If/When-then, a way to build or break habits.
Coming back from vacation, I’ve redeveloped a few bad habits, like fiending for sugar. In Pre-suasion Robert Cialdini has this trick: identify the moments when you know you’re at your weakest, and and have a programmed behavior that you’ll replace temptation with.
If I’m fiending for sugar when I finished lunch, then I’ll have a piece of dark chocolate and a decaf coffee. Simple rules to fall back on when lizard brain awakens.
If it takes less than two minutes, do it now.
I was looking at a single dirty dish in my sink. I didn’t want to do it, I had a hundred other things I would rather do, like shining my Squatty Potty collection, or practicing the Ocarina.
Then I remembered a simple Maxim a wise sage once told me (maybe it was Reddit):
If it takes less than two minutes, do it now.
I don’t understand how this is useful, but as a plug-in to add to your OS, it seems to be pretty effective in keeping the mundane little tasks from stacking up.
Visceral Reaction.
This one is fun, coming from controversial creator of Dilbert, Scott Addams:
Take a few days to list every single idea brewing in your mind. Good, bad, or probably been done, list them all. At the end of your ideation period, sit down with your Soy Chai Mocha Latte and go through each item. As soon as you notice a visceral response to an idea – a physical jitter, shake, a flush – that’s very core of your being telling you that it’s worth trying. Beyond logic, this is intuition.
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