Keeping a streak
One thing every day, with an unbroken count of days as the rule
You do one thing every day and you count the days. Continuing then stops being a decision anyone has to make each morning, which is the whole point of counting. The first weeks take willpower. After that the run supplies its own pressure, and the daily question turns from whether to do the thing into what today's version will be. Writers, runners and language learners lean on it hardest, usually with a rule attached for what counts as a day completed. There is an obvious failure mode. People keep streaks long after the work behind them stopped being useful.
Who backs it
Sorted by strength of stance
- Seth GodinDoes it
Author · Seth's Blog, published daily
Eleven straight years of daily posts as of August 2019, and by his own reckoning no day missed since 2008. He describes the run as self-reinforcing: commitment hardens into a practice, the practice into a habit, and the daily question shifts from whether to post to what the post will say.
Source: seths.blog: Streaks“Streaks are their own reward. Streaks create internal pressure that keeps streaks going. Streaks require commitment at first, but then the commitment turns into a practice, and the practice into a habit. Habits are much easier to maintain than commitments.”
seths.blog: Streaks (opens in a new tab) · 8 Aug 2019
Aimed at the same thing
Other entries filed under productivity.
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Writing to unload the mind, usually first thing or last thing
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Early rising
A fixed, early wake time, often before anyone else is awake
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Daily writing
Write something every day, published or not
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Daily minimum workout
A floor you never drop below: 20 minutes of movement and recovery on your worst day
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Phone-free first hour
No email, news or social media until you have done something of your own
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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.