It’s a bit difficult. 

Today I’m recording my bodyweight exercise habit. I’m pushing it from the “shelf” of doing two typewriter pushups a day to the “shelf” of also doing tabatas and pull up type exercises across the week.

So what do I record? My typewriter pushup habit is easy to record - but when I do my tabatas I have less automaticity, because it’s understandably daunting.

I’ve been recording it as a whole - which caused a dip in scores. And it makes me think that each shelf is almost like making a different habit, something I’ve jotted down in the past.

This really kicks home with my writing habit - my new shelf is to just open my project and type a word. Usually I do more, but once I do that it’s a check and a win for the day. This has resulted in me being much more automatic - jumping a rapidly shrinking chasm. My question is - when do I move on?

It’s easy if I’m recording my writing - I’ll know it once I get back to full automaticity on the SRHI scale. And that’s good because there’s a concrete methodology for knowing when to push that habit or another habit. But it is a bit clunky. Streamlining the process will hopefully come with time.

This is, I feel, one of the key aspects of this projects many other habit/self help/mastery gurus don’t cover - the fact that progressing over multiple skills can be problematic, as can switching from habit formation to skill mastery.

I absolutely believe both are key - habits get you in a steady extended practice and mastery depends that practice. Working out the kinks in fusing the two are the real problem.