links for 2006-10-21
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Is it a feature or a bug that we love familiarity?
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The secret to life, succinctly summarized.
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Oct 21, 2006
Oct 18, 2006
Oct 17, 2006
links for 2006-10-17
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Alain de Botton says that beauty is the promise of happiness. It sort of fits with this, and how people look like their dogs and feel like their living spaces.
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I have a motto to "accept all offers". A little less drastic but also applicable is "explore all leads". These reasons are all good reasons to say yes. One of the reasons I do it is to gain momentum and to get used to getting things done.
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I've never gotten in the habit of eating breakfast.
Oct 13, 2006
links for 2006-10-13
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Good stuff. I like the challenge he rose to here. We should all take on trying to articulate our most basic best tips.
Oct 12, 2006
links for 2006-10-12
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An interesting account of Dilbert creator's successes and failures. He has had wild success at the seemingly impossible things, and less success at the more obviously possible things.
Oct 11, 2006
Patron Saint of habits: William James
If you were looking for a thinker who took habits seriously, you could do worse than taking a look at William James. This 19th century father of American psychology went so far as to say "We are mere bundles of habits."
If we want to understand what drives human behavior, James argued we would do well to ascribe most actions to the force of habit: "Ninety-nine hundredths or, possibly, nine hundred and ninety-nine thousandths of our activity is purely automatic and habitual, from our rising in the morning to our lying down each night." The habits we form early shape our destiny, reasoned James. "We are stereotyped creatures, imitators and copiers of our past selves."
William James was an original and influential thinker. He was interested in how we might put the role of habit to work to improve our lives and better our condition. He saw in habit no meager force - but rather one of the strongest means to rework our lives. "Habit is second nature," wrote James, "or rather, ten times nature."
Habits and Education
As an educator himself, as well as a philosopher and psychologist, James saw many ways the force of habit could be put to work in education. "It is very important that teachers should realize the importance of habit." "The teacher's prime concern should be to ingrain into the pupil that assortment of habits that shall be most useful to him throughout life. Education is for behavior, and habits are the stuff of which behavior consists."
James saw in youth several opportunities for the force of habit to improve the conduct of life. He believed the minds of the young were more "plastic" and easier to mold: "Could the young but realize how soon they will become mere walking bundles of habits, they would give more heed to their conduct while in the plastic state." Unlike education today, James wasn't interested in filling these plastic minds with facts that could be regurgitated on standardized tests. Instead, his concern was with shaping the conduct of a good life. "We must make automatic and habitual, as early as possible, as many useful actions as we can."
Forming habits
While William James certainly accorded a special power to youth in forming habits, he was unequivocal that it was never too late to get started. "New habits" assured James, "can be launched." He even suggested some tips:
1. Start strong: "In the acquisition of a new habit, or the leaving off of an old one, we must take care to launch ourselves with as strong and decided an initiative as possible."
2. Build momentum: "Seize the very first possible opportunity to act on every resolution you make, and on every emotional prompting you may experience in the direction of the habits you aspire to gain."
3. Make friends with the hard stuff: "Do every day or two something for no other reason than its difficulty."
4. No exceptions, at least at first: "Never suffer an exception to occur till the new habit is securely rooted in your life."
Breaking old habits (or forming new ones) is not easily done. Better to start right when you are young - but if you don't have that possibility, James' tips suggest we'd do well to be scrupulous about how we start our new habitual efforts. And since it is not easy, quit looking for it to get easier. "Every good that is worth possessing" counseled William James, "must be paid for in strokes of daily effort."
Oct 10, 2006
Top habit goals on 43 Things
Below are the most popular goals on 43 Things that involve creating new habits or breaking old ones. The number of people after each goal indicates the number of people who've said "I want to do this".
Stop procrastinating 11615 people
Drink more water 7309 people
Take more pictures 6598 people
Save money 5554 people
Read more books 5120 people
Exercise regularly 4023 people
Eat healthier 3923 people
Wake up when my alarm clock goes off 3759 people
Quit Smoking 3555 people
Spend less time fooling around on the net and more time actually working 3258 people
Have better posture 3201 people
Stop biting my nails 3146 people
Exercise more 2338 people
Get more sleep 2231 people
Never stop learning 2154 people
Worry less. 2092 people
Finish what I start 2075 people
Practice Yoga 1951 people
Stop wasting time 1924 people
Volunteer 1873 people
Meditate daily 1775 people
Write more 1753 people
Stop caring what other people think of me 1548 people
Be a better person 1547 people
If you've wrestled one of these habits to the ground, consider adding some advice to the 43 Things users who are trying to make some progress. Forming new habits is hard (same with breaking old ones). Advice from someone who has been there is almost always a consolation.
Oct 06, 2006
links for 2006-10-06
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builds a habit slowly by extending the interval between cigarettes - clever!
Oct 04, 2006
The Catch-22 of forming habits
Advice on starting a new habit (or breaking an old one) is suspiciously similar to advice on training a dog to sit. You're the dog. Some say it takes 30 days of repetitive behavior to form a new habit. Others say it takes 3 weeks. I've read one technique that claims it only takes 2 focused hours to break or start a new habit. However, unlike the master/dog situation, when you are both master and dog the Catch-22 of blowing into your own sails becomes a problem. How do you motivate yourself to get over your lack of motivation?
Most advice basically says, roughly, "do it by doing it". They say that if you really want to do it, then you should be able to do it... but the problem with most of the new habits that I want to start is that I lack the motivation to make a big change in my life. It's difficult to motivate yourself to do something that you don't really want to do. Knowing that something would be good for you is very different from wanting to do it. How many thousands of books are basically all about starting a new habit in 30 days?
Since this is the topic of the month here, I decided to try on a couple new habits and to experiment with different tactics for getting them to stick. Here are two new habits with related 43 Things goals:
- Weaken my internet addiction. I'm not going to use the internet unless I have something to do on it. Like many people, I think I replaced my television habits with the internet. So, one day a week, I'm going to unplug from the internet.
- Enjoy my mornings. I'm going to try to enjoy my mornings more by waking up when the alarm goes off, and waking up about an hour earlier than I usually do. This has been a tough one for me in the past... I'm a chronic night person and am at my weakest in the morning. However, perhaps the fourth time is a charm on creating a pleasant morning routine.
So far, so good. This last Saturday I had one of my most productive days in a while because I didn't waste the whole day on the internet and being distracted by music, movies, etc. And the last two days I've woken up before 7:30 and had nice enjoyable mornings where I went on a walk and had a small breakfast.
Perhaps the other Robots (or even some readers) will join in by attempting to take on one of those habits that you know you want to do, but just can't get yourself to do. It's a lot easier when everyone's in it together, right?
