Breaking one bad habit at a time
Dropping a single habit every six months and leaving everything else alone
Settle on one habit to break, put everything you have into it, and change nothing else that year. Adding a good habit counts as a separate project on a slower clock. The argument is that habit-breaking is itself a skill, and the only way to learn it is to break one and see what worked: substitution, going cold turkey, telling people, removing the trigger, crowding it out with something else. Written down, progress looks slow. That is why people abandon it for a full life overhaul that fails by February. Compounding is the case for the slow version: a decade of this is twenty habits changed and almost nothing regained.
People on record
Sorted by strength of stance
Does it: documented as part of their own routine. Recommends: explicitly advises other people to do it. Discusses: covered it substantively without clear personal adoption; this can include criticism or disagreement.
- Naval RavikantDoes it
Angel investor · AngelList and the Naval podcast
Every six months he tries to break one bad habit, and every six months to a year tries to pick up a good one. Everything else stays static in the meantime. You never learn to break habits by reading about it, he says, only by breaking one.
Source: The Tim Ferriss Show transcript: Naval Ravikant
Aimed at the same thing
Other entries filed under productivity or longevity.
- HabitFREE, no cost
The brain check question
Asking whether a choice is good or bad for your brain before you make it
On record from 1 of 62 tracked people: 1 does it - HabitFREE, no cost
Daily reading
A fixed daily reading block, usually books rather than feeds
On record from 25 of 62 tracked people: 23 do it, 2 recommend it - HabitFREE, no cost
Journaling
Writing to unload the mind, usually first thing or last thing
On record from 14 of 62 tracked people: 13 do it, 1 recommends it - HabitFREE, no cost
Cutting out alcohol
Drinking nothing, or close to it: the most common upgrade in these stacks
On record from 13 of 62 tracked people: 5 do it, 2 recommend it, 6 have discussed it - HabitFREE, no cost
Early rising
A fixed, early wake time, often before anyone else is awake
On record from 11 of 62 tracked people: 10 do it, 1 has discussed it - HabitFREE, no cost
Daily writing
Write something every day, published or not
On record from 10 of 62 tracked people: 8 do it, 2 recommend it
Habit entry · notes paraphrased from cited sources, quoted excerpts copied from the transcript they link to. Not medical advice. Not affiliated with, endorsed by, or reviewed by anyone listed. How this works.