[HN Gopher] In praise of habits
___________________________________________________________________
In praise of habits
Author : pseudolus
Score : 81 points
Date : 2021-08-06 11:06 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (psyche.co)
(TXT) w3m dump (psyche.co)
| kapp_in_life wrote:
| I recently read a really good book about habits[1]. I really
| liked how he described the benefit of habits, where essentially
| your brain can fully offload the effort of thinking when you're
| performing one like tying your shoes.
|
| One of the big takeaways from it for me was how its more
| difficult to break a habit than to "reprogram it". He does this
| by describing the three steps of the habit loop, the cue, action,
| and reward. To save you having to read the whole book I think
| this article does a good job of distilling the essentials[2],
| though the book was still a really interesting read if you have
| the time.
|
| [1] https://charlesduhigg.com/the-power-of-habit/
|
| [2] https://www.healthline.com/health/mental-health/habit-loop
| dgs_sgd wrote:
| > However, despite completing this task on something like
| autopilot, your drive will still be intelligently adjusted to
| situational intricacies, such as how fast or slow the driver in
| front of you is going, or when the traffic lights change. In
| attempting to account for the intelligent dimension of habit,
| researchers have moved away from construing habits as
| unintelligent mechanisms and towards modelling them as a species
| of belief.
|
| I wouldn't attribute this to an added dimension of intelligence
| because I see two "unintelligent" habits at play here. The first
| habit is the route you take to work and knowing which streets to
| take and what intersections to turn on. The second is your
| driving skills. "Intelligently" adjusting to situational
| intricacies like how fast the driver in front of you is going
| doesn't seem intelligent because it's just a reflex of an
| experienced driver. Put the two together and that's how you make
| it to work on autopilot.
| stanrivers wrote:
| Was a little too theoretical for me, so I like something a little
| more simple about habits...
|
| >...habits are, simply, reliable solutions to recurring problems
| in our environment. - Jason Hreha [1]
|
| >Whenever you face a problem repeatedly, your brain begins to
| automate the process of solving it. Your habits are just a series
| of automatic solutions that solve the problems and stressed you
| face regularly. - James Clear [1]
|
| The point that was interesting about habits, to me, is that they
| are unconscious. So this means that you don't necessarily know
| that you even have them. And they guide a large part of your
| life. So, if you are not in a spot in life where you want to be,
| look at your habits... it takes some effort because they are
| unconscious... but then you can work on changing them.
|
| The unconscious part is important too, though, in a good way.
| They are programs running in the background that allow you direct
| your attention to new things that you don't encounter often. Kind
| of cool when you think that humans have a way to auto-program an
| auto-pilot for things they encounter often, so that the brain can
| be better prepared for new things.
|
| [1] https://newsletter.butwhatfor.com/p/habits-maketh-the-man
| notsospecialk wrote:
| > Was a little too theoretical for me
|
| It was published on a psychology website.
| yunohn wrote:
| > Was a little too theoretical for me
|
| I sort of agree - it reads like a literature review converted
| to an article. But still, pleasantly readable IMHO without much
| prior knowledge.
| Arbamem wrote:
| I believe that lack of habit formation is a big part of at
| least some ADHD cases. Having your unconscious make something a
| habit is how you learn to focus, if your unconscious doesn't
| decide to make things habits and instead just look for new ways
| and solutions to do stuff you'll have a hard time focusing.
|
| I don't think that lack of habit formation is necessarily a bad
| thing, making something a habit is good if that something is
| good, but bad if you learn things that are wrong. Meaning I'd
| argue that people who are worse at forming habits are likely
| better at rethinking their beliefs and theories.
| klysm wrote:
| > I believe that lack of habit formation is a big part of at
| least some ADHD cases.
|
| Definitely a significant part of my case. Until I started
| using a smart watch to walk me through morning and night
| routines, I had no routines. I generally don't have regular
| habits which makes maintaining basic life stuff difficult at
| times.
| dgellow wrote:
| Same. I learned earlier this year that I have multiple of
| the ADHD symptoms. Since then I got an Apple Watch just for
| reminders, after reading people from r/adhd praising its
| use. For the first time I feel that my days have a
| structure, and I can check at any time if I already did
| something instead of forgetting about it and doing it more
| than once (such as feeding my cat, who needs a very strict
| diet because of a health condition)
| ff_ wrote:
| I 100% relate to this, so the smartwatch bit is very
| interesting as I didn't think of using it for this - what's
| your workflow like? Do you just have calendar events on
| your wrist, or a more custom solution?
| klysm wrote:
| I use an app called Routinery (Apple Watch) and you can
| just setup sequences of tasks that trigger at times. Very
| simple but exactly what I need for the morning.
| [deleted]
| specialist wrote:
| Yes and:
|
| I now have separate journals for habits, tasks, time keeping, and
| praise. I just use cheap notebooks.
|
| None of the apps I've tried have worked for me. Reminds me of the
| wisdom: don't expect personal finance software to inspire you to
| balance your checkbook if don't already.
|
| Carrying around notebooks feels more immediate; like a physical
| reminder that can't be ignored.
|
| Ad hoc dot journaling for habits. A bit like Seinfield's "don't
| break the chain".
|
| Tasks are a work in progress. Aspire to bullet journaling
| techniques.
|
| My time tracking sucks. This is where I think an app could be
| most useful. Especially by stamping my location onto each log
| entry.
|
| Praise journal is part of the mindfulness stuff. Just write down
| the good bits of each day.
| notsospecialk wrote:
| > Contemporary philosophy of mind is positively replete with
| warnings that we ought not to fall into easy dichotomies between
| intelligent and voluntary processes on the one hand, and
| unintelligent and automatic processes on the other.
|
| There's something really beautiful about habits being both
| intelligent and unintelligent (or neither). If you invest your
| attention on habits while performing them, there's an opportunity
| to observe what you do effortlessly and (slowly, with time and
| energy) improve/evolve already highly involved activities.
| Eventually your habits are improved and yet again, effortless.
| You definitely see this in sports, but lots of examples in all
| the things humans do.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2021-08-07 23:01 UTC)