is to have a reinforcement (a reward or foregoing something unpleasant) that is consistently provided with/after the behavior and not at other times. However, the most effective way to maintain a behavior is for the reward to be provided at a random ratio to the behavior (but still only in conjunction with the desired behavior) [1].

A lot of people want to believe that humans are somehow "above" operant conditioning, but there's a lot of evidence that we aren't.

Language nitpick: the word you want is systematic [2].

[1] http://open.lib.umn.edu/intropsyc/chapter/7-2-changing-behav...

[2] http://www.public.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/systemic.html

Re: Ask HN: Are there any systematic and scientific ways to develop a habit?

#59

Post by hollander »

On Reddit there are several groups that try to do this. It's called the X-Effect. It works by creating a habit by doing a small task daily. One of the most important things is to start small.

You have to start so small that is seems stupid, but as it's all about positive reinforcement, you better start small (five minute tasks like clean your desk) and succeed, than a little bigger and fail. You may think that you could do 30 minutes and do more, but the goal here is to do this each and every day. If you do more one day, that's great. But this is the minimum. You have to set yourself to do this every day for five minutes.

You repeat this for 50 days, and the idea is that by then you have created a habit. Then you can start a new goal.

It sounds stupid, but it's not. It's really easy to let this go for one day, and think tomorrow I'll do 15 minutes to compensate. Or maybe you had a good day yesterday, and you worked 30 minutes on your goal. This is not a good idea. It's a trigger to let go, and stop the routine. Soon you're doing this 5 minute task only every other day, and then suddenly you stop alltogether.

And of course I take a stupid example here. You may choose another task that takes more time, and maybe you don't set a time limit, but something like walk the dog three times a day, or read one chapter of a book each day.

https://www.reddit.com/r/getdisciplined/comments/1x99m6/im_a...

https://www.reddit.com/r/theXeffect/

Re: Ask HN: Are there any systematic and scientific ways to develop a habit?

#60

Post by simonw »

Get a dog. Our dog needs to go out first thing in the morning. It sounds silly, but she succeeded in injecting an element of schedule into my days that I hadn't had before. I feel like I've found it easier to develop other daily habits as a result.
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