The Science of Self-Help

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Thoughts on Interludes and Automaticity

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“Interludes” is what I’m calling those points where your interrupted - the inevitable trip, friend coming into town, or event that disrupts your careful practices.

My mom and I were talking about this whole project, and one thing that I’ll have to confront is how to deal with these moments. Obvious one solution is to keep carrying on. But in some cases this is genuinely not possible due to time restraints.

I’m curious if another solution would be a partial but time constrained execution of a skill.

For example, if your goal is to write 750 words a day, would writing 20 words work? For working out, would doing a few air squats that take 5 minutes work as a placeholder for the full execution of the task?

According to Lally’s experiment, missing a day or two here and there didn’t seem to adversely affect the approach of aromaticity. But would a half execution be better?