Changing Habits & GTD

[ablaze]

Has anyone here read or thought about whether and how to

1. plan
2. monitor

habit changes with GTD?

You could treat the intention of changing a habit as a project. But more often than not, there are no Next Actions tied to habit changes, as most habits are practiced unconsciously.

I know there is literature about how to change and monitor habits out there and I intend to read one or two books. I'm just curious what you think about this topic.

[hagadol]

I keep an @ Focus list with these 5 or 6 issues.

I have it set in my Palm Pilot Calendar to view every day at a set time.

Each time is listed with a one sentence reminder about the action to take to actually change it.

[sdann]

Right now, one of the habits I'm changing is to drink more water, 6 glasses per day to be exact. I have a checklist I go through every day on which I also record how many glasses I drank. I plan on keeping it on there until I'm at 6 glasses per day for at least a month. After that I'll put it on a weekly objective/goal list for a month or two and then I remind myself once per month, and so on and so on. This system worked with other habits. I don't put in 6 NAs in my system though.

Now this is a simple habit to change, but I have used it for more abstract habit changes.

[Brent]

Can you give us an example of a habit that has no physical, real-world actions?

[hagadol]

1. Internet distraction

2. Listen, without interruption.

[kewms]

1. Internet distraction

Real world actions: close browser, track and monitor Internet usage.

2. Listen, without interruption.

This *is* a real world action, it seems to me. Active listening can also include real world actions like taking notes.

Katherine

[gtd-aaron]

Interesting topic. Changing habits is so important and yet so hard.

I think reminders are key.

For instance, I still haven't mastered my GTD flow. I sometimes find an idea pop into my head, then I'll pursue that idea, only to find 1/2 an hour has gone by, when I should have just put a NA on my task list in the first place. So now I've setup an outlook appointment "Look at NA lists". I snooze it for 15 minutes when it pops up. So basically I have a reminder every 15 minutes that I should be working on my NA lists, rather than what pops into my head at the time.

I'm sure you could use another reminder/scheduling software to do something similar.

The Seinfeld calendar marking has also helped. It reminds me that I have to do something that day, or I don't get a pretty red X.

Just some thoughts,

Aaron

[Brent]

Nice post!

Quick thought: "Ideas that pop into your head" belong in Someday/Maybe, in my opinion.

[sdann]

It is so true, one needs regular reminders, maybe more so NAs. I realized I also need to learn more on changing habits. Coincidentally I came across this article 18 Tricks to Make New Habits Stick . I came across this site from a post in here, so I think it's ok to link to it.

[Desultory]

I have found this one to be helpful:

Five things you need to know about effective habit change.