(2008-05-21) Kadavy Habits Prescription Jellybeans

David Kadavy on framing his Habit Resolution-s as Prescription-s. Now you have all sorts of goals to track and manage, from the higher-level “buy a house” to the more granular “run 30 minutes, three times a week,” or three individual goals of “run 30 minutes” that go on your weekly list of to-dos. I don’t know about you, but having that range of granularity in goals is a bit exhausting to me... Prescription: A recommended alottment (frequency) of a particular activity that helps one achieve the effect desired by their resolutions... Now it’s more like a vitamin. If you forget to take a multivitamin some day – be realistic here – it’s not that big of a deal. It would be damn nice if you could take your prescribed “dose” of running 30 minutes three times this week, but if you only run 30 minutes twice this week, or you run 20 minutes one time this week, thinking it’s the end of the world is probably worse for you than the fact that you failed to take your whole “dose.”... Not only does a prescription separate the real high-level goals from the granular ones, it also separates those “shoulds” from the “have to’s.”

He uses a system of Jelly Bean-s to manage his prescriptions. I think I'd find that more confusing than helpful.

But I think there's a great idea for a To-Do List app variation here....

On the other hand, a lot of people feel that scheduling a Habit makes it much easier to keep. Which implies it should be in your Calendar. But that does tend to trigger that exhausting response in me...