It requires a bit of commitment and habit-making. One has to develop that "muscle-memory" to review cards while in a less cognitive-effort demanding situation.

But this muscle-memory of pulling out ones mobile phone seems a bit contradictory to Cal Newport's philosophy of Digital Minimalism. Of course, since the use case is very specific, it can be passed as a necessary thing to do and thus, be harmless.

https://erinflotodesigns.com/collections/metal-stencils/products/bullet-journal-monthly-circle-tracker-stencil-habit-tracker-stencil-unique-design-stencil-cleaning-tracker-stencil

Erin Floto has a metal stencil for a chronodex circular design for use in bullet journals. It's a form of circular calendar with the inner circle containing space for daily, bi-weekly, weekly, monthly and longer time horizons with succeeding rings of the circle containing space for data related to the inner categories. Some of the exterior rings also include numbered squares representing days of the month or week on which a task should be done or for which a habit on an interior part of the circle might be tracked.

The chronodex, a portmanteau of chrono (time) and index, idea is fairly simple, but can be quite complex. For actual use, one may need to be able to spin the visualization around to read and understand it.

Other stencils with habit trackers, etc: https://erinflotodesigns.com/collections/metal-stencils

via: https://www.3x5life.com/collections/frontpage/products/3x5-life-system-with-mini-course

They apparently offer a mini course outlining the system.

One wonders how much "why" they offer?

https://baronfig.com/products/strategist?variant=39787199529043

We are actually controlled by our habits, but we can train habits.

https://github.com/pyrochlore/obsidian-tracker

• Examples: https://github.com/pyrochlore/obsidian-tracker/tree/master/examples
• Concepts: https://github.com/pyrochlore/obsidian-tracker/blob/master/docs/Concepts.md

https://forum.obsidian.md/t/dataview-habit-tracker/34546

An interesting looking script/set up partway down the page.

A habit you need to get when you are dealing with a research notes

This is why one has some broad general rules for keeping and maintaining a zettelkasten. It helps to have some rules to practice and make a habit.

Unmentioned here is that true artists known all the rules and can then more profitably break those rules for expanding and improving upon their own practice. This is dramatically different from what is seen by some of those who want to have a commonplace or zettelkasten practice, but begin without any clear rules. They often begin breaking the rules to their detriment without having the benefit of long practice to see and know the affordances of such systems before going out of their way to break those rules.

By breaking the rules before they've even practiced them, many get confused or lost and quit their practice before they see any of the benefits or affordances of them.

Of course one should have some clear cut end reasons which answer the "why" question for having such practices, or else they'll also lose the motivation to stick with the practice, particularly when they don't see any light at the end of the tunnel. Pure hope may not be enough for most.

1:18 The Jungle (metaphor)

Like trails in a jungle becomes a road the more you walk on it, the things we do, again and again, become a habit; require less effort to do; we even haven an urge to do it.

2:34 Routines and Habits

• Routine - a sequence of actions that lead to a desirable result.
• Habit - routine on autopilot.
• Habits are set in motion by triggers (context cues).

6:08 How To Build a Habit

• The first thing to do is to break down a vague goal into clear, separate actions, because the idea is to make the action itself as easy a threshold as possible: so small it is manageable and so specific that you don’t have to think about it a lot. e.g. Every evening (trigger), learn new words on WordUp (specific action) for 10 minutes (low effort).

• Many things you want to turn into habits don’t offer as much instant gratification as wasting time on Facebook. To make your new action easier to repeat try to make it pleasurable. Not necessarily by rewarding yourself after you did it, but by making the action or behavior itself more enjoyable.

• How long it takes for you to establish a habit varies widely. It depends on the behavior you are trying to get used to, what kind of person you are, your stress levels and many more things. It takes anything between 15 and 250 days until a new habit is kicked off automatically by its trigger. You won't know how long it will take for you until you start treading the path.

"... change is a direction, not a destination."

9:59 Habit Journal ad

There's one expert in terms of habit formation BJ Fogg at Stanford and I love this one principle he uses it's called Minimum Viable Effort.

When you're trying to build a habit, he says, the key thing is consistency, because if it's not consistent, it's not a habit. So minimum viable effort.

