Sticking to new habits is always hard.
I often find myself experimenting with new tactics to increase my learning, be more productive, or save myself time (so I can focus on more ‘valuable’ things). Notice, I don’t call them habits. They are deliberately experiments. Only if they prove effective would I continue to focus on them, ultimately with the goal to make them habits.
Over the years, the lack of feedback or data on how these experiments go has frustrated me. Self-improvement experiments are foggy and unquantified. It is easy to see how people lose the initial wave of enthusiasm they have when trying something new. There is also a significant perception/reality gap that is difficult to overcome. Over time, we lose track of just how much we have completed a task – maybe confusing our intention with what we achieved.
Recently, I came across Coach.me from a Tim Ferris article. This is a simple, but powerful tool that allows me to track (and thus quantify) how often I am doing what I intended to do with my experiments. It lays bare the facts and busts through my interpretation of how I am doing. For anyone interested in getting quantified feedback on how they are doing, this is a great tool. It holds you accountable and creates a fun sense of self-competition as you get amped about checking things off.
newmanea 