Learning & Mind · Foundation

Habits and Self-Discipline

Almost everything written about habits rests on a handful of studies and one number that has been repeated so often it is treated as settled. This course goes to the studies. It covers what a habit is in the terms researchers use, what happens in the weeks somebody is building one and how long that really takes, why the cue matters more than the resolve, what self-control turns out to be when it is measured rather than described, and what to do on the days it fails. It is the second course of the term on running yourself, after Personal Finance, and it takes up what Time Management deliberately stopped short of.

What you'll learn

• Define a habit in the terms the research uses, and say what distinguishes one from a behaviour you simply repeat
• State what has been measured about how long a habit takes to form, including the spread around the figure everybody quotes
• Design a cue for a behaviour you want to repeat, and say why the cue and not the intention is the part that does the work
• State what the evidence does and does not show about self-control as a depletable resource, and what replaced that account
• Identify what actually happens after a missed day, against what people expect to happen
• Decide, for one behaviour of your own, whether to build a habit or to build something else, and say why