Changing habits with sliding temporal windows
With a moving weekly window, I can tackle habits on whichever days seem best, but I always get a clear warning when today is a “jeopardy” day. I don’t have to look into the future to figure out whether I’ll be able to hit my goal.
Andy Matuschak suggests an approach of sliding windows in order to exert soft-pressure without reaching impossibilities (such as realizing that our weekly goal of exercising 3 times a week is not possible if it is Saturday and we didn't do anything yet). If habits are persistent, we should not expect that imposing sudden changes can generate a lasting effect. The idea of the sliding window also enables non 7-day blocks (exercising 3 days every 10 days, for example).
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Aquiles Carattino
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