You want to start flossing more? Okay, floss one tooth. Just floss one tooth. Make it so simple that you can't not do it [set the bar low...]. I'm gonna read one page. It's so simple. I can't not do it. I'd feel like an idiot [...really low].

Once you can do that for like two weeks straight, great. two pages [increase gradually].

As opposed to setting this crazy high goal, failing, feeling bad, not wanting to do it. Now you've got a Pavlovian association where it's like, oh, I tried that it didn't work I don't feel good.

In his book, The Power of Habit Charles Duhigg says habits emerge because the brain is constantly looking for ways to save effort. When an action becomes a habit it actually moves to a different part of the brain. You see, decision making and willpower take place in the Prefrontal Cortex. That's prime real estate. When we turn an action into a habit it migrates to the Basal Ganglia and therefore frees up space in the prefrontal cortex for other more important decisions.

Asch, D. A., & Allison, K. C. (2021, November 26). The pandemic is deeply affecting many people with eating disorders. STAT. https://www.statnews.com/2021/11/26/pandemic-deeply-affected-many-people-with-eating-disorders/

Harvey, A., Armstrong, C. C., Callaway, C. A., Gumport, N. B., & Gasperetti, C. E. (2020). COVID-19 Prevention via the Science of Habit Formation [Preprint]. PsyArXiv. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/57jyg

Bayer, J. (2020). Technology habits: Progress, problems, and prospects [Preprint]. PsyArXiv. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/ft6am

CornwallApr. 16, W., 2020, & Am, 10:50. (2020, April 16). Crushing coronavirus means ‘breaking the habits of a lifetime.’ Behavior scientists have some tips. Science | AAAS. https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/04/crushing-coronavirus-means-breaking-habits-lifetime-behavior-scientists-have-some-tips

Lally, P., van Jaarsveld, C. H. M., Potts, H. W. W., & Wardle, J. (2010). How are habits formed: Modelling habit formation in the real world. European Journal of Social Psychology, 40(6), 998–1009. https://doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.674

Gardner, B., & Rebar, A. L. (2019). Habit Formation and Behavior Change. In B. Gardner & A. L. Rebar, Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Psychology. Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190236557.013.129

Aymerich-Franch, L. (2020, May 14). COVID-19 lockdown: impact on psychological well-being and relationship to habit and routine modifications. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/9vm7r

Pragholapati, A. (2020). NEW NORMAL “INDONESIA” AFTER COVID-19 PANDEMIC [Preprint]. PsyArXiv. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/7snqb

Di Giorgio, E., Di Riso, D., Mioni, G., & Cellini, N. (2020, April 30). The interplay between mothers’ and children behavioral and psychological factors during COVID-19: An Italian study. Retrieved from psyarxiv.com/dqk7h

Opinion| Get rid of that tricky habit of touching your face. (2020, March 31). Livemint. https://www.livemint.com/opinion/columns/opinion-get-rid-of-that-tricky-habit-of-touching-your-face-11585599176439.html

Creating a habit to use vocabulary in normal classroom talk makes a lot of sense using vocab. in normal conversations so students understand it in a practical manner. I'll develop a habit to use more vocab. while talking with students about peer interactions like: playground issues, talking with peers and friends. If they hear new words and understand them in a real-world context they maintain them long-term. Makes sense! love it!

This prologue can be summarized best and memorably this way: . Why? Allow me to explain...

Now the good news is, a lot of the activities that I think foster happiness, well-being, can become habitual over time, and so, once they become habitual, the effort decreases.

Our closing benediction!

"Everyone thinks that they know what they want; sometimes your drug chooses you." -- k.d. lang, "My Last Cigarette"

https://youtu.be/CCvalE8SClU

This passage reminds me of Lyotard's introduction to The Inhuman, and this Onion article.

Interesting juxtaposition of habit with compulsion: habits are pleasurable, compulsions are not, "unless they become habitual"...

Avital Ronell writes in Crack Wars (1992): "It is all more or less a question of dosage" (61). Again the invocation of addiction, critique as a habit that requires management.

This surprised me. Because of Infinite Jest, habit always makes me think of addiction, though the addictive kind of habit would do some violence to Massumi's claim here, it seems